A Brief Sermon for Holy Tuesday

Holy Tuesday 2022

St. Mark’s Passion / Mark 14:19

At the institution of the Lord’s Supper, on the night in which He is betrayed, Jesus tells the Twelve that one of them will betray Him. They then begin to ask Him, one by one, “Is it I?” He speaks most directly of Judas, but His statement, like unto His statement that he who is without sin should cast the first stone, indicts them all. Judas carries out the betrayal in the gravest way. He betrays Jesus not only in his heart or by words, but by deeds tantamount to violence. He will feel remorse for mis, but he will not repent. It would be better for him, if he’d never been born. Let his fall and damnation be a warning to us all.

But all the disciples stand accused and guilty. Elsewhere Jesus says that they will all be scattered. They will all fail. So it is that at the Supper, they all know that they have betrayed the goodness of God, of His mercy, by their lusts and greed and covetousness. And if we dare to examine ourselves, in the shadow of the Supper, we will find the same truth in us. It is I. It is you. We have failed to live up to our calling. We have betrayed Jesus in thought, word, and deed. We must follow the example of the Holy Apostles. The Holy Spirit convicts us of sin. Let us not harden our consciences, but repent.

Only then can we face the Passion of Jesus Christ and see it for what it is. In the Old Covenant the blood of bulls and goats and the ashes of a heifer was sprinkled on the unclean, like us, in order to sanctify their flesh and the souls. How much more then shall the blood of Christ in Chalice cleanse our consciences? Our consciences accused us. Let them be cleansed from dead works to serve the living God by the Blood of Jesus according to His institution and command. Jesus is the Mediator of the New Covenant in His Blood by means of death. This He has done for the redemption of the transgressions under the first covenant to forgive sins so that we who are called, though we stand convicted of sin and are unworthy, would receive the promise of the eternal inheritance (Heb 9:13-15).

Jesus led the apostles to ask “Is it I?” in the very midst of the solution that He, Himself, provided. Yes, it is you, Peter, James, John, and all the rest, but here is forgiveness in my Blood. Here is the creation restored and the promise renewed and life bestowed. Even as the promise of Genesis 3:15 to crush the serpent’s head by the Messiah’s bruised Heel is given before the announcement of the curse, here before the failure of the Apostles in Gethsemane and Golgotha and in the Upper Room, Jesus establishes a New Covenant of Blood for the forgiveness of sins. This is the God whose mercy endures forever.

Here, in the light of His grace, we can be bold to face our sins, to repent and amend our ways, to set our faces to Jerusalem. Here we can face the death of Jesus with repentant joy and confidence, with consciences cleansed. It is I who betrayed Jesus. It is also you. We are sinners in need of forgiveness. But so it is He, not I, not you, who guides all things and fulfills the Law for us. It is He who lives and who still hosts the Supper of reconciliation in the midst of death.