A17 Maundy Thursday

Homily for

Maundy Thursday
[Sacred Triduum: Commemoration of the Last Supper]

Thursday 13 April 2017

The Episcopal Church of the Holy Cross

Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania

A Parish of the Diocese of Bethlehem and The Episcopal Church

Readings:

http://www.lectionarypage.net/YearABC_RCL/HolyWk/MaundyTh_RCL.html

On Monday evening, our Jewish brothers and sisters recalled the words of Exodus that we have heard this night.  As the sun set on that night, these people of God marked again the deliverance of the people of God from slavery in Egypt, recalling how God, having witnessed their suffering and oppression, brought them deliverance in the Passover, the night on which their journey to the Promised Land began.  This is the feast of Passover, also known as Pascha, the celebration of the victory of the Lord.

Tonight, we take up this celebration and begin our celebration of Pascha.  And as we do so, we do well to recall what Scripture says about the keeping of this feast of the victory of life, a victory attained not by mere mortals, but by God alone, not for the benefit of God but rather for the benefit of the people whom God has chosen to be a holy people, consecrated to God.

Tonight, I want to take you beyond the ending of the appointed reading from Exodus for the beginning of the Triduum, the Three Days’ Liturgy in which we commemorate the death and resurrection of our Lord, God, and Savior Jesus Christ.  Not long after the conclusion of this reading, we find the following directions from Moses to the people:

When you come to the land that the Lord will give you, as he has promised, you shall keep this observance.  And when your children ask you, “What do you mean by this observance?” you shall say, “It is the Passover sacrifice to the Lord, for he passed over the houses of the Israelites in Egypt, when he struck down the Egyptians but spared our houses.”’  And the people bowed down and worshipped.

To this day, these verses mark how Passover is kept by our Jewish friends.  When the story of the Passover of the Lord is told even now, it is told not as a story of what God did for our ancestors.  Instead it is told as a remembrance of what God did for us, how God delivered us out of bondage in Egypt, how God claimed us as a people and brought us through the night and into the light of day, through the waters and the desert into the promises of God.  This is not someone else’s story.  It is our story.  God has acted on our behalf!

As Christians, we would do well to embrace such a vision.  Tonight, we gather to commemorate the Last Supper, the Passover that Christ kept as he was about to become the Passover Lamb with whose blood we are marked and consecrated to God.  Tomorrow we will recall that sacrifice as we stand once more at the foot of the cross and commemorate the crucifixion.  On Saturday morning, we will sit at the grave and recall the Sabbath rest of Christ in the tomb among those who have fallen asleep before him.  And in the cover of darkness on Saturday night, having heard again and again the stories of deliverance from the Old Covenant, we will proclaim the glad tidings that Jesus is risen from the dead, that he has clothed us in his own eternal life.   In all this we keep Passover; we celebrate Pascha!

The wonder of all these things that we commemorate in this Three Days’ Liturgy is that this is our story.  Jesus has done all this not for someone else.  He has offered himself up for us.  He has laid down his life and taken it up again for us and for our salvation.  This is not someone else’s story.  This is our story!

And what are we called to do with this story, this Gospel of Jesus?  The answer lies in those additional words of Exodus that I read moments ago.  When we keep this feast, commemorating the Passion, Death and Resurrection of Jesus, we share not only with our children but with the world that we keep this Passover in remembrance that when Jesus died and was risen from the dead, he delivered us from bondage and sin, from death and suffering.  Jesus did not endure all of this for someone else.  He did so for you and me, simply because of the great love that he has for us all, a love that can hardly be described in words.

And yet we must seek the words that speak this love.  More importantly, we must put these words into actions; actions that point us always to a God who loved us not because we deserve such favor.  If we deserve it, after all, such love is never grace but right.  But the Scriptures of the New Covenant, sealed in the blood of the true Passover Lamb of God, Christ Jesus, remind us again and again that when we were still yet sinners, Jesus loved us, and sought us out, and clothed us with his own life, that nothing might keep us from the knowledge and love of God.

Look at the world around us, dear friend, this very night, and see how the world is in such need of this grace.  We have received grace upon grace, blessing upon blessing, in order that we might be grace and blessing to a world that receives this from no other place.  There is none other who loves in this way.  There is none other who seeks out the dying and gives life eternal.  It is God alone who does this.  And if we who are the Church fail to go and do likewise, the world about us will rightly call us hypocrites for claiming such a gift but not sharing it.

Only remember that there is one whose words towards us if we fail to share this story of grace are even more significant than those of the world.  Christ has shared with us the vision of judgment in which the sheep and the goats are separated before the victorious Lamb risen from the dead.  There is only one striking difference between the sheep and the goats.  Both are aware of the presence of the hungry, and the naked, and the thirsty, and the dying, who have been in their midst throughout life.  But what has been missed by some is the fact that the face of Christ is found in these ones.  What has gone unnoticed is that when grace and mercy and blessing have been shown, these things have been given not simply to them but to Christ.

As we remember again these sacred mysteries of the victory of Christ who loves us in spite of our unworthiness, who clothes us, feeds us, gives life to us, let us always seek to go and do likewise.  Let us boldly share with the world around us that we commemorate all these things, for in them, God has delivered not just us, but all people, by the blood of Christ.  How much powerfully will the Gospel be received and bear fruits of life if we see the face of Christ in all persons, listening to his voice that longs for us to bring all whom we encounter to him who is the fountain of eternal life that can never be taken away.

Father

Timothy

Alleman