Maundy Thursday 2014

BASE HEADER LEVEL: 2

Welcome to the Great Three Days.

Tonight begins this time together that we turn our attention to the central story of our faith — the death and resurrection of Jesus.

The three days are Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, and Easter which begins Saturday night and continues thru Sunday morning. Tonight’s portion of the story includes the betrayal of Jesus and his final meal with the disciples.

Here’s the thing, though: we do not come to Maundy Thursday as a reenactment of the Last Supper. If you think of, for example, Civil War reenactments — they aren’t actually battles. They help dramatacize events from long ago. They bring the events to life in our minds. They don’t actually bring the events to life.

Christians don’t reenact the Last Supper. We enact it. After all, it’s our commandment.

At the first Last Supper, Jesus is preparing the disciples — and really the church — for the event and the aftermath of the crucifixion and resurrection. He gives them and us a new commandment: “to love one another.” As simple, and as radical as that. This is The Way. This is how the disciples will live after Jesus is gone.

Jesus sets an example of The Way, the standard for Christian life. And Jesus sets the bar really really low.

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As the disciples share in the passover meal with their teacher, Jesus affirms that the disciples are right to call him Lord and teacher. Disciples have that kind of relationship with their teacher…they look up to their teacher, they are not greater than their teacher. You might think that Jesus, as Lord, would set the bar high. Because Jesus is Savior and Lord of the universe, it stands to reason that his followers, his proteges, would get a pretty high place.

Instead, Jesus sets the bar so low, it’s literally on the floor. He, the master, takes the feet, the lowest part, of his own disciples and lowers himself to wash them.

So much for raising the bar. If this is where the master is — at foot level — where do the servants belong?

Whatever else happens, whatever events go down in the next few days for the disciples, Jesus has shown them where Love is to be found. It’s down on the ground. Under the table. At the disciples’ feet.

Although people will soon stand up in the crowds and look down on Jesus…although people in high places will judge Jesus and condemn him to die. The real power, the real home for Christ’s followers is down among the dirty, aching feet under the table. Love lives there.

Throughout Lent, we at LMIC have been thinking and talking and praying about wholeness and healing. There’s a temptation there, to think and act like Jesus is our own personal in-house doctor. Whose main focus is making each of us feel better. But that image does not fit well with the Jesus that commands his followers to love one another at foot level.

What kind of healing and wholeness do we expect to find under the table? How could we hope to find health amid unwashed feet, stale crumbs, and a distinct lack of hand sanitizer? If Jesus wants us to live a life of wholeness, why are we called to live like lowly servants?

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Around that table that night for Passover was Judas, the disciple who would betray Jesus. His feet were washed by Jesus. He shared bread with Jesus. He was entrusted with their shared money. All the while, Jesus knew what was in Judas’ heart. It seems crazy that he should even be at the table at all — but he was.

Judas is known as the disciple who betrayed Jesus, but he won’t be last one to do it. Just a quick survey of the Gospels reveals quite a few shortcomings amongst the disciples. And to this day, Christ’s followers also enact this betrayal portion of the Last Supper in our own lives, don’t we?

That’s why this commandment, this Way of life, ‘love others as Jesus has loved you’ begins with forgiveness. Crazy forgiveness. The way that Jesus has forgiven us. Even the Judas parts of us. Even the betray-our-friend parts of us. Even the ignore-God-and-do-things-our-own-way parts of us. The parts of us that totally fail at being even adequate disciples of Christ.

The forgiveness of Christ heals our broken relationships, heals our disconnections from one another by placing our feet into our neighbors hands, and theirs into ours — forgiving our neighbors and asking their forgiveness we are brought back into wholeness. Not our own personal wholeness, but God’s wholeness.

The healing that we long for in our lives is found as we are drawn into the body of Christ: the bread and wine of God’s forgiveness, and the circle of servants around it, loving and forgiving each other.

This is God’s healing and wholeness — and it’s so much bigger than we thought. It calls the church to humbly reach out to each and every foot of God’s kingdom. Our wholeness is God’s wholeness.

On Ash Wednesday, the beginning of Lent, Christians emphasize confession and receive ashes to remind us of our mortality. Tonight we emphasize our absolution, our forgiveness as it comes to each and every one of us. Instead of ashes, we receive oil as a sign of that healing, that restoration we have in Christ Jesus.

Tonight we enact love. We enact forgiveness. Not historical, but real bread, real wine, real forgiveness … right here on ground level.