Maundy Thursday 2015

Welcome to the Great Three Days.

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

The three days are Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, and Easter which form a whole… They are connected. Together they tell a story. 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 dramatize 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. (That’s where Maundy Thursday comes from, by the way. From the word for commandment. Think mandate Thursday.)

And this is the 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. This is how we are called to live. Love one another.

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

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Now, here’s what I mean by that:

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. (Crowd — followers — disciples — Peter, James, John, etc.)

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. Their feet, remember, were their primary mode of transportation. Their feet had covered a lot of rough ground since they met Jesus. They may have looked more like the tires on our cars than our feet.

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 fear and trauma happens 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.

Even though people will soon stand up in the crowds and look down on Jesus…Even though 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.

As Christians we face a constant temptation to gravitate towards the glory. The Easter celebration ahead lifts us up to heights of beauty with flowers and song and eggs. Those things are wonderful signs of God’s glory in Jesus. But it’s so easy to start believing that the glory belongs to us. Little by little we can lose our taste for the ground floor view. We aspire to live in the penthouse where we can be removed from the day to day struggles of others. But that image does not fit well with the Jesus that commands his followers to love one another at foot level.

What kind of life do we expect to find under the table? How could we hope to find anything good amid unwashed feet, stale crumbs, and a distinct lack of hand sanitizer? If Jesus wants us to live a life of abundance, 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.

The peace and meaning 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 simple way that Jesus taught his disciples is enacted over and over in our lives. It doesn’t require great heights of knowledge, training, or spiritual expertise. For Jesus, it began with some water, his neighbor’s foot, and a servant heart. We have all of those things. For Jesus, of course, it doesn’t end in the upper room. This simple way of loving our neighbors takes Jesus much much further. As we follow Jesus to the cross over these Three Days, this commandment should still be ringing in our ears: love one another.

If our Lord lowered himself to the ground, where should we be?

This is God’s story. This is God’s mission. Jesus calls the church to humbly reach out to each and every foot, every low place of God’s kingdom. Today/Tonight we enact love. We enact forgiveness. Not historical, but real bread, real wine, real forgiveness … right here on ground level. But it doesn’t just happen here around the table. It happens throughout God’s kingdom. It’s as close as a servant’s heart and your nearest neighbor.