A Friend’s “Do This”: Demand or Promise?

Holy Thursday

April 13, 2017

1 Corinthians 11:25

A Friend’s “Do This”: Demand or Promise?

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In the name of the Father and of

the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen!

Go back in time to 1904 and across the land to Adenville, Utah¹. A man is dying. He is starving. He hasn’t eaten in weeks. But he is too proud to seek help. He is too proud to be seen as poor.

And so as he lays on his bed, his friends figure out that he is dying. They break into his home and find him. And they try to give him food.

“Eat this,” they say.

“Drink this,” they say.

Are these friends demanding this dying man do something?

Or are they making him a promise?

What will the man on death’s door do?

What will you do?

The devil desires you to be proud like this dying man: proud, not wishing others to see you as weak, not wanting help, not wishing to be a burden on anyone. The devil encourages this pride because pride forces you to starve. And then you die.

Jesus says, “Do this in remembrance of Me.” Do what? Eat and drink His body and blood to keep you alive because you cannot live with your sinful pride. It’s trying to kill you.

On the other hand, Jesus is trying to keep you alive. As His pastor says in blessing at the Lord’s table: “And now this true body and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ, strengthen and keep you in the true faith unto life everlasting. Depart in peace. Amen.” Keep you alive in the true faith.

Jesus is not demanding that you keep a new law when He says, “Do this.” Jesus knows how miserable you in keeping His laws. So instead Jesus is making you a promise, a new testament in blood He shed on the lonely cross. He says, “Eat this and you will live. Drink this and you will live. I promise.”

Many years ago, the dying man in Utah died, even with all his friends. But you, dear friends, will live, now and forever, because your one true and faithful friend has made you a promise. And He will always keep it.

For even the Son of Man did not be served, but to serve,

and to give His life as a ransom for many, for you. Amen.

1  This fictional town is the setting of John Fitzgerald’s The Great Brain series (1967-1976).