Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Good afternoon, St. Paul Lutheran Church. Pastor Wolf Mueller here. It's the Sunday, well, Thursday drive to church on this, the 28 March, the year of our Lord 2024. I gotta get that right. We celebrate today the 1990 1st anniversary of the institution of the Lord's Supper. You've been, you heard me say that on Saturday or Sunday for Palm Sunday. Today, tomorrow, and on Easter. You'll hear me talk about that. The 1991st, the 1990 1st anniversary. Why? We've heard it enough. Why do you keep talking about it? I think it's so important for a number of reasons. Number one, we recognize how long ago these things were. But number two, we want to remember most especially that these are real things that we're talking about. It wasn't in some sort of cloudy, vapory, in a galaxy far, far away, a long time ago kind of thing, some sort of myth. The Lord's supper is not some sort of mythological truth. It's a historical event that the Lord Jesus, on the night when he was betrayed, took bread and when he had given thanks, he broke it and gave it to his disciples. This happened. It really happened. And we want to rejoice in that.
[00:01:23] True. In the historicity of it. So we celebrate this as an anniversary. That's what Holy Week is. We slow down to real time and we're trying to sync up the big story and the little story.
[00:01:34] The big story is the story of God's dealing with the cosmos. It's the story of creation and fall and redemption and resurrection. And we have our own little story, which is that we're born, that's creation and fall all wrapped up together. And then we're saved, we're baptized, we're brought to the cross, the saving work of Christ. You, his death and resurrection is brought to each one of us. And on the last day it all syncs up. We're all raised at the same time and enter into for the Christian, the new heaven and the new earth. But it's in holy week. It's like the, it's like, you know what it's like. I don't know if you've been skiing before, but they have this thing where the ski lift, it's going really fast to get you up the mountain, but somehow when it circles around to pick you up at the bottom, it kind of slows down so that it doesn't knock you over. And then you sit down on it and then whoosh, it takes off again. That's kind of what holy week is. It's like, it slows down this week so we don't. It doesn't knock us over, and we get all these events in real time. All these services are very special, unique services. They're kind of one of a kind services. And so we'll notice that tonight. I'll walk you through some of those things in the bulletin. We celebrate that by having these super fancy bulletins that Jonathan puts together. I don't know how many hours Jonathan does in getting all the art and everything in these services, so make sure you shake his hand and say thank you. We start with the.
[00:03:15] Because especially tonight, we're celebrating the Lord's supper. The church is in white. So even though we're kind of deep into lint and getting ready to deck things out in black for tomorrow, we're in white tonight, because of this most precious gift of the Lord's supper. We start out with some different versicles, and then this call to confession.
[00:03:37] It comes from the old confessional service. I believe it was compiled from a handful of things that Luther wrote on going to the supper. So I don't know the exact origin of this address that comes at the very beginning, but it comes from all these old pieces, and it's put together. And then we have the confession and absolution with some additional questions, so we'll all confess our sins together. I, a poor, miserable sinner, confess unto thee all my sins and iniquities. Did you notice, by the way, this is an important thing you'll notice in the bulletin when it says, I, a poor, miserable sinner, confess unto you all my sins and iniquities that. That you is capitalized, even though I'm your pastor and speaking the absolution, or pastor Leblanc or Pastor Davis or up there up front, speaking the absolution, you are not confessing to the pastor or to anybody else. You're confessing your sins to God. That's why, by the way, if you come to individual confession, you're not. The pastor doesn't face you, the pastor faces sideways, and you're confessing through the pastor to God. So you're confessing your sins to God. And then we have this little response that's added, do you, God, be merciful to you and strengthen your faith? Amen. Do you believe the forgiveness I speak is not my forgiveness, but God's? And that's this important part.
[00:04:57] I guess it would be nice if you sinned against me and I forgave you. But that's not the business of church.
[00:05:03] The business of church is that the. Is that God himself is forgiving our sins. So the forgiveness that's announced and declared by the pastor on Sunday morning or Thursday night is not his forgiveness, but God's forgiveness, based on the promise of John 20. Whoever sins you forgive, I forgive.
[00:05:22] So that it's that forgiveness of Jesus that we're after. Do you believe that the forgiveness I speak is not mine, but God's? Yes. Let it be done for you as you believe. And then the absolution is spoken, and then straight into the salutation collect and Old Testament lesson. So again, just like Palm Sunday, we're missing that opening psalm. We're missing the curie and the Gloria. All that liturgical introduction is dropped out, and we're straight into the texts. Now, we have three texts that will give our attention to. The first is Exodus 24, which is the visit of Moses and Aaron and Nadab and Abihu and the 70 elders when they feast with the Lord on the hill after he gives them the sacrifices. That's Exodus 24 311. And then we have the epistle, which is very quick. First Corinthians 1016 17. The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not a participation in the blood of Christ? Beautiful. And then the gospel lesson is Mark 14, and that's where we hear about the institution of the Lord's supper and Jesus giving this great gift. Now, the words of institution from the supper we call the verba, which is just Latin for word.
[00:06:48] And it's nice to consider, actually, how these words with which the Lord instituted the supper are so important that we just call them the words. It's like they don't even need a last name. Well, what words? The words. They're the words.
[00:07:03] It's the words that we give our attention to. This is the take and eat. This is my body given for you. Take and drink. This is the cup of the New Testament, which is poured out for many, etcetera. Now, you'll notice that the words that we'll hear in mark 14 are different than the words that we hear at the altar when the Lord's supper is given. And why is that? It's because the words that we speak at the altar, pastor Davis tonight will speak at the altar, are a combination of all of the places where we hear those words in the New Testament. So in Matthew, in Mark, in Luke, and in one corinthians, we have the account of Jesus taking bread, giving thanks, breaking it, giving it to the disciples, taking the cup, blessing it, giving it to the disciples. And in each one of those places, it's a little bit different. It includes a little bit, something special. And so the church, to make sure that we didn't miss anything, gathered up all four of those places and compiled it all.
[00:08:13] I think this is, by the way, an interesting thing to note is that our attitude nowadays would have been to take out everything that's not in all four places, because, I don't know, we just have a kind of reductionistic thing.
[00:08:28] If it happened in all four places, then that must be the most important, or we can be sure of it, or whatever. The ancient church didn't do that. It took whatever was in any place and added it. So it had a kind of a. We have a sort of subtraction attitude, I guess. They have an addition added. We don't want to miss a single word that our Lord gave. So they added it all in there. So you'll just notice that there's things that we'll read in Mark or the things that we say at the altar that aren't there in Mark. That's because the church is adding all of these things that are there.
[00:09:02] But we have it in the context. In mark, chapter 14. We have the words there, and then we'll go through. I suppose it's normal. We have the hymn of the O Lord, we praise thee, bless thee and adore thee. This is the old Luther, I believe. This hymn was hanging around as a. As a single verse, and Luther translated it into German and added two verses. If I remember my history, we have the sermon. We have the normal preface. You'll notice again that the proper preface is the proper preface for Lent, which is that by the tree overcame. Is by the tree overcome, etcetera. And then we have the Lord's supper. It's especially in some ways, you know, there's a lot that happens in every service.
[00:09:51] But when we have these events like Maundy Thursday, the thing that is happening is the Lord's supper. We're really there to celebrate the institution of the Lord's supper and that this is still a gift that is giving us life and joy and peace. So we sing mostly Lord supper hymns. Eat this bread. Jesus Christ, our blessed savior. The old John hus hymn, we adore thee, o hidden savior. Thomas Aquinas of hymns of all things.
[00:10:18] We have all of that in the service.
[00:10:21] This Jesus Christ, our blessed savior, John Hus is a really interesting story to it, too. Remember John Hus was the reformer. Oh, where was he from? I can never remember. He died in Prague. I believe he was burned at the stake in Prague.
[00:10:36] I never get these details right. He died in 1415, something like that. He was a one of the four big pre reformers. Husson, Savonarola, and Wycliffe. And Hus, Savonarola, Italy, Wycliffe, England. Hus. Oh, one other that I'm forgetting. I'll remember in a minute, as soon as I stopped recording. Anyway, Hus was a. He was kind of bringing Wycliffe's doctrine into Germany, Prague, that area there, he was burned at the stake.
[00:11:16] As they were trying him. He said, you can cook this goose, but in a hundred years, a swan will rise up. That is irresistible. I was telling this story just a few minutes ago to someone, and they said, that's one of the reasons why Lutheran is pictured as the swan. When you go and travel around Germany, you see all these swans everywhere connected to Luther. They took that to be a prophecy fulfilled in Luther. And the other interesting connection is that one of the men who oversaw the condemnation of John Hus was buried in the augustinian monastery in Erfurt. So when Luther laid face down on the ground and took his promises to become a monk, he was doing it over the grave of the man who was overseeing the execution of John Husband, something like that. Anyway, Luther translated this hus hymn into German for the people to sing, Jesus Christ, our blessed savior. It's really, really beautiful. And then when the service is over, it's not over, because the Maunde Thursday liturgical tradition, that really, one of the unique things about the service is that it concludes with the stripping of the altar.
[00:12:25] In some ways, it probably, it probably grew out of the. The practical thing is that when Maundy Thursday is over, you're changing everything out for Good Friday and mostly for Easter. You're cleaning everything up, etcetera. And so it probably started as a sort of behind the scenes thing, but it crept into the liturgical life of the church. And so what we do now is we'll hear psalm 22. We think of Jesus going off to the garden of Gethsemane and his affliction. Beginning, we'll have psalm 22 chanted back and forth, I believe, from the choir loft and the transept, back and forth, back and forth. This is the psalm of Jesus. Cry of dereliction. My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? And while this is happening, the altar is being stripped, everything is being taken out from the front of the altar. Now, you'll notice that, oh, it's perfectly spaced out here on the page. I'm looking at the bulletin, the first 2020 and a half. Verses one are about the affliction of Jesus, the threefold suffering of Jesus. I think I'll preach on this on Good Friday.
[00:13:36] The physical suffering of Jesus, the shame of the cross, and the spiritual affliction that Jesus is being forsaken by God the father, stricken and smitten by God.
[00:13:47] But right in the middle of verse 21, there's a change that happens, and it's the last line of the page. Save me from the mouth of the lion.
[00:14:00] And then we pause.
[00:14:03] You have rescued me.
[00:14:05] And so there's a moment in the midst of Jesus suffering.
[00:14:12] There's a moment when everything changes. And this. And this psalm captures it.
[00:14:19] There's a moment when Jesus is being abandoned and forgotten, and God is pouring out his wrath on Christ, and that's captured by the. My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? When Jesus is there in our place, suffering the opposite of the holiness of God for our sins. In other words, the anger that we've deserved because of our sins, he's there in our place. He's suffering that, and then it's finished. It's accomplished, and our salvation is won, and that. And all that's left is for Jesus to die.
[00:14:58] And so for the 6 hours Jesus is on the cross, for the 3 hours of darkness, there's this intense suffering.
[00:15:07] Save me from the mouth of the lion. And then all of a sudden, even on the cross, you've rescued me. And that's indicated by the way, by Jesus saying, I thirst.
[00:15:19] It's like this, oh, I'm thirsty. And hell is lifted. And now he's kind of back to this, like, just hanging on the cross, as if that's not bad enough, but this profound depth of suffering is over. I thirst.
[00:15:36] It's finished.
[00:15:38] Into your hands I commit my spirit, Father.
[00:15:41] So those last three words are words of triumph after the my God, my God, you have forsaken me. Is over. And that's indicated by that halfway through psalm 22, verse 21. Save me from the mouth of the lion. You have rescued me from the horns of the wild oxen.
[00:15:59] I will tell of your name to my brothers. Even the tone of the psalm changes every. Oh, beautiful. And while that's happening, all the communion stuff is being taken off of the altar. All the linens are being removed, the plants or flowers or whatever else is adorning the altars taken off, even the lectionary books, the Bibles, the ribbons on the pulpit and the lectern and the chairs, I found out that the crosses that are behind, where I sit behind the pulpit, where the pastor sits, behind the lectern. Those little crosses actually come out. We'll take those out. The altar guild says, man pastor, it's a good thing some of the pulpits screwed in, or you take that out, too. It's kind of take out everything, and the altar is stripped, and the only thing that's left is the cross that's veiled and the candle. And when we come back tomorrow for the traori service, and then for the Tenebrae service in the evening, that's the only adornment that's there. We have a black veil that goes over the altar, black veils over the cross, and that's the only adornment that's there.
[00:17:09] This is a remembrance of Jesus going down into his deep suffering. A similar thing happens Friday night, where, during the final hymn, the cross, the candles taken out and then brought back in, this indication of the burial of Christ.
[00:17:29] And so these liturgical actions are reminding us of these things that the Lord is suffering. So hopefully, that's a good time of meditation.
[00:17:36] We're asking then, that the maundy Thursday, in fact, these three services are all. In fact, all four service, all five services are kind of a piece.
[00:17:46] So that it's not like you have a maundy Thursday service, then a good Friday service, then a holy Easter, and then they're all, like, one service with intermissions, like 23 hours intermissions between them. So we leave in silence services, and over. We come back on Friday for the services in silence. We leave again in silence. We gather again for holy Saturday with a vigil at the camp fire, and then into the service. So it's. It's kind of this one service, one to another to another. So, um, I can never help myself. I always leave in silence, but then go outside and try to greet people, meet people, and talk to people as well. But, um. So you find me outside wandering around, because I can't. I can't stand it. But that's just me. Well, you guys know me. Okay, so that's what's happening tonight. Maunde, Thursday, 2024. Hope to see you soon. God's peace be with you.
[00:18:39] Bye.
