A, Maundy Thursday - Matthew 6:9-13 "The Lord's Prayer in the Lord's Supper"
The Lord’s Prayer has been the centre of our Lenten focus and tonight we conclude our study of the Lord’s Prayer by seeing how it works in the Divine Service as it appears in the liturgy of the Lord’s Supper.
The church most often celebrates the Lord’s Supper on the Lord’s Day, or Sunday, and it is celebrated amongst the Lord’s people, who pray the Lord’s Prayer. One can’t but help notice that the Lord is at the centre.
Our celebration in partaking of Holy Communion as the children of God, and as brothers and sisters of Christ, who join in with him in the prayer he gave us, proclaims God’s loving-kindness and mercy to us through and through. God is with us and he serves us with his word, in the bible readings, and in hymns, songs and the sermon which also proclaim his word. Having received God’s word of forgiveness and promise, we respond in prayer.
Prayer is not so much our work or will, but rather it is the result of God being present in us through his gifts. The Lord’s Prayer is the most excellent prayer we can pray because not only does it announce God’s presence, but it is given by the Son of God himself to sustain us in faith, hope, and love. Therefore, the Lord’s Prayer is the prayer of the faithful, joining in with Christ, adhering to the will of God, as they approach the Lord’s Supper. We are the faithful, believing that God is present in all his power for our personal being and the being of the church community.
Last week we heard how the central petition of the Lord’s Prayer, is prayed asking God to give us our daily bread. Since early times in the church this petition has been connected with the bread and wine of communion – which when consecrated is the body and blood of Christ.
Our daily bread, both, Christ ‘the bread of life’, and, all the things we need for this life, are gifts from God to encourage trust in our Father, who forgives us and gives us the ability to forgive, so his will is done in heaven and on earth and we can live in peace with God and our neighbours.
We also receive our daily bread, so our faith is increased against all temptation; especially the temptation in believing God’s kingdom is not for us, when Christ clearly promises us that it is. This promise comes to us in a very special and personal way in the sacraments where Christ ordains our salvation in our baptism into his death at the cross. The promise of his kingdom comes also when he commanded that the bread and the wine be consecrated as his body and blood given and shed for the forgiveness of your sins, as we eat and drink it in remembrance of him. We receive his kingdom in these things, when we believe Jesus Christ in his word and put off temptation to think otherwise.
When we believe we are forgiven, we believe his will is done in us, and we believe his kingdom is our hidden reality. Because this is the truth, we are also made holy by Christ who comes to us in the daily bread of the Lord’s Supper. This is the holy life we receive in exchange for the life of evil we need to be delivered from so much. God the Father together with God the Son sends the Holy Spirit to continue in us the belief and holiness given at the cross through baptism.
And if we are holy forgiven members of God’s kingdom, we have access to God the Father through his Son who gives us his prayer, and he makes this prayer, the Lord’s Prayer, work for us by his innocent suffering and death worked on the cross. We say the Lord’s Prayer to our Father, whose kingdom, power, and glory are his, which he gives to you as the eternal gift because of Jesus’ death for our sin, and resurrection power over eternal death.
In the context of the service of Holy Communion the pastor announces the reality of God’s presence with us by saying the greeting, “The Lord be with you.” And we respond, “And also with you.” Then in our helpless state we lift up our hearts to God who is present and wills us to receive his gifts of forgiveness of sins, life, and salvation. Because of this we give him thanks because it is the fitting and right thing to do, since he is our only help and our only hope.
The pastor then declares why it is fitting and right to give thanks to God through Jesus Christ. It’s at this point that extra sentences can be added appropriate to the church season. After this we acknowledge our fellowship in the whole company of heaven, seen and unseen, amongst those who have died in the faith and now dwell with God outside of time. And we also fellowship with those inside of time, seen and unseen, who faithfully worship in God’s hidden presence. We who worship in time also wait for the hour when we too will have our helplessness lifted so we see ourselves as God sees us through his Son, and we in turn see him as he is in all his eternal glory.
Now that we have proclaimed the hidden presence of God’s kingdom, seen and unseen, in time and outside of time, gathered eternally around Christ, we join in with the choirs of heaven and sing the Sanctus — the Holy, Holy, Holy. This is a combination of Psalm 118:25-26 which was sung at the Old Testament Passover festivals, blended together with the hosannas of victory and deliverance sung on Palm Sunday and in the Old Testament when the king rode back into
In the same way that the angels sang Glory to God in the highest in the presence of the shepherds and the Christ-child born to Mary, we too sing before God in heaven and on earth joining in with the heavenly choir giving the highest honour to God who gives us victory and deliverance over our helplessness and is the supreme centre of all existence.
It is in this context that we pray for God to give us our daily bread which he will grant us in its best form, Jesus himself, in the mystery of the bread and wine. Because it is Christ who ultimately prays his prayer before God the Father in heaven, traditionally the pastor prays the Lord’s Prayer and the congregation joins in with the doxology. When the Lord’s Prayer is prayed before the words of institution it is prayed as a prayer of consecration over the words of institution.
On the other hand, in some services of Holy Communion the Lord’s Prayer is prayed after the words of institution. It is the congregation that traditionally prays it at this place in the service, as a petition for itself and as an intercession for the world.
But regardless of the Lord’s Prayer being said before or after the words of institution, the fact of the matter is that Christ is present with the Father and the Holy Spirit, amongst us. Paul points out to Timothy that, “everything God created is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving, because it is consecrated by the word of God and prayer.” (1 Timothy 4:4-5)
It is the Lord’s Day, the Lord’s Supper, the Lord’s Prayer, and it is for the Lord’s people. So you and I can say his prayer in confidence knowing that he prays it before our Father, and he and the Holy Spirit will us to pray this prayer from within us. God has done everything here and it is good, and is not to be rejected, but rather he is to be believed and received, as we pray his prayer and eat his holy body and blood.
Because Christ has given himself and his prayer to us we know we have been recreated as children of God, for Christ’s sake. In Galatians we’re told …because you are sons, God sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, the Spirit who calls out, “Abba, Father.” So you are no longer a slave, but a son; and since you are a son, God has made you also an heir. (Galatians 4:6-7)
And if we are heirs, we continue to carry Christ’s full, wholesome and most excellent prayer on our lips because we stand with him before our Father in heaven. So his prayer, the Lord’s Prayer, is our ever-present call for help, so we might continue petitioning God in the struggles and sufferings of this life and participate with God in God’s work of salvation interceding for those who struggle and suffer in their helplessness too.
We are encouraged by God in Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians… For we are God’s fellow workers; you are God’s field, God’s building. By the grace God has given me, I laid a foundation as an expert builder, and someone else is building on it. But each one should be careful how he builds. For no one can lay any foundation other than the one already laid, which is Jesus Christ. (1 Corinthians 3:9-11)
The Lord’s Prayer, the Lord’s Supper, for the Lord’s people, on the Lord’s Day. Amen.
Lord God heavenly Father continue to send the Lord and giver of life, the Holy Spirit, into our hearts, so we might continue to believe what our Lord Jesus Christ has done for us and continues to do in us. Amen.
