On this night on which the Lord Jesus Christ was betrayed, on which He instituted the Supper of His body and blood, it would do well to review Lutheran doctrine as it regards the Lord’s Supper.

I’ll begin simply with what the Sacrament of the Altar is. As just said and heard, in fewer words, “it is the true body and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ under the bread and wine, instituted by Christ Himself for us Christians to eat and to drink.” What Luther taught here is confirmed in the words of Christ Himself. Again, these are words you have been taught, the primary text of the Sacrament, and which you hear every Sunday:

YHWH met with Moses on the mountain where He gave him the Ten Commandments. Moses could have taken the dictation in several ways. He could have written it on a papyrus scroll; after all, he just came from the land of papyrus, so the Israelites could have possibly had some. He could have written on clay tablets; clay isn’t a difficult resource to come by. He could have even written it in the sand as a means of helping him to memorize what God had said. But he didn’t record the Ten Commandments on paper or clay or even in the sand; they were carved in stone.

That phrase “carved in stone,” should give you pause. It conveys a kind of permanence. Stone represents endurance, so something written in stone—carved in stone—is longer-lasting than something written on paper, clay tablets, and sand. Something carved in stone is supposed to last. That’s what Job was saying when he spoke about his redeemer living:

Consequently, when you carve something in stone, it conveys an importance because of its permanence. The Ten Commandments are carved in stone.

This is God’s everlasting covenant with His people. His people will obey His will and keep these commandments. These laws are not only for His people, however, but for all mankind, as they are all His creation.

If you’ve broken one, you’ve broken them all. That’s what St. James taught. (cf. James 2:10) A reverse of sorts is also true. If you’ve broken any of them, you’ve broken the first.

The season of Lent is coming to its conclusion, and as has been done throughout the season, you are being confronted with your own mortality and new life, whether you realize it or not: the temptation of Jesus, Nicodemus, the woman at the well, the man born blind. This time, you see your mortality in the events of the little town of Bethany. The wages of sin is death, and Lazarus has received payment; he was lying in the tomb, his body rotting and decaying as the physical effect of sin took its toll—lying there four days, a bad odor had no doubt formed.

Yet, it is not only Lazarus’ life that flashes before your eyes. Jesus was nearing the end of His life on earth. As chapter 10 of St. John’s Gospel comes to a close, the Feast of Dedication had just taken place—Jesus was in Jerusalem for Hanukkah; it was December by today’s calendar. In about three months, Jesus would return to Jerusalem to be “delivered over to the chief priests and scribes, and they will condemn him to death and deliver him over to the Gentiles to be mocked and flogged and crucified.” (Matthew 20:18b-19a) He went to fulfill the will of His Father, Who desires all men to be saved (cf. 1 Timothy 2:4), and die as the once-for-all sin offering.

As I’ve been saying, in the death of Lazarus and the sacrifice of Jesus, you see your own mortality. Like Lazarus, you are sinners, and the wages of sin is death. One day, these bodies will return to the dust from which they were created. Following that, you are confronted with the gut-wrenching truth that the sin which will claim these mortal bodies is the same sin that condemned Jesus to death. Jesus bore the full wrath of God for you, in your place, on your behalf—however you may want to word it—so that you would not have to.

Six days; so are counted the days, in the beginning, when God did His work of creating. And on the seventh day, He rested from all the work that He had done. (cf. Genesis 2:2) Notice that Moses never says that God stopped working; as the creator of the universe, He is also the One who maintains and sustains it. He, most simply put, took six days to create everything, and on the seventh, He stopped His creative work. All that ever was was created in those first six days. Everything that exists now had a kind that was created in those first six days, but on the seventh day, God rested from creating.

He hasn’t picked up the creative mantle since. Again, that doesn’t mean that God stopped working, but that He is no longer creating. Everything that exists had a kind that was created in those first six days, and in that creative work, God gave those kinds the means to change—to adapt and expand and contract, etc., not to evolve into something new, lest I be misunderstood. A cow is still a cow, but it’s possible that the cow that Adam first called cow looked different, if familiar, than the animal that is today called a cow—but they are both cows!

His creative work finished, God called it very good, and rested. He blessed the seventh day as a day to rest, a day to marvel at His work and rejoice over what He had done, more for you as His ultimate creation than for Him as your Creator. The Sabbath was created for you, not the other way around, that you may enjoy the rest of God and His work of caring for and sustaining you.