Readings and Meditation for Maundy Thursday.

Sentence:

But, for my part, may I never boast of anything except the cross of Jesus Christ, our Master, through whom the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world. Gal 6:14

Collect:

Infinite, intimate God;
this night you kneel before your friends
and wash our feet.
Bound together in your love.
trembling, we drink your cup
and watch.

Ex 12:1-14.

1 And the Lord said to Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt, 2 Let this month be to you the first of months, the first month of the year. 3 Say to all the children of Israel when they are come together, In the tenth day of this month every man is to take a lamb, by the number of their fathers' families, a lamb for every family: 4 And if the lamb is more than enough for the family, let that family and its nearest neighbour have a lamb between them, taking into account the number of persons and how much food is needed for every man. 5 Let your lamb be without a mark, a male in its first year: you may take it from among the sheep or the goats: 6 Keep it till the fourteenth day of the same month, when everyone who is of the children of Israel is to put it to death between sundown and dark. 7 Then take some of the blood and put it on the two sides of the door and over the door of the house where the meal is to be taken. 8 And let your food that night be the flesh of the lamb, cooked with fire in the oven, together with unleavened bread and bitter-tasting plants. 9 Do not take it uncooked or cooked with boiling water, but let it be cooked in the oven; its head with its legs and its inside parts. 10 Do not keep any of it till the morning; anything which is not used is to be burned with fire. 11 And take your meal dressed as if for a journey, with your shoes on your feet and your sticks in your hands: take it quickly: it is the Lord's Passover. 12 For on that night I will go through the land of Egypt, sending death on every first male child, of man and of beast, and judging all the gods of Egypt: I am the Lord. 13 And the blood will be a sign on the houses where you are: when I see the blood I will go over you, and no evil will come on you for your destruction, when my hand is on the land of Egypt. 14 And this day is to be kept in your memories: you are to keep it as a feast to the Lord through all your generations, as an order for ever


1 Cor. 11:23-29.

23For I myself received from the Lord the account which I have in turn given to you--how the Lord Jesus, on the very night of his betrayal, took some bread, 24And, after saying the thanksgiving, broke it and said "This is my own body given on your behalf. Do this in memory of me." 25And in the same way with the cup, after supper, saying "This cup is the new Covenant made by my blood. Do this, whenever you drink it, in memory of me." 26For whenever you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord's death--till he comes. 27Therefore, whoever eats the bread, or drinks the Lord's cup, in an irreverent spirit, will have to answer for an offence against the Lord's body and blood. 28Let each one look into their own heart, and only then eat of the bread and drink from the cup. 29For the one who eats and drinks brings a judgement upon themselves by their eating and drinking, when they do not discern the body.


Mark 14:12-31

12On the first day of the Festival of the Unleavened bread, when it was customary to kill the Passover lambs, his disciples said to Jesus. "Where do you wish us to go and make preparations for your eating the Passover?" 13Jesus sent forward two of his disciples and said to them. "Go into the city, and there a man carrying a pitcher of water will meet you; follow him; 14and, wherever he goes in, say to the owner of the house 'The Teacher says--Where is my room where I am to eat the Passover with my disciples?' 15He will himself show you a large upstairs room, set out ready; and there make preparations for us." 16So the disciples set out and went into the city, and found everything just as Jesus had told them; and they prepared the Passover. 17In the evening he went there with the Twelve, 18And when they had taken their places and were eating, Jesus said. "I tell you that one of you is going to betray me--one who is eating with me." 19They were grieved at this, and began to say to him, one after another. "Can it be I?" 20"It is one of you Twelve," said Jesus, "the one who is dipping his bread beside me into the dish. 21True, the Son of Man must go, as Scripture says of him, yet alas for that man by whom the Son of Man is being betrayed! For that man 'it would be better never to have been born!'" 22While they were eating, Jesus took some bread, and, after saying the blessing, broke it, and gave it to them, and said. "Take it; this is my body." 23Then he took a cup, and, after saying the thanksgiving, gave it to them, and they all drank from it. 24"This is my Covenant-blood," he said, "which is poured out on behalf of many. 25I tell you that I shall never again drink of the juice of the grape, until that day when I shall drink it new in the Kingdom of God." 26They then sang a hymn, and went out up the Mount of Olives, 27Presently Jesus said to them. "All of you will fall away; for Scripture says--'I will strike down the Shepherd, and the sheep will be scattered.' 28Yet, after I have risen, I shall go before you into Galilee." 29"Even if every one else falls away," said Peter, "yet I shall not." 30"I tell you," answered Jesus, "that you yourself today--yes, this very night--before the cock crows twice, will disown me three times." 31But Peter vehemently protested. "Even if I must die with you, I shall never disown you!" And they all said the same

Collect:

Infinite, intimate God;
this night you kneel before your friends
and wash our feet.
Bound together in your love.
trembling, we drink your cup
and watch.



Meditiation and Homily:

As we approach the great Christian feast of Easter the collect and readings for this day remind us of many things.
They remind us that love changes everything!; that even in the face of suffering there is friendship and compassion and that we are bound together with God in an intimate, life-giving and affirming relationship.

How does love change everything?

In the tale of the passover we see God not as a distant God unwilling to help but as closer than life and breath, concerned about families, concerned about the suffering of the people of Israel so concerned that, in the context of the story, God, Godself, takes part in the lives of the people. The tale of the beginning of the Passover is not factual but it is true. God does not destroy the Egyptians to free the Israelites, God is not more concerned with one nation than another but God IS concerned that a "...family and its nearest neighbour have a lamb between them, taking into account the number of persons and how much food is needed..." in order for the Exodus to begin.

We see then in the story of the Passover and the beginnings of the Exodus a picture of God's care for humankind and this picture of compassion, of selfless loving continues into the New Testament readings for Maundy Thursday, let us listen again to Paul's version of that passover meal "...For I myself received from the Lord the account which I have in turn given to you--how the Lord Jesus, on the very night of his betrayal, took some bread, 24And, after saying the thanksgiving, broke it and said "This is my own body given on your behalf. Do this in memory of me." 25And in the same way with the cup, after supper, saying "This cup is the new Covenant made by my blood. Do this, whenever you drink it, in memory of me..."

Jesus takes the Passover Seder and makes it into a different kind of a meal of rememberance. He meets with his friends and says to them in effect, "...each time you eat bread or drink wine, think of me, remember me in the weekly feasts of the sabbath and in the great Passover festival, remember me when you meet together as friends, as companions on the Way, think of me whenever the simple acts of thanksgiving, of eating and drinking occur..." And by doing so he makes each meal a rememberance, each act of eating an act of worship. We are invited in the midst of the loving embraces of our friends and family to remember Jesus of Nazareth who showed us how love can change everything.

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Infinite, intimate God;
this night you kneel before your friends
and wash our feet.
Bound together in your love.
trembling, we drink your cup
and watch.
=================================================

In Mark and the other synoptic Gospels this passover feast which Jesus keeps with his companions takes place symbolically before his trial, scourging, death and the resurrection event. The authors of the Gospels are trying to fit the last days of Jesus into that picture that the reading in Exodus gives us of the lamb slaughtered to turn the gaze of the Destroying Angel aside and to assure safety. I would like to put aside that part of the story and focus on friendship and compassion. Friendship first in the mere act of meeting with the disciples at a time when the strong possibility of his death must have been growing in Jesus' consciousness, friendship shown in the way in which Jesus reaches out to his companions and asks them to think of him often. As often, indeed as they eat and drink.

But as well here there is the sub-plot of the betrayal, not just be Judas but by all the disciples. Here the Gospel authors reach forward in their knowledge to tell us that almost all the disciples will sell-out Jesus. They will all try to hide the fact they they were his friends, his companions and it is against this picture of failure on the part of the disciples that they put in the foot-washing story. In effect they are telling us that even though Jesus knew (in some sense) that they disciples would fail him still he makes himself their servant, still he reaches out to them from his boundless compassion and affirms that they are loved, that they are important to him and (by implication) to God.

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Infinite, intimate God;
this night you kneel before your friends
and wash our feet.
Bound together in your love.
trembling, we drink your cup
and watch.
=================================================

As then we approach the pain of Good Friday, the despair of Holy Saturday and the Joy of Sunday we approach it just as they did, Jesus bends and washes our feet, he bids us eat and drink of the new relationship between us and God built not on what we do (as the first Passover was) but on what God does in him. He shows us that we are bound to him in a new life-affirming, life-giving relationship which acknowledges us as friends and companions, both with him and with all the company of the saints, on the Way which he marks out for us.

These then are the gifts to us of Maundy Thursday. As we strip altars, as our churches and our souls fall silent in wonder and in pain we also remember compassion, friendship, intimacy and a world-shattering love which reaches out to us from the pain, from the despair to tell us we are beloved, to tell us that no matter how much a failure we feel, no matter what we have done or been still

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Infinite, intimate God;
this night you kneel before your friends
and wash our feet.
Bound together in your love.
trembling, we drink your cup
and watch.
=================================================

In the name of God, Creator, Redeemer and Giver of Life.

Amen!