Thursday after Laetare Sunday
Posted on March 31, 2022 by under
Scripture: St. John 6:52-59 (NKJV)
6:52 The Jews therefore quarreled among themselves, saying, “How can this Man give us His flesh to eat?”
53 Then Jesus said to them, “Most assuredly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life in you. 54 Whoever eats My flesh and drinks My blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day. 55 For My flesh is food indeed, and My blood is drink indeed. 56 He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood abides in Me, and I in him. 57 As the living Father sent Me, and I live because of the Father, so he who feeds on Me will live because of Me. 58 This is the bread which came down from heaven—not as your fathers ate the manna, and are dead. He who eats this bread will live forever.”
59 These things He said in the synagogue as He taught in Capernaum.
Devotion
“He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood abides in Me, and I in him.”
Forgiveness of sins is no mere abstraction! Read with your physical eyes–better yet, read out loud so you hear with your physical ears–how graphically Jesus describes our union with Himself! It was so graphic that many who had believed in Him turned away at this point; and Jesus let them walk! There was no “wait a minute, guys, I was just speaking figuratively.” He let them go.
Our Lord gives Himself to us in the holy sacraments: physical water on our physical skin in holy Baptism, and certainly His body and blood in the physical bread and wine of the holy Supper! Also, we understand sound well enough to know how sound waves strike our eardrums. So holy absolution is also, in a sense, a physical insertion of the Word of forgiveness into our ears. By extension, we can think of the whole of preaching and God’s Word this way.
For the certainty of our salvation, we do not try to gaze into our hearts to see if we have faith going on in there. Rather, we look to these objective means, Word and sacrament, confident that we have these. And then we rest easy, knowing that it is in fact faith, living and active, that seeks the comfort of our Savior’s physical delivery of Himself to us.
Prayer: Grant, we beseech Thee, Almighty God, that we, who for our evil deeds do worthily deserve to be punished, by the comfort of Thy grace may mercifully be relieved; through Jesus Christ, Thy Son, our Lord, Who liveth and reigneth with Thee and the Holy Ghost, ever One God, world without end. Amen.
Collect for the Season of Lent
Almighty and Everlasting God, Who hatest nothing that Thou hast made, and dost forgive the sins of all those who are penitent: Create and make in us new and contrite hearts, that we, worthily lamenting our sins, and acknowledging our wretchedness, may obtain of Thee, the God of all mercy, perfect remission and forgiveness; through Jesus Christ, Thy Son, our Lord, Who liveth and reigneth with the Thee and the Holy Ghost, ever One God, world without end. Amen.
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
