The following is a link to our reading for today:
John 13:1-17, 31-35
In homes around the world, Jewish people are gathering this week to remember. To remember God’s saving work in their midst thousands of years ago when God brought them out of Egypt into the land promised to them. And Jews around the world will begin their celebration of the Passover with a question from a small child, “Why is this night different from all other nights?”
In response the story is told again of the events of that fateful night. How a destroying angel passed over the Hebrew people but brought judgment upon the Egyptians. They recall the story of the People of God as they ran for their lives under the fire and cloud of God’s own protection, with Egyptian soldiers in hot pursuit. They remember the waters that miraculously parted to ensure people’s safe passage out of Egypt, and then reconnected to drown their pursuers. They gather that they may keep the divine commandment to “tell the story to their children, and their children, and their children’s children, so that everyone will know” how God acted in human history to bring freedom to their oppressed forebears.
We Christians gather this week, Holy Week, and this day, Maundy Thursday, to do much the same thing. We are here to remember. We are here to tell our story. We are here to proclaim that God acted to save us yet again by his Son, Jesus, through his life, death, and resurrection. We are here to tell the story to our children, and their children, and their children’s children.
So I ask the question in our community as well, “Why is this day different from all other days?”
We Christians gather this week, Holy Week, and this day, Maundy Thursday, to do much the same thing. We are here to remember. We are here to tell our story. We are here to proclaim that God acted to save us yet again by his Son, Jesus, through his life, death, and resurrection. We are here to tell the story to our children, and their children, and their children’s children.
So I ask the question in our community as well, “Why is this day different from all other days?”
2000 years or so ago, a small group of Jews gathered together in the upper room of a house with their teacher, a man named Jesus. They gathered like thousands of other Jews around them to celebrate the Passover meal. But their teacher, Jesus, knew they were gathered for an even greater reason. Jesus knew that his time with them, these people with whom he had lived and worked for several years, was growing short. He knew that tomorrow would be the beginning of the end, the day he would be arrested, the day that he would be crucified. He tries to tell them of what is to come, to prepare them a little, but they don’t understand. So instead he gives them a ritual, an action that they can continue after he is gone, an action that will remind them of his presence with them, and will teach them again and again of his love for them. He takes the bread, gives thanks and gives it to them saying, “This is my body, which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me.” And he does the same with the wine, saying, “This cup that is poured our for you is the new covenant in my blood.”
It is no accident that this Last Supper, the first Eucharist, took place during the Passover festival. After all, Passover was celebrated to remember that God had saved in the past and to affirm the belief that God continues to save in the present. When the disciples gathered for that Last Supper with Jesus before his death, the Passover was in their minds. Like Passover, the Eucharist is a celebration of God’s salvation. It reminds us of God’s saving work through his Son, Jesus. The Eucharist reminds us how God has saved us from slavery to sin and death.
But the Eucharist is more than a remembrance of what God did in the past. It is also a reminder that God still saves and that God will continue to save. For generations people had seen bread and wine raised in a Sabbath blessing to a great and faithful God. But in Jesus’ hands the same bread and wine became the Body and Blood of a Lord whose death gives us life. We gather to remember, but even more importantly to give thanks for the blessing of a God who forgives us, restores us, and calls us to join in the creative act of “making all things new.”
It is no accident that this Last Supper, the first Eucharist, took place during the Passover festival. After all, Passover was celebrated to remember that God had saved in the past and to affirm the belief that God continues to save in the present. When the disciples gathered for that Last Supper with Jesus before his death, the Passover was in their minds. Like Passover, the Eucharist is a celebration of God’s salvation. It reminds us of God’s saving work through his Son, Jesus. The Eucharist reminds us how God has saved us from slavery to sin and death.
But the Eucharist is more than a remembrance of what God did in the past. It is also a reminder that God still saves and that God will continue to save. For generations people had seen bread and wine raised in a Sabbath blessing to a great and faithful God. But in Jesus’ hands the same bread and wine became the Body and Blood of a Lord whose death gives us life. We gather to remember, but even more importantly to give thanks for the blessing of a God who forgives us, restores us, and calls us to join in the creative act of “making all things new.”
And so it is that on this day, which is so different from all other days, we are called to witness to that difference. More than simply gathering for services of remembrance, we are called to carry the touching, healing, and transforming message of Jesus out into the world. We are called to proclaim to the world, that God loved us enough to die for us that the power of death and sin might be destroyed once and for all.
Today Jesus is calling us to continue his great legacy, to keep it alive by finding new ways to serve, to nourish and to give comfort to people who are in pain. Renewed by the presence of his Body and Blood within us, we take seriously God's call to us to bring Good News, to help the hungry, the homeless, those who mourn, those who are sick, and prisoners and captives. We witness to the power of our God by redeeming pain, striving for peace, and working for reconciliation with justice. That is what makes this day different. And it makes us different, too. We are in the world and not of it. We are called to a different ethic, an ethic of love. And this day witnesses to the fact that no matter what the world’s response to our actions of love may be, nothing it can do can stop Jesus working in you and me for the furtherance of God’s work in this world.
As we celebrate the Eucharist this day, give thanks for our Jewish sisters and brothers who honor the origins of this banquet in the Passover feast. Give thanks that we are bound together in the fellowship of love and prayer in the Eucharist with those who follow the way of Christ around us and throughout the world. And finally, give thanks that Jesus up to his last moments gave of himself in love that we might live and serve him forever. Amen.
Today Jesus is calling us to continue his great legacy, to keep it alive by finding new ways to serve, to nourish and to give comfort to people who are in pain. Renewed by the presence of his Body and Blood within us, we take seriously God's call to us to bring Good News, to help the hungry, the homeless, those who mourn, those who are sick, and prisoners and captives. We witness to the power of our God by redeeming pain, striving for peace, and working for reconciliation with justice. That is what makes this day different. And it makes us different, too. We are in the world and not of it. We are called to a different ethic, an ethic of love. And this day witnesses to the fact that no matter what the world’s response to our actions of love may be, nothing it can do can stop Jesus working in you and me for the furtherance of God’s work in this world.
As we celebrate the Eucharist this day, give thanks for our Jewish sisters and brothers who honor the origins of this banquet in the Passover feast. Give thanks that we are bound together in the fellowship of love and prayer in the Eucharist with those who follow the way of Christ around us and throughout the world. And finally, give thanks that Jesus up to his last moments gave of himself in love that we might live and serve him forever. Amen.