Thursday, March 29, 2018

Maundy Thursday - How We Begin

I noted in my sermon on Sunday that in the Palm Sunday service, in less than twenty minutes, we moved from the celebration of Christ’s entrance into Jerusalem to the tragedy of his betrayal and crucifixion and death. This evening and tomorrow morning, we walk through the story of how it happened that way and we see how it all went wrong. 

Already we have begun our journey through the same shifts that the twelve disciples went through in their last night and day with Jesus, starting with forgiveness and then to being served and being called to serve in return to being united over a meal to betrayal and flight. Today and tomorrow force us to witness how the twelve, who so fervently loved Jesus, who obeyed him, who called him Lord, participated in the darkness in which his life ended. Today and tomorrow force us to reflect on the ways in which we, who also love Jesus, do not love others as our Lord commands, turn away from serving those in need, and participate in darkness. At the end of tonight’s service, after we celebrate Holy Communion together, after we remember that we are one body in the one body of Christ, we will then strip away everything that matters from this space. We will, through the actions of removing the Communion vessels, the paraments, the light of Christ in the Paschal Candle, and through our silence in the face of approaching death, re-enact the flight of the disciples after Jesus’ arrest, not as if we are play-acting the events of Jesus’ Last Supper, but as a reminder to ourselves that every time we fail to love another, every time we betray someone we love, every time we are silent in the face of someone else’s persecution, every time we run away from someone else’s pain, we are doing all these things to Christ, as well.

As I said, we participate in darkness. Which is a nice way of saying that we participate in death. At every moment, we, as the human species, as a country, as a community, as a congregation, are culpable in the death of others, which means we are culpable in the death of Christ. It was because of us and our actions and inactions––because we did not love, because we did not serve, because we did not give up what we have for others––that Jesus Christ, fully human and fully divine, ended up on the cross. It is because of us that darkness came into the world as he died. We are how it all went wrong. This is where we will end this evening, and what we will face again tomorrow morning.

This is where we end, but this is not where we begin. And while I said on Sunday that where we ultimately end is of critical importance, where we begin is, too.

We begin with God’s forgiveness. This evening begins with forgiveness. The very first thing we did this evening was to confess our sins and to hear that God forgives us. You heard that you, even though you have sinned through what you have done and what you have left undone, even though you have not loved your neighbours as yourselves, even though you have participated in the darkness that brings death, you receive the forgiveness of all your sins. And, if you came forward, the sign of the cross that represents your forgiveness was inscribed on your forehead, right over the cross of ashes that you received on Ash Wednesday that represented death, which itself was inscribed over the cross that you received in baptism.

Which means that this evening actually begins with our baptism. Which in turn means that all of the darkness we have participated in, and will participate in, has already been washed away and forgiven. Because it is not just we who begin in baptism, but God who begins with baptism. God sees you only through the lens of your baptism, which is why God forgives you for all of your sins. That is not to say that God does not see what you have done and left undone, but to say that God, knowing exactly what betrayals and darknesses you have perpetrated and will perpetrate, made an unbreakable commitment to you from the very beginning to always be there for you and to always welcome you into the light.

It is this relationship that God has with us in Christ that is at the heart of every ritual we participate in this evening, and that gets us through the coming darkness. This relationship in which God reaches out to us first; God does for us first what we then are called to do for others. God models for us what we are to do, so that we might be strengthened to do likewise. God doesn’t ask us to face our darkness and to acknowledge our wrongs and to love and serve one another without first equipping us. Without first forgiving us and serving us and loving us.

And so, this evening, when we wash one another’s hands, you will first be washed so that you can wash others in return. The hands that we have turned into fists, that have grabbed, that have withheld, that have been used to send words that hurt––these hands will be washed in the waters of our baptismal font, so that they can become hands that touch gently, that offer to others, that share, that are open in love, that serve. Jesus begins the commandment that we should serve one another by serving us first.

And then we will be fed. We will come to the table with all of our cares and sorrows, weighed down by what we have done and what we are about to do, knowing that the darkness approaches, and Christ will offer us his life, just as he offered his life to Peter who denied him, Judas who betrayed him, and all the other disciples who abandoned him. You will be given food for the journey, to sustain you so that you can endure what is coming.


So come. Be served, be fed, and know that God pours love and forgiveness into us this night so that we can acknowledge our own guilt in the darkness that approaches. And so that we can begin, once again, to move towards the light. Thanks be to God. Amen.

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