Video of the Divine Service is here. The sermon begins around the 32:15 mark.

In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

We might wish that we could go back in time, and be present on Palm Sunday; or be present in the upper room as Jesus and His disciples ate the Passover together; or be there when they crucified our Lord; or be there in the Garden very early in the morning, after the tomb is empty and the stone is rolled away. We might think, “then it would be real to me!”

But of course we can’t go back in time. We won’t ever have anything for the night when Jesus was betrayed, except the words we have in the Gospels and in 1 Corinthians. And of course things are not real only because we saw them, or experienced them, or were there. Things are real if they belong to the reality of God’s creation, by the creative word of God, who took on flesh. And besides that, there are billions of things in history that we did not see or experience, but that nonetheless happened. More than that, people are very often willing to believe almost anything is real, as long as it it fits what they want to be true, or it fits their prior assumptions.

People think their idols are real. That’s the context for these verses from 1 Corinthians 10: “Therefore, my beloved ones, flee from idolatry” (10:14). “Do not be idolaters, as some of [the Israelites] were; as it is written, ‘The people sat down to eat and drink and rose up to play’” (10:7). Eating and drinking around a calf made of gold, which they had made, which came from their jewelry. We think the things we make, the things we see, the things we experience and do—those are the real things. We follow our hearts, follow our dreams, follow our ideas. These are the things we often worship: not that we make statues and bow down, but that we pour all our time and money and energy into things that fade, that break, that fail. We trust them, because we do not trust God.

Which is strange, because which of those Gods has broken a promise? Have the things you trust in ever failed you? Have they ever promised something and then failed to deliver? Have the things for which you spend your money ever broken? Or been stolen? Or cease to keep your attention? Or add up to literally nothing in the end? Which of them will keep you from dying? And yet, we keep putting our trust there: maybe the next person, the next thing, the new technology, the new trend will not fail me. Maybe this time they will not fail me and I will not be frustrated. My beloved ones, flee from the idolatry.

Because we have a God who keeps His promises, who does not fail to deliver what He says He will give, who gives eternal life here and now so that when you die, you will stay dead as little as Jesus did. Or if Jesus appears before you die, you will never die. We have the real and true God, who created all things, who created you in the image of Jesus, and who continues to sustain them and you even when you make all those creatures into lesser gods in your own image.

Where does He keep that promise, and where does He give it to you? Because you can’t go back in time. You can’t go back to the cross, or to the empty tomb. And even if you could, what makes you think you would have any more faith in Him than the chief priests and the scribes? Or the soldiers? Or the criminal on His left? Or the disciples, who fled when He was arrested? Or the women who expected to find a dead body in that grave? No, there are no guarantees that we would believe, even if we were to see and hear and experience what happened back then. So see, and hear, and experience, and taste now.

“The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not a communion of the blood of Christ? The bread which we break, is it not a communion of the body of Christ?” Communion, koinonia, means to share something in common, together. So what are we sharing in common when we bless the cup and break the bread? Clearly, Paul expects these answers: It is the blood of Christ that we are sharing, isn’t it? It is the body of Christ that we are sharing, isn’t it? This is only possible if the God who speaks these words is the true God, if the Christ of whom He speaks is not dead, but risen, ascended, and glorified at the right hand of God’s power. The Corinthians are not the original Twelve at table with the Lord. They were not there. But Paul says to them that their God, the true God, has made a promise to them that He continues to keep every time they share the cup and the bread. The promise is in the words of Jesus Himself, of which Paul is about to remind them in chapter 11: “For I received from the Lord, what also I hand over to you, that the Lord, Jesus, in the night in which He was betrayed, took bread, and giving thanks, He broke [it] and said, ‘This is my body, for you. Do this unto My remembrance. Likewise also the cup after the supper, saying, This cup is the new covenant in My blood. Do this, as often as you drink, unto My remembrance. For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, the death of the Lord you proclaim until whenever He might come” (11:23-26).

God does not take you back in time, or force you to imagine what it must have been like. Faith does not depend on your imagination or some reconstruction of historical events. Instead, He brings that reality to you, here and now. His remembrance happens as often as you eat the bread and drink the cup. Because as often as you eat and drink the things He has given according to His Word and Promise, you proclaim as present His death. And we do this until He comes again in glory, which He can only do if He is risen from the dead. On the night He was betrayed into the hands of those who would crucify Him, He spoke these words, and they have been powerful ever since to bring you the fruit of His death and resurrection. Tonight, again, He gives you His death instead of yours, so that you may share His resurrection.

On this earth, it does not get better than this: a sharing in the crucified and risen body and blood of Jesus in the bread and in the cup. This is pure Gospel, for those who believe His words. Jesus delivers to you here and now, by means of bread and wine, His own self, crucified and resurrected. And that highlights one more difference between the idolatry of the flesh and the world, and the true worship of the true and only God. All idols, all false gods, require you to do everything for them: make them, carry them around, bring them gifts, and serve them. But the true God has made you. He carries you. He brings you gifts, and He serves you the life that you could not get for yourself. This blessed cup, this broken bread; the blessed Blood, and the broken Body. All accomplished by Jesus, all for you.

In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. “And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 4:7, ESV). Amen.

– Pr. Timothy Winterstein, 3/27/24