Maundy Thursday – Sermon
Welcome to our worship service this evening – tonight’s service
can be separated into four distinct parts and we will simply let these parts
unfold in the course of the worship.
I will, here at the beginning, give a brief overview of each part.
Part One: A New Commandment
The first part of our liturgy acknowledges that one of the main
reasons why we worship on this day is that Jesus gave us a new commandment, to
love one another. In John’s Gospel, in the days leading up to his arrest, Jesus
gives a new commandment, a commandment to love one another – as he loved us, we
are to love one another. Over and over again, in parables and with actions,
Jesus illustrates just how important, just how central love is to who he is,
and who he wants us to be. These chapters in John’s Gospel are known as the
Farewell Discourses – the final sayings, the final instructions Jesus has for
his followers. It is those words repeated again and again – love one another,
as I have loved you. No Christian, no one committed to Jesus Christ can ignore
this commandment, this plea, to love one another. Love is simply the one
characteristic Jesus wants to see in his followers.
This day is known as Maundy Thursday, “maundy” is a word that
comes from a Latin phrase, a Latin translation of, “I command you.”
Before Jesus is arrested on trumped up charges of blasphemy and
sedition, put on trial in the middle of the night with very few people
watching, and before Jesus is nailed to a cross, he illustrates his commandment
to love one another by washing the disciple’s’ feet. Part Two of our worship
draws attention to this powerful action of foot washing.
Part Two: Washing the Disciples’ Feet
It is one
thing to tell people what to do, it is quite another to show them what to do.
Jesus can, with parables, tell us of the importance of loving one another, but
inevitably, someone will need, someone like me, will need to be shown what love
is. So, in a remarkable scene, one that even shocked those who were present,
Jesus, after having shared a meal with his disciples, a last meal, a Last
Supper, Jesus takes a bowl of water and washes everyone’s feet. Peter protests,
but Jesus explains that submitting to this action is how one becomes a part of
Jesus. Furthermore, this is the expectation that he has of his followers, we
are to serve God by serving one another. We are to love God by loving one
another.
So much
seems to have happened on this day: Jesus commands us to love one another;
Jesus washes the disciples’ feet, illustrating what love means and it is the
time he institutes the Last Supper.
Part Three: The Liturgy of the Upper Room
After the Farewell Discourses and before washing everyone’s feet,
Jesus sat down to celebrate the Passover with his closest companions. At the
end of the meal, Jesus took some bread and some wine and connected these
everyday objects with himself. He asked that every time we eat together, we
would remember him, remember his teaching, perhaps especially his commandment
to love one another. And in this simple act of remembrance, he would continue
to be a part of us and we a part of him.
It doesn’t matter what we call it: the Liturgy of the Upper Room;
the Thanksgiving and Consecration; the Mass; the Holy Mass; Holy Communion; the
Eucharist – it’s all the same thing and it is central to who we are as a
people, as followers of Jesus Christ. It is a sacrifice we make to call to
mind, as an act of remembrance, everything Jesus does for us – or more precisely,
what God does for us in the person of Jesus Christ.
God’s goodness and love has been made known to us in creation; as
revealed in Holy Scripture and above all in the Word made flesh, Jesus, God’s
Son, who for our salvation became obedient unto death.
Jesus Christ, God incarnate, Emmanuel (God with us), Prince of
Peace, Redeemer and Saviour.
On this very night, Jesus took bread and wine, and for us, made it
his body and his blood, that in sharing this meal we are one with him, one with
God, and one with one another. That in sharing this meal we are in communion
with God and all of creation.
No amount of devotion, no amount of scrubbing one another’s feet,
no amount of communion bread and communion wine, no amount of holiness – can stop
us from remembering the bitterness and hardship that follows, for tomorrow is
Good Friday. Tonight, Jesus is arrested and not long after that – he will be
put to death.
Part Four: Going into Gethsemane
After we recall the commandment to love one another, after we wash
this stone cross, in the place of our feet, and after we share communion with
one another, and with God – we will strip the church-building of all its finery
and turn our minds and hearts to Good Friday and the sacrifice Jesus makes for
the world for ever.
We will hear the story from Mark’s Gospel of the arrest of Jesus.
Jesus, in the garden, prays for a different way but realizes that this is the
road he must take – a dark road of pain and suffering, but a road that leads
ultimately to the resurrection – I will have more to say about that on Sunday,
on Easter Day.
Tonight, there is no dismissal at the end of this service because
by entering into prayer on Maundy Thursday we begin one long vigil through Good
Friday and Holy Saturday to the joyful celebration of the resurrection on
Easter Day.
We will, after the reading from Mark’s Gospel this evening, leave
the church-building in silence…
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