Maundy Thursday
Dear friends in Christ. This past Sunday was Palm Sunday, the first day of Holy Week, the week which lead to the great events for our salvation: Jesus’ suffering, death and resurrection. Like all the events of our Lord’s life, everything was prophesied. We heard this past Sunday Jesus telling two of His disciples [Mt. 21.2-5]: “Go into the village in front of you, and immediately you will find a donkey tied, and a colt with her. Untie them and bring them to me. If anyone says anything to you, you shall say, ‘The Lord needs them,’ and he will send them at once.” This took place to fulfill what was spoken by the prophet, saying, “Say to the daughter of Zion, ‘Behold, your king is coming to you, humble, and mounted on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a beast of burden.’”
Even Palm Sunday’s entrance by Jesus into Jerusalem on a donkey was prophesied. And it was prophesied by the prophet Zechariah just a few verses before our text. So it seems that this section of Zechariah is describing the events of Holy Week and their result—the establishment and spread of Jesus’ Kingdom of peace bringing people from all over the world and throughout the following centuries—including us—into His NT Church to receive the blessed fruit of His saving work.
How do we, living almost two millennia later, receive the gifts and blessings of Jesus’ life suffering and death? What’s the great “connector”? Jesus gave His Church His holy Word and Sacraments. Through these—which break barriers of time and space—we are there, as it were, contemporary with Christ, and now by faith receiving His gifts. For the Gospel word and the absolution don’t just tell us about Jesus, they give us the forgiveness He won for us. Baptism isn’t just a symbol but as St. Paul tells us [Rm. 6.1-4] actually connects us with Jesus’ death and resurrection, so that in baptism we died with Christ and are raised with Him.
Today as we remember Jesus instituting and giving His Church to the end of the world, the Sacrament of the Altar, we do well to examine our text which, to be sure is not a loud blaring prophecy of the Sacrament but subtly points us forward to the Blessed Sacrament of our Lord’s body and blood and the blessings of the forgiveness of sin and new heavenly and spiritual life we are given in it and which we by faith then receive.
1. Our text, two short verses, comes just a handful number of verses after the Palm Sunday prophecy of Zechariah. So the Holy Spirit has prepared our hearts and minds to hear about Holy Week. After hearing Palm Sunday prophesied, we hear that Christ’s kingdom is established and that the Lord goes with her into the entire world throughout time and protects, defends and fights for His Church.
Our text: In that day the LORD their God will save them, as the flock of His people, for stones of the crown were raised upon His ground. For what goodness is His and what beauty is His. Grain shall make the young men flourish, and new wine the young women.
To be sure, our text does sound a bit different, obscure. But it begins with the phrase: In that day, and normally when we have that phrase it’s an indication that we are dealing with a prophecy, because In that day means in the day of the Messiah; in the time that Jesus has come; in the time of the NT Church. And that’s the day/ time that we are now living in! And notice what Zechariah here calls the Church, the Kingdom Christ set up: the flock of His people. And that’s why the Lord rescues us; we are, as the psalmist [95.7] tells us: the people of His pasture, and the sheep of His hand. That’s us, His Church, His dear Christians, and He is our Good Shepherd watching out for us, protecting us and guiding us. The fact that we need saving, that we need rescue, is because we are still living in this sinful world and Satan and his allies are trying to destroy that Spirit worked faith. And that’s one reason why Jesus gave us, His Church, the Blessed Sacrament of His Body and Blood—to strengthen us in our faith as we live out our lives as Christians as witnesses to Him, striving to bring others into the kingdom, and incurring the wrath of the enemies of Christ and His Church: the devil, the world and our own sinful nature.
How/ why are we that flock of His people the Lord God is saving? Zechariah tells us: for stones of the crown were raised upon His ground. Again a bit of an odd/ obscure phrase—until we look at it a bit closer. What is a crown? Something worn by a king; it shows rule/ kingship. Of course the more stones, the more valuable the stone, and the more of them, the more valuable the crown and the more powerful and wealthy the king. Since here we have stones of the crown we have a great king. Certainly, here in this verse, we cannot miss the connection—the King, the LORD their God. And specifically, we think of the Son, the Second Person of the Holy Trinity, Christ Jesus. That’s what we heard Sunday: Jesus entered Jerusalem on Palm Sunday as King, coming to set up His kingdom. He is the stones of the crown. Probably inadvertently, but Luther picks up this image of Christ being stones of the crown in the hymn as he writes [#387, 5]: He spoke to His beloved Son: ‘Tis time to have compassion. The go, bright Jewel of My crown, and bring to man salvation.
Elsewhere in Scripture Jesus is called “Stone.” Already in the psalms and quoted by Christ and the apostles as referring to Christ, the psalmist writes [Psalm 118.22]: The stone which the builders rejected has become the chief cornerstone. Jesus was rejected by most— the stone which the builders rejected—but precisely by this rejection Jesus established His NT Church, has become the chief cornerstone, His kingdom in which He fully and freely gives us the forgiveness of sins and eternal life. Jesus being rejected, we see most clearly starting tonight with His betrayal by Judas and arrest in the Garden and culmination with His crucifixion and death tomorrow.
But here we come to the key point: for stones of the crown were raised upon His ground. The stones of the crown, what we are taking as referring to Christ, the bright jewel of the crown, was raised upon the ground. Being raised upon the ground sounds like what? Crucifixion! Good Friday! Earlier in the chapter before our text we had Palm Sunday and now we have Good Friday! A perfect Holy Week prophecy! Jesus tells us about this being raised upon His ground /this being lifted up: As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life; [John 3.14; 12.32-33] and during that first Holy Week Jesus said And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself. He said this to show what kind of death he was going to die. Here with the stones of the crown were raised upon His ground we have Good Friday—Jesus being raised upon the ground—His ground, the ground that He Himself created—on the cross bearing the sins of the world, suffering the Father’s wrath over all of our sins, being that once for all perfect sacrifice for the sins of the world—His body loaded down with all our sins and cursed; His blood being shed and brought to God to reconcile us sinners to the holy God.
Now with Christ, the stones of the crown…raised upon His ground, He draws all sinners to Himself. All those who recognize they are sinners, who have examined their lives and works in the light of God’s holy law and only hear the pronouncement “guilty!” and “condemned”—to us—Jesus raised upon His ground on the cross for all to see—here is your Savior from sin!—He calls to us and draws us to Himself: here is forgiveness, here is peace with God, here is heaven standing open to you. By this gracious call/ invitation to all from the cross, raised upon His ground, so all can see Him and hear His call, Jesus draws us to Himself. That’s how He gathers us into the flock of His Church which He established and now protects and guides.
2. Looking at Christ on the cross—beaten, suffering, dead—and pondering Him and His work that first Good Friday, we exclaim with joy and delight the words of our text: For what goodness is His and what beauty is His. The goodness and beauty of Christ—that He has had mercy on us sinners and has saved us from our sins—draws us to Him. Through the work of the Holy Spirit in that Good Friday proclamation, He leads us to Christ; He works faith in us in Christ that we look to Him and recognize and receive His work and gifts. This is what happens in the Blessed Sacrament as we in faith ponder and recognize that here is and that we receive into our mouths Jesus’ very body that hung on the cross, cursed for our sins; and drink His blood that was shed and reconciled us to God. In the sacrament we indeed [Ps. 34.8] taste and see that the Lord is good; and what beauty is His.
The wonderful thing is that Good Friday is not just a past event. Instead, it is a present reality. Just as that first Maundy Thursday Jesus gave His disciples His body and blood—in a wonderful and miraculous fashion—even before He was crucified, raised upon His ground, so too now He gives them—His body and blood—to us almost two millennia after the historical event. We can’t explain how Christ is present giving us His body and blood. All we do is simply receive His words in faith: This is My Body…This is My Blood given and shed for you for the forgiveness of sins. We treasure the Sacrament because here He is coming to us personally with all His gifts and graces. We stand before Christ in the sacrament and in humble faith, wonder, awe and thanksgiving marvel and say: For what goodness is His and what beauty is His.
How beautifully we see the Sacramental connection in our text: Grain shall make the young men flourish, and new wine the young women. Grain and wine remind us of what? The physical/ earthly elements in the sacrament—the bread and wine that Christ somehow, some way joins His body and blood to come to us and give us His gifts and blessings He won on the cross! A diet of just grain and wine isn’t enough to keep people vibrant and healthy. That’s why our text means something more than mere physical bread and wine. That’s why we see here the bread and wine of the sacrament to which Christ joins Himself.
The image of young men young and women flourishing is a picture of life in Christ’s kingdom, the Church. Here each of our Lord’s dear Christians is alive and vibrant full of spiritual health. Yes, we all have our spiritual trials and struggles that seeming weigh us down, but, dear Christian, the very fact that we are Christians means that we have faith in Christ as our Savior worked in us by the Holy Spirit; and where there is that faith, that faith is always receiving the gifts of forgiveness of sin, that peace and reconciliation with God, that new heavenly, divine and spiritual life.
Of course, our Lord Christ knows what life is like in this world. He endured and suffered the worst it could throw at Him. That’s why He comes to us in the Sacrament giving us the forgiveness of sin He won for us on the cross; and as He does so, He strengthens our faith giving us the glorious assurance that things are right between us and God, that He is our dear heavenly Father and we are His dear children, that heaven stands open to us. How can we not be strengthened and made certain—Christ Himself comes to us and we receive Him in our very mouths. Precisely when we feel our faith weak, when we feel the burdens of our sin and the worries of life, that’s when we run to the Blessed Sacrament. That’s our food as Christians. That’s what keeps us going. Grain shall make the young men flourish, and new wine the young women. The Sacrament keeps us going/ alive spiritually because in it Jesus is giving us Himself—His Body and Blood—and everything He won on the cross for us that first Good Friday. For what goodness is His and what beauty is His. INJ