Maundy Thursday: On This Night We Weep

Maundy Thursday

1 April 2010

Bethesda United Church of Christ

Bethesda, MD


On This Night We Weep

Based on John 13:1-15, 31-35 & 1 Corinthians 11:23-26

James Semmelroth Darnell

“Why is this night different from all other nights?” This is the famous question asked at the Jewish Passover seder, when Jews celebrate that God passed over their homes when bringing plagues upon the Egyptians. The gospels disagree as to the exact day during Passover when the Last Supper occurred, so that we cannot be sure if it was indeed a seder meal. But nonetheless, for us, this night is different from all other nights. It is the night in which Jesus gathered his disciples for their last meal together. It is the night in which Jesus gives us the new commandment to love one another as he has loved us. It is the night in which he will be betrayed with a kiss. It is the night in which he will sweat blood in praying in the garden. It is the night when the disciples cannot keep watch with him. It is the night when Peter, the rock, will deny him. It is the night when he will be arrested by the police and chief priests. It is the eve of the Lord’s death—an excruciating death, a humiliating death, brutally nailed, naked on the cross of Calvary. Tomorrow his body will be broken and his blood will be shed, but tonight, he waits.
St. John gives us a great gift missed in all the other gospels. It is only in this gospel that we get Jesus’ extensive final address to the disciples—better than any after-dinner speech. From it we get “Do not let your hearts be troubled…in my Father’s house there are many mansions” ; “I am in the Father and the Father is in me”; “I will not leave you orphaned,”; “I am the vine, you are the branches,”; “No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for his friends,”; “Now I am going to him who sent me,”; “When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth,”; “A little while, and you will no longer see me, and again a little while, and you will see me,”; and “The hour is coming, indeed it has come when you will be scattered, each to his own home…but take courage; I have conquered the world!” Four chapters long, it contains some of the most spiritually rich passages in the entire Scripture, where Jesus offers at length who he is for us. But we find ourselves entering St. John’s account of the last night at the very beginning of the evening. We are told that, “Jesus knew that his hour had come to depart from this world and go to the Father” and that Judas had already decided to betray Jesus, and that Jesus knew it too. Yet, Jesus does not begin by addressing the betrayal to come, but he kneels down with a water basin and washes the feet of his disciples. Peter, like us, is so well-intentioned but once again misses the point. First he refuses to let Jesus wash his feet (and I very much doubt it’s the same squeamishness and respectability that makes us shy away from footwashing), but then demands that Jesus wash his hands and head as well. Jesus explains this washing saying, “So if I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet. 15For I have set you an example, that you also should do as I have done to you.”

St. Paul’s letter to the church at Corinth also gives us a glimpse of the last night. St. Paul’s words are familiar—they are the ones often used as the words of institution for the Lord’s Supper. They are the very closest we get to the Last Supper, as they are the earliest account of it, predating St. John’s account by at least a generation. Tradition tells us that one of the original 12 disciples gave him the very description he recounts to the church. It is from this place we remember this Last Supper, which included bread and wine, but is more, the very broken body and shed blood of the Lord Christ. St. Paul writes to Corinth in the midst of a church dispute over some eating their fill at the communion meal, some even becoming drunk, while others went away hungry. He implores the Corinthian Church: “Examine yourselves, and only then eat of the bread and drink of the cup. For all who eat and drink without discerning the body, eat and drink judgment against themselves.”

So footwashing and the Eucharist, how are they linked? We are told they both occur this night, but what is their common significance for us, on the night when Jesus will be betrayed. In both texts Jesus commands to do as he—to show love as in the footwashing, and to relive the meal of the Lord’s Supper. In the end of our passage from St. John, Jesus tells the disciples, “I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. 35By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” This is not simply a feel-good love of being nice to one another that often masquerades as Christian discipleship. This is the same love that led Jesus to the cross. Jesus knew the fate that awaited him. He even hints to the beloved disciple at the meal that Judas will betray him. He could have high-tailed it out of Jerusalem. Yet, Jesus courageously stays, and awaits the scourging, the whipping, the beating, the crown of thorns, and the excruciating agony of the nails piercing his hands and feet. As the gospel tells us, it is because “Jesus knew that his hour had come to depart from this world and go to the Father.” Christ’s blood is shed for us –and because of us. Christ’s body is broken for us—and because of us. It is the very love of God for God’s creation—and the loving desire to redeem all from aimlessness and sin. God in Christ calls us to the same sacrificial love that knows no boundary. This is not love for the faint of heart. The disciples had no idea, but they would share in this love in much the same way. St. James, son of Zebedee, is beheaded in 44 AD. St. Philip is crucified in 54 AD. St. Matthew is killed by a spear in 60 AD. St. Peter is crucified upside-down in 64 AD. St. Thomas is killed by a spear in India in 72 AD. St. Simon is crucified in 74 AD. St. Andrew is crucified on a diagonal cross. St. Bartholomew is flayed alive and then beheaded. St. James, son of Alphaeus, was clubbed to death after stoning. St. Jude was crucified. St. Matthias was stoned and beheaded. St. John is the only apostle thought to die of old age. This is love that risks everything, up to the point of death. While today most of us will never face death for our faith, Jesus still calls us to stand boldly, to love one another as he has loved us. We are called to bow ourselves to wash each others feet, to bring healing and transformation in our world, to call each other away from sin and to wholeness, and love God passionately and unashamedly. This is love that says no to the powers and principalities; love that says no to violence; love that says no to evil; love that says no to greed; love that says no to hatred; love that says no to death. “Were the whole realm of nature ours, that would be an offering far too small; love so amazing, so divine, demands our souls, our lives, our all.”While we follow and come to his table, to grow in his love, we weep for this night we know where Christ’s unending love and our shortcoming will lead tomorrow.

Former United Church of Christ General Minister and President John H. Thomas once asked a question I will never forget. He asked, “Do we love Jesus more than the lure of respectability?” He describes it this way:
Respectable religion fears transgressing the rules. It guards the door and is always “well-behaved.” Evangelical faith [that is, a faith of the Good News] knows that the love of God and the love of neighbor ultimately trumps both the authority of the canons and the clerics, and will not stand for bouncers or ejector seats in our churches.
Respectable religion is afflicted with terminal politeness. It will never risk offending, even with the truth. Evangelical faith rises up with outrage on behalf of the poor and oppressed and violated in our world who are left out, left alone, left behind.

It’s respectable to love ourselves above and beyond anyone else. It’s respectable and acceptable in our society to even love things above others. It’s not respectable to take off each other’s shoes, to kneel down, and wash each other’s feet as a sign of our love through the Wounded One. It’s not respectable to wear a symbol of state execution around our necks. It’s not respectable to talk and preach and teach about how God breaks all the rules society tells us to follow, to the point of death on a cross as a lowly criminal in order to redeem all of humanity. But we’re not called to be respectable. Jesus calls us – he tells us – he demands of us, to follow him, to be willing to give it all up, to risk everything to live as God’s people, not matter what may happen to us. My Lenten discipline this season has been to re-read the catechisms of the United Church of Christ. They are a tremendous library of spiritual sustenance. The Evangelical Catechism prays, “Lord Jesus, to Thee I live; to Thee I suffer; to Thee I die; Thine I am, in death and in life; save and bless me, O Saviour, for ever and ever.” As we come to the Lord’s Table this night may this be our prayer. With all the saints, truly let us proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.

To God alone be the glory + Soli Deo Gloria + Allein Gott in der Hoeh sei Ehr