Jesu Juva

“The Feast Awaits!”

Text: Luke 22:7-20; Jeremiah 31:31-34; Hebrews 10:15-25

Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father, and from our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Amen.

Jesus knew His death was imminent. It was the day on which the Passover lamb had to be sacrificed. And HE was THE Passover Lamb. The once and for all Lamb. For every family in the world. The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. It was time for the Passover.

But the thing about the Passover . . . you don’t just celebrate it - you eat it. And that’s what Jesus instructed the disciples He sent into the city to say, when they found the man in whose house they would gather. They were to ask: The Teacher says to you, Where is the guest room, where I may eat the Passover with my disciples?

Now they spoke this way because the eating was an important part of this night. Remembering and eating. On the night of the first Passover, in Egypt, the Lamb was slain, its blood was poured out and smeared on the doorposts of their houses, and then the lamb was roasted and eaten. The blood was important, but the Passover was incomplete without the eating. The eating of the sacrificial lamb.

And that is so because that first Passover in Egypt, important as it was, wasn’t the real thing. It foreshadowed another. The true and greater and final Passover was still to come. And it would take place now, on this night. When the Lamb of God would be sacrificed to rescue not just a nation from their slavery in Egypt, but to rescue the world from our slavery to sin and death. So blood would be shed, but this too:

The Lamb must be eaten.

So there, that night, in that room, Jesus gathers His disciples. He tells them, I have earnestly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer. This Passover. Not another old Passover, but this new Passover of the New Covenant. This is why He came. This is His desire. To save them from sin and death. And He is about to do so.

But just as the first Passover pointed forward to another and greater Passover, so too this new Passover is pointing forward to another and greater Passover Feast. That’s why Jesus speaks of its fulfillment. He says, I will not eat it until it is fulfilled in the kingdom of God. . . . And then, I tell you that from now on I will not drink of the fruit of the vine until the kingdom of God comes. It is important to remember the past, but it is also important to look to the future, to the fulfillment. And it is also important for the disciples to eat the Passover now.

So they do.

Jesus feeds them the Body and blood of the true and final Passover Lamb.

And he took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and gave it to them, saying, “This is my body, which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me.” And likewise the cup after they had eaten, saying, “This cup that is poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood.”

Now in the old Passover, there was no drinking of blood. That was forbidden. For the life is in the blood (Leviticus 17:10ff). And our life comes not from any animal - our life comes from God alone. So when the Passover Lamb is the very Son of God, God of God, Light of Light, very God of very God, whose blood is life-giving, the reason for the prohibition is fulfilled and no longer in effect. So with this new Passover, there is both eating the flesh and drinking the blood of the Lamb. And this Passover Lamb and this eating and drinking rescue us from our slavery to sin and death and give us freedom and life.

And now it was imminent. In mere hours Jesus would be dead and the new covenant sealed - once and for all - with His blood.

So there would be no more Passover lambs. No more would be needed. For this one has atoned for our sin and died our death. Our sins are forgiven, remembered no more. And where there is forgiveness, there is no longer any offering for sin. It is finished. Done. Complete. You are free!

So on this day, the day of the new Passover, it is for us to eat the Passover. And Jesus, who opened the new and living way for us to God, through the curtain, through His flesh . . . Jesus, our great high priest, is here to feed us. And we draw near in full assurance of faith, for our hearts [are] sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water - the pure water of Holy Baptism. We know that there is here for us a meal unlike any other. A meal which gives life now and life forever. A meal which forgives sins and gives salvation. This is our Passover to eat and to drink.

But how shall we do so? We do this in remembrance of Jesus, yes. We eat and drink the Body and Blood of Jesus in reverence, yes. We repent and receive the forgiveness of sins in faith, yes. And we look forward to the fulfillment, to when the kingdom of God comes, yes. All that is true. But I want to add to all that this thought for you this night:

We should go to the Lord’s Supper as though we are going to our death, so that when we come to our death, we may go as though we are going to the Lord’s Supper.*

Because we are!

This is the last Lord’s Supper any of us may eat. Death may come upon us, or Jesus may come again. But this not the last feast of the Lord we will eat. For when we die, or when Jesus comes again, we will be going to the Lord’s Supper in heaven, the marriage feast of the Lamb in His kingdom. So when we come to the altar here, we are remembering our Lord’s death and practicing for our own. So that when death comes upon us, we not fear, but know we are going from feast to feast, from life to life, and from faith to sight. To the feast that has no end.

That is what this night is all about. The past, the present, and the future. The new Covenant, the new Testament, of the new creation. The great and final Passover in Jesus’ blood. And you are the honored guest. Come, eat and drink, and live. It is all FOR YOU.

In the Name of the Father, and of the (+) Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

* - This a quotation from John Pless, Concordia Pulpit Resources, Vol. 35, Part 2 (2025), p. 25. He gives no attribution for the quote, only that “a wise Christian once said . . .”