God remembers [Maundy Thursday]

 

READINGS FROM HOLY SCRIPTURE:

• Exodus 12:1-14

• 1 Corinthians 11:23-32

• St. John 13:1-15

Grace, mercy, and peace [are yours] from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Lord. (1 Tim 1)
 
Who speaks from 1 Corinthians saying:
“In the same way also he took the cup, after supper, saying, ‘This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.’”
 
Yesterday, we were doing the remembering, because in our sin the first thing we forget is Jesus Christ and His great work of salvation accomplished completely for us. Today, we will once again contemplate “remembrance”, but this time discover that it is God Who remembers.
 
Because, if God does not remember, then our remembrance is less than nothing. And again, we are beginning at the words of our Lord at the institution of His Sacrament of the Altar, “This do in remembrance of me.”
 
And what I am proposing tonight is that we have been misunderstanding and mistranslating these words of Jesus. We do this in many places, because English is a horrible language or to put it kindly, a very young language, but I digress. 
 
Here are some big words, but hang with me for a moment. Our purpose this evening is to hear, what is called, the Possessive Adjective in God’s Word as opposed to an Objective Genitive. As an example of what we are listening for is the Lord’s words of Institution. Using the Objective Genitive, we hear: “this do in remembrance of me”. Using the Possessive Adjective we hear: “this do in My remembering.”
 
This difference may sound insignificant and best left to those language experts of higher pay-grade, however, the doctrine this difference makes is extremely significant. For with the Objective Genitive we are familiar with, the remembrance is our work and depends on us. In the Possessive Adjective, the remembrance depends on Jesus.
 
And in the depths of our sin-sickness induced fatigue, the Good News would be that Jesus remembers. the Bad News would be that remembrance adds another plank of wood to our cross. If remembrance depended on our noggin, we would be lost. Is it only remembrance once a week that is good enough? Would you want God to treat you that way?
 
In St. John’s Gospel, every time Jesus talks this way, He makes the work dependent on Himself. such as in 14:27, “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid.” Our peace, untroubled-ness, and courage is based on Christ’s Peace, not some peace we may happen to find on our own.
 
In 1 Corinthians 9:2-3, St. Paul defends his apostleship saying, “If to others I am not an apostle, at least I am to you, for you are the seal of my apostleship in the Lord. This is my defense to those who would examine me.”
 
 It would take forever to go through the Old Testament examples of this Possessive Adjective usage. Regardless, we can show that it is not our remembering that accomplishes such great things, but God’s.
 
Genesis 9:16, God remembers when the rainbow appears: “When the bow is in the clouds, I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is on the earth.”
 
Genesis 19:29, “So it was that, when God destroyed the cities of the valley, God remembered Abraham and sent Lot out of the midst of the overthrow when he overthrew the cities in which Lot had lived.”
 
Genesis 30:22, “Then God remembered Rachel, and God listened to her and opened her womb”, giving her Joseph and Benjamin.
 
Exodus 6:5, “Moreover, I have heard the groaning of the people of Israel whom the Egyptians hold as slaves, and I have remembered my covenant.”
 
1 Samuel 1:19, “And Elkanah knew Hannah his wife, and the Lord remembered her” and gave her Samuel, the great prophet, as a son. And on and on.
 
Even in the Magnificat we chant at Vespers from St. Luke 1: “He has helped his servant Israel, in remembrance of his mercy, as he spoke to our fathers, to Abraham and to his seed forever.”
    
Our job of remembrance focuses on remembering that we are sinful. Deuteronomy 15:15, the Lord says, “You shall remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and the Lord your God redeemed you.” 
 
And it is Jesus Who remembers the sinner and opens paradise to him, as we hear in St. Luke 23:42-43, “And [the criminal] said, ‘Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.’ And he said to him, ‘Truly, I say to you, today you will be with me in paradise.’”
 
The Lord’s Supper belongs to Jesus, the Son of God, Who remembers His Church and His suffering for her. He emphasizes that the remembering belongs primarily to our beloved Savior and only secondarily to us. The Lord’s Supper came from Christ and belongs to Christ, St. Paul was simply passing it along to the Church, so the remembering belongs to Christ.
 
Thus St. Paul, as he ministers to the Corinthians, as a steward and servant of God, required to be faithful to God in all that he said and did, is careful to maintain the proper understanding of God’s remembering. For, the Lord of the Church is the possessor of the Word and Sacraments, the Marks of the Church come from, belong to, and lead the Church back to her beloved Savior.
 
When the death of Christ is proclaimed when the Lord’s Supper is instituted, distributed, and consumed, It is God who remembers and preserves His Church thus Baptism, preaching, and the Lord’s Supper continue and will continue till the end of time.
 
 “In My Remembrance (1 Cor. 11:24, 25)” the Apostle writes in our Epistle, and its meaning can be understood in two ways. The vital question is whether it is God who remembers us for Christ’s sake or we who remember God because of His grace in Christ. 
 
 Certainly both are true, but God is the One who first remembers His promises in Christ and Who prompts our response of remembering in faith. 
 
One day, we may change the words “in remembrance of me” back to their original, “This do into My remembering.” For now, it is good enough that we believe in the action of Christ as He preserves His Church and leads her to eternal life, that it is God Who remembers His people, preserving His Church, and leading them to eternal life, and that great comfort is found in knowing and confessing that God preserves and leads His Church despite the worst efforts of sinful mankind.