From the Table to the Garden

 

Grace, mercy, and peace…

 

Our readings tonight tell us about two amazing, mysterious nights. Two nights that were crucial in God’s plan to save the world.

 

The first night is told of in our Old Testament reading. It takes us back to Egypt, about 3,500 years ago, the night that the angel of death struck down the first born in Egypt, but passed over the faithful.

 

It was a dark and dangerous night; brought about by the hard-hearted Pharaoh and Egyptians, who refused to listen to God’s warning; they refused to obey God and release His people from slavery.

 

Every disaster God sent to try to get them to change their minds, to repent, was always met with stubborn resistance. It’s like they wanted to test God even more; they refused to see the reality of what was happening in their land due to their stubborn hearts and close minds.

 

Lest we get too terribly judgmental or hypocritical, we have the same problem: we have that tendency to ignore God and do our own thing. Our stubborn sins have caused plenty of problems for us, and for those around us, too. So we are no different, in that we, too, desperately need God’s grace to change our hearts.

 

But the Pharaoh and the Egyptians continued to resist God’s demands to free His people. So God did the only thing he could do that would make them listen: he showed them the full fury of his judgment in striking down their first born. It’s not what God wanted for them, but they would have it no other way. 

 

The people of Israel, however, stubborn as they were at times, did listen to God. They did what God told them to do: to take a lamb and sacrifice it, roast and eat the meat; and smear the blood on the doorframes of their homes.

 

Later, on the dark and dangerous night, as the angel of death passed though the land of Egypt, the first born in all the homes marked by the blood of the lamb were spared. Death passed over them.

About 1500 years later, Jesus was remembering that solemn night in Egypt, as he celebrated the Passover with his disciples.

 

They had sacrificed their lamb at the temple; now they were eating the meal together in the upper room. Knowing that the lamb represented him, that by shedding his blood on the cross, Jesus would save the world from death, he did something new and amazing with the ancient Passover Meal; he changed it in a way that made it clear that it was all about him and His sacrifice for the world.

 

But the Passover had always been meant to point to the Son of Man, who would be sacrificed like a lamb for the sins of the world; so really more than changing it, Jesus was fulfilling it.

 

Jesus took the matza break, broke it, as was always done in the Seder Meal, but this time he did something more, something miraculous; He combined it with His body, which would be broken to die on the cross for us.

 

He did this by the power of His words, saying, “This is my body which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me.” At that moment Jesus commanded it to be; and it has been ever since.

 

Then Jesus took the cup of wine, and he blessed it to miraculously contain His blood, which He would soon shed on the cross.

 

Jesus did it with the words, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood, shed for you for the forgiveness of sins. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.”

 

Jesus made this sacrament for us by His will and testament; a promise that couldn’t be broken; that would last for all generations. And so to this very day, we celebrate this meal and receive these promised blessings.

 

Tonight, taking Jesus at his word, we will gather at His table, sincere to repent and blessed to believe. Here we will receive the dearest thing Jesus has to give us: Himself, His very body and blood, broken and shed on the cross for us.

 

All the mystery, all the amazement, all the significance and meaning and mercy and grace of those two solemn nights, the first one in Egypt, and then the night in the Upper Room, we share in it all tonight, and we share in it every time we receive this sacred meal at our Lord’s Table for our soul’s health.

 

After instituting this gift for His followers in the Upper Room, Jesus went to the Garden of Gethsemane, to begin to deliver on the on the promises He had just made at the table, to do what had to be done to win our salvation.

 

First, Jesus prayed to His Father for strength; and angels came to encourage one last time before he suffered and died.

 

Then His enemies came to the Garden, led by His betrayer. Judas kissed his cheek, and Jesus was taken away in chains, first to be flogged, and if that didn’t kill him, then to be hung on a cross until dead.

 

Jesus knew that the brutal flogging wouldn’t kill him, because it was foretold by Isaiah, that the Messiah would die on a tree, a cross, like a lamb led to slaughter. Like a Passover lamb, Jesus died to save us from the punishment for our sin that we had coming, and from the power of the devil we had fallen prey to, and from the prison of eternal death that we were bound for. He died and rescued us from those worst of things that could have happened to us.

 

Jesus went from the Table to the Garden to the Cross, so that we would live in love forever.

 

As Jesus went from the table of blessing in the Upper Room, out into the night, into to the Garden where he would pray, and where his passion would begin, so we leave this table of our Lord’s blessing, and we go out into night, into the world.

                                                                                                                                                                There we have challenges that we must face every day; temptations to our faith, as Jesus was tempted; even mockery or abuse for our faith, as Jesus was arrested and abused.

 

As Jesus prayed in the Garden, so God gives the same gift to comfort us.

One of the reasons our faith is strengthened at our Lord’s Table, is so we can pray; pray be to faithful; pray to be loving and forgiving; pray to be courageous as we serve God, and compassionate as we help others.

 

That place of prayer, and reflection in God’s Word, is like an oasis we’ve been given, a garden spot in a sometimes difficult and troubling world.

 

We have a Garden of grace given to us by Christ, to comfort and strengthen us for life’s troubles; and to inspire us for life’s joys.

 

Jesus drank the cup of suffering for us; he shares his mercy in the cup we drink, and the bread we eat at His Table; his body and blood, given and shed for us.

 

From His Table of mercy, we go into a Garden of grace; for where ever His Gospel is in this world, there His grace is. When we go with His Word in our hearts, we have His grace in our lives.

 

Where faith is, and where His Spirit is, within us, there is a Garden of grace for us to abide in -- God’s grace to help us through every trouble; to comfort us in every grief; and to empower for every challenge we must face as we follow Christ.

 

Finally, nourished at the Table of His mercy, and abiding in the Garden of His grace, we are blessed to rest in the gift of His peace, which passes our understanding, and guards of our hearts and minds, in Christ Jesus, our Passover Lamb. Amen.