Sermon for Sunday,  April 2, 2006

THIS IS MY BODY GIVEN FOR YOU

3^rd in a series on If Anyone Wants To Come After Me…….

by

Rev. Dr. Harvey C. Martz

Scripture:  Mark 14:12-26

¹² On the first day of Unleavened Bread, when the Passover lamb is sacrificed, his disciples said to him, "Where do you want us to go and make the preparations for you to eat the Passover?" ¹³ So he sent two of his disciples, saying to them, "Go into the city, and a man carrying a jar of water will meet you; follow him, ¹⁴ and wherever he enters, say to the owner of the house, "The Teacher asks, Where is my guest room where I may eat the Passover with my disciples?' ¹⁵ He will show you a large room upstairs, furnished and ready. Make preparations for us there." ¹⁶ So the disciples set out and went to the city, and found everything as he had told them; and they prepared the Passover meal. ¹⁷ When it was evening, he came with the twelve. ¹⁸ And when they had taken their places and were eating, Jesus said, "Truly I tell you, one of you will betray me, one who is eating with me." ¹⁹ They began to be distressed and to say to him one after another, "Surely, not I?" ²⁰ He said to them, "It is one of the twelve, one who is dipping bread into the bowl with me. ²¹ For the Son of Man goes as it is written of him, but woe to that one by whom the Son of Man is betrayed! It would have been better for that one not to have been born." ²² While they were eating, he took a loaf of bread, and after blessing it he broke it, gave it to them, and said, "Take; this is my body." ²³ Then he took a cup, and after giving thanks he gave it to them, and all of them drank from it. ²⁴ He said to them, "This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many. ²⁵ Truly I tell you, I will never again drink of the fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it new in the kingdom of God." 26 When they had sung the hymn, they went out to the Mount of Olives.

Jesus and his friends are having their last meal together before he will be executed. It is the meal commemorating the day that they came to Jerusalem to celebrate the Passover meal. The Jewish holiday of Passover is to mark what happened when God rescued God’s people.

Remember the story?  The Israelites wound up in Egypt because they needed to find food when there was a famine. Old Jacob sent his sons to go and beg the pharaoh for food and the pharaoh had been advised by one of his wise counselors to prepare for a famine and so they had food.

Do you remember the name of that wise counselor to the pharaoh? He had been sold by his brothers into slavery in Egypt and then wound up almost the second in command. It was Joseph of course – of Joseph and the Technicolor dream coat. This is happening about 1700 years before Jesus.

Joseph welcomed his many brothers and the rest of his family into Egypt and they all thrived there as a family for about the next 400 years. Then, the Bible says, there came a pharaoh who did not remember Joseph. He made the Israelites into slaves and treated them very badly. They cried out to God and God sent Moses to free them. God used several plagues to try and convince the pharaoh but the only thing that worked was when God sent the angel of death to kill all the first born sons of the Egyptians. The Israelites avoided that fate by marking their doorposts with the blood of a sacrificial lamb and the death angel passed over those houses – thus the name Passover. 

The day is still a most important day for our Jewish friends – it is the equivalent of Easter for us because it marks the time when God acted to liberate and to set free.

Jesus and the twelve are celebrating Passover on Thursday evening after they have been in Jerusalem since Sunday. When they gather around the table, they do not look like Leonardo Da Vinci’s picture! Leonardo gives us an image of what a sixteenth century meal might have looked liked. The picture we have in our entry way is more accurate in how the table would have been and I believe there were certainly more people there than just the twelve disciples. 

There was even among those twelve, diversity and differences galore. One of the twelve had been a tax collector, a shill for the oppressive Roman government. Another was a zealot, a member of the political party that wanted a violent revolution against Rome and finally got their way in the year 66 AD. There were James and John who just a few days ago, still completely misunderstanding Jesus mission as the messiah, had asked him if they could be his secretary of defense and secretary of state when he became the new king. And then there was Judas who is ready to reveal their hidden nighttime location to the authorities and thereby force Jesus to take military control and finally show these Romans who is boss.  That is a current theory about why Judas gave up Jesus: to make Jesus use the military power that Judas thought Jesus had.

This is a table with many differences – just like most of our tables when we get our families together – especially our extended families where there may be significant differences of opinion theologically and politically. What we see on Thursday night is that Jesus closest friends – people who had been like a family for three years – had those differences as well and that is OK. In fact, that is what our own congregation tried to communicate several months ago when we ran this ad saying that all persons are welcome at Christ’s table with all of our different opinions and that we do not have to think alike in order to love alike.

Before we talk about what Jesus says at this Passover meal, let’s remember how controversial meals have been for Jesus up to this time. Meals were very important. Eating together was very important. Eating together still is very important. Scientists at the University of Michigan did a study saying the single strongest predictor for children and teens for better achievement scores and fewer behavioral problems, a stronger influence than church involvement or sports or arts activities was—sharing the dinner meal regularly together as a family.

And, the President’s council of Economic Advisers found that kids who have five or more dinners together each week with a parent contributes to an adolescents academic success, psychological adjustment, lower rates of alcohol and drug abuse, smoking, lower rates of sexual behavior and lower suicide rates. There is a link—not a guarantee but a very strong link between eating together and sitting at the table, sharing food, looking each other in the eye and talking and listening to each other. 

Shared meals are very important. They were in the first century. Remember how often the legalistic leaders got so upset with people because of who he ate with; he was not particular—not as particular as they thought he should be. He would eat with anyone and everyone. The front of your bulletin has a quote about that and how Jesus’ openness at mealtime was so scandalous and dangerous for him.

This Thursday night Passover meal is very important. What do you think the disciples were feeling as they gathered in the upper room? They had been in the city since Sunday and they had gone each day to the temple and seen the admiration of the growing crowds and the deep hostility and hatred of the priests and temple bureaucrats. They had seen the questions thrown at Jesus to trap him and had witnessed his masterful answers. They could feel the tension in the air and they were fearful, anxious, deeply concerned and very uncertain. They knew something bad was about to happen. Then Jesus said to them that one of them was going to give him up to be killed and they were so uncertain that each of them asked if it could be he, because they knew that would be possible. Jesus correctly predicted that they would all desert him and he was right—except some of the women are mentioned as being very close to the foot of the cross when he is dying. Probably more of the men fled than the women. 

Jesus gives them the traditional elements of the Passover meal and he changes forever what they mean. This bread is my body. This wine is a new covenant sealed with my blood. That is how covenants/agreements were sealed in the Hebrew Bible, with a sacrifice and the shedding of blood. This is a new covenant, a new relationship with God that you can participate in from now on. That is what this cup of wine means, he says.

AND the Passover bread, the unleavened loaf, unleavened because the Israelites would not have had time for the yeast to rise before they had to hurry out of Egypt. The Passover bread is now the body of Christ given for us. FOR us.

When you think about God, is God the cosmic policeman waiting to catch you and condemn you? Or is God like what we see in Christ—the advocate, the friend, the one who invites us to sit and eat with him and forgives us and accepts us.

This is my body, myself, and I am for you, I am with you, I am on your side, I will walk the path with you, I care for you and I am willing to give myself even to death so that you might be able to see God and know God in a deeper and life changing way.

My life is for you, for your well being and your freedom and your salvation. Not against you but for you. Let’s take a moment to think and pray and give thanks for a Messiah who is for us.

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