Maundy Thursday
Exodus 12:1-14 Psalm 116: 1-2, 12-19 1 Corinthians 11:23-26 John 13:1-17, 31-35 Dear fellow ministers of the gospel of Jesus Christ, grace and peace to you from the one who comes to us in bread and wine. Amen Tonight is a night of memories. memories help tell us who we are, both as individuals and as communities, they are the stories that tell us where we’ve come from and point us to where we are going and yet the calling to mind of these stories is as fragile as the stories are important, we’ve all experienced the sensation of walking into a room and completely forgetting why we came into that room in the first place, we’ve debated with others what exactly happened that one time, we’ve experienced the devastation of dementia and memory loss in loved ones. Yet some things remain clear in our minds, our home telephone number from elementary school or the snappy jingle directing us to a particular brand of breakfast cereal, part of the mystery of living is that we don’t always get to choose which memories naturally stay fresh and clear and which fade away. But we have found that there are things we can do to help us remember, intentionally hold on to, the important stories. We do this by telling the stories over and over again, we attach rituals to the stories where we act them out, we tie the stories to our senses the taste, touch, smell, sight and sounds all helping us to remember. Tonight is a night of remembering, calling to mind the stories that define us, stories so important that God has told us to remember them. In our first lesson we heard God telling the people of Israel how they are to remember the defining moment when God brought them out of slavery into freedom. Each year, God tells the people, they are to reenact the exodus, and in the eating of the roasted lamb while dressed to travel at a moments notice the story of what God had done will come alive once more and the people will remember that they are people meant for freedom guided by a great and powerful God. “This day shall be a day of remembrance for you. You shall celebrate it as a festival to the Lord; throughout your generations you shall observe it as a perpetual ordinance.” God tells the people And that is what Jesus and the disciples are doing all those hundreds of years later when they are gathered around the table for what Jesus knows will be their last meal together. And as they recall the foundation of their relationship with God, Jesus, Emmanuel, God with us, who ate and drank with the disciples, healed and prayed, cried and celebrated gives the disciples a way to remember this aspect of relationship with God and the new freedom they are about to experience through Jesus’ actions on the cross. Gathered together at the table of remembering Jesus takes bread, the common everyday food and he blesses it and then breaks the loaf and gives it to the disciples saying this is my body, do this to remember me. And then Jesus takes the cup of wine, the drink of celebrations blesses it and gives it to the disciples saying this is the new covenant, in my blood, drink it to remember my promise to you. In the future, Jesus tells the disciples, whenever you eat this bread and drink this cup you will remember what I have done for you. On the cross in body broken and blood poured out Jesus frees us from sin and death. At the table, in broken bread and wine poured out Jesus forgives us, freeing us to move past our mistakes and our failures to the wholeness of new life in Christ. And what does that new life look like? It looks like Jesus kneeling at the feet of his disciples washing their feet, an act of love and humility that Jesus says they are to copy as they live out the new commandment of Jesus, to love one another just as Jesus has loved them. This is the sign to others that you are my disciples Jesus tells them in the gospel of John, the love that you have for one another. Yes, we have two different stories of Jesus’ last night with the disciples, in Matthew, Mark and Luke we hear about the last supper, in John we hear about the washing of feet and the new commandment, these were the stories, the memories passed down in the communities where the gospels were first written and while they are different, and we might wonder at that both the stories are included in our holy scriptures because ultimately we need both stories for our relationship with God. we need the new commandment that points us toward the future in Christ, a future marked by love lived out in service to others, and we need the forgiveness found when Jesus comes to us in bread and wine, body and blood, after we have failed to love as Jesus loves and we need to hear these stories again and again as again and again we hear the command to love and receive the forgiveness of God living in the law of love and the grace of Jesus. So we tell the stories when we gather, we hand down memories in the telling, and acting, the taste and touch, the smells and the singing these memories remind us of who we are, people who live in freedom because of the great acts of God, people who are to love and serve their neighbors, people with a God who comes to us in bread and wine to remind us that we are God’s children, fed and forgiven, freed to love. Amen
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AboutPastor Emily Johnson preaches weekly at Christ Lutheran. These are manuscripts of her sermons given at Christ Lutheran. Feel free to engage with them in the comments section of the blog. Archives
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