Psalm 51:10-13
Holy Thursday
Grace—Tucson, AZ
God Renews Us Through the Gospel The words before us on this Holy Thursday are these of King David in his psalm of repentance, Psalm 51:10-13: Create in me a pure heart, O God. Renew an unwavering spirit within me. Do not cast me from your presence. Do not take your Holy Spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of your salvation. Sustain me with a willing spirit. I will teach rebels your ways, and sinners will turn to you. If you had limited time, but wanted to talk about the ocean, there are lots of things you could talk about, right? You could talk about its biodiversity—from microscopic plankton to enormous whales. You could discuss ocean currents or deep-sea exploration. Pollution of the oceans by chemical spills and plastic waste could be a topic. The way humans interact with the ocean—fishing and shipping and tourism— that could be interesting. With limited time, you would only be able to barely scratch the surface of any one of those things. The same thing is true when it comes to Holy Thursday. Think of all the things we could talk about today. There are so many serious and important things to consider about what took place on the night Jesus was betrayed.
The humility of Jesus as he did the lowly servant work of washing his disciples’ feet The command to his disciples to love one another The way he predicted who would betray him The intense prayer in Gethsemane that there might be a different way to pay for the world’s sin The sleepy disciples who couldn’t manage to support their Lord in his hour of need The traitor Judas leading a crowd armed with swords and clubs to arrest Jesus The way Jesus went willingly from the garden The sham of a trial before the high priest The shame of Peter three times denying that he even knew Jesus
If I stopped right there, you might accuse me of forgetting something—something big. You might even consider my glaring omission to be the most important event of the evening—Jesus instituting the Sacrament of the Lord’s Supper where he gives us his very body and blood to eat and drink so that through this most concrete and substantial dose of pure gospel, we may be renewed in our faith. It is so important that you’ll come to church for it today/tonight—even though you were here Sunday and you may have plans to come tomorrow for Good Friday and again on Sunday for a great celebration of Jesus’ victory over the grave! King David’s words of repentance in Psalm 51 will lead us to consider the special gospel gift Jesus gave to his disciples in the Upper Room. On this Holy Thursday, we remember—and we experience through the Word and the Sacrament—that God Renews Us Through the Gospel because It Creates in Us Pure Hearts and Restores our Salvation Joy.