Sermon for Maundy Thursday
April 5, 2007
Exodus 12:1-14
Psalm 116:1-2, 12-19
1 Corinthians 11:23-26
John 13:1-17, 31b-35
Year C
I.N.I. (In the name of Jesus)
We are telling our freedom stories and singing our freedom songs in these Three Days.
Like the Israelites, we are marking our doorposts to be delivered from slavery.
Like Noah and his family, we are making a new world through the waters of the flood.
Like the three men in the fiery furnace, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, we are delivered from the Nebuchadnezzars of our day, with angels attending to us with fire doing us no harm.
This is our celebration of Passover, in Hebrew Pesach, in Latin Pascha, the highpoint of the liturgical year culminating in the
paschal mystery
of Christ's passing over from death into life, and our very own participation in dying and rising.
All four gospels reach their pinnacle in Jesus' suffering, death, and resurrection. All four gospels have as the Passover as the context for Jesus' death.
Early on in the gospel of John, as soon as John lays his eyes on Jesus, he pegs him by saying, "Here is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world." (John 1:29)
In the midst of his exhortation to the community at Corinth to stop their bickering, to curb their gluttonous behavior, and to stop ignoring the poorer members of the community, Paul pegs Jesus when he says "For our paschal lamb, Christ, has been sacrificed. Therefore, let us celebrate the festival." (1 Corinthians 5:7b)
By the time we get to the end of the New Testament, the risen and glorified Jesus has been transformed into a kind of Lamb-King. With the vision of the new Jerusalem within sight, the writer of Revelation bubbles over with lamb language. Listen for it:
22I saw no temple in the city, for its temple is the Lord God the Almighty and the Lamb.
23And the city has no need of sun or moon to shine on it, for the glory of God is its light, and its lamp is the Lamb.
24The nations will walk by its light, and the kings of the earth will bring their glory into it.
25Its gates will never be shut by day and there will be no night there.
26People will bring into it the glory and the honor of the nations.
27But nothing unclean will enter it, nor anyone who practices abomination or falsehood, but only those who are written in the Lamb's book of life.
(Revelation 21:22-27)
Like the visionary writer of the book of Revelation, we have the new Jerusalem within sight. Within just a few days, we will be basking in the glow of Easter. In the meantime, there is much to be done to get ready.
Tonight we begin our Three Day journey with the washing of feet. We offer it as a tactile experience of receiving love, as if Christ himself is there with towel, pitcher and basin. We offer it as a tactile experience of sharing love with one another, feet first.
In her essay on "Honoring the Body," Stephanie Paulsell relates the loneliness of a student living alone in Italy for a year reporting that
she attended mass every evening in the small town where she lived, to worship God not only through word and sacrament but through touch.
Living alone, she often went all day without felling a human touch. The ritual moment of passing the peace was the high point of the service
for her, because it provided a safe space for her to touch and be touched by other people-even people whom she did not know.
(From Practicing our Faith, San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, © 1997, pp. 22-23)
Tonight we share the peace as if forgiveness is new to us, and as if we are so ready for another's embrace.
Tonight we share the meal of forgiveness and mercy, and like the Israelites smearing blood on the lintels, cross Jesus on our bodies, take Jesus into our bodies, remembering, re-membering Jesus' promise that this bread and this wine is his own self, given and shed for us.
Our Pesach, pascha, paschal celebrating has begun. Freedom is on the way. Love is to be shared. Feet first, we honor service.
Will you give yourself over to this Three Day celebration, recognizing the enormity of the rituals, the symbolism, and the story-telling as announcing to all comers that Christ has come to make all things new, and to leave bickering, sin, and division behind?
Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world.
Peace be with you.
Love one another, as Christ has loved you.
I.N.I.
The Rev. Timothy J. Keyl, Pastor
Christ the King Lutheran Church
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