Sermon for
Maundy Thursday
March 20, 2008
Exodus 12:1–4[5–10] 11–14
Psalm 116:1–2, 12–19
1 Corinthians 11:23–26
John 13:1–17, 31b–35
Year A
I.N.I. (In the name of Jesus)
The Triduum, or Three Days’ of our Passover from death to life, has begun in earnest.
We are in a very palatable way enacting what it means to be a community in Christ.
Tonight, our actions are threefold.
We confess our sins before God, our judge, through Christ our mediator, and at the end of our 40 Days of Penance pronounced forgiven. “In obedience to the command of our Lord Jesus Christ, I forgive you all your sins.”
We lug our bodies up to the front, and expose a part of our anatomy not known for beauty, our feet, in order to know the servant-like posture of Jesus, who commanded that we love one another as he has loved us. And the water soothes and makes our toes tingle. “I give you a new commandment.”
A third time we approach the altar, leaving our sins for Christ, whose body and blood is offered in exchange for our own lives, and all are welcome to eat and to drink, to remember, to commune, and to be changed. “Do this for the remembrance of me.”
These rituals connect us to the multi-layered activity of God with the Jewish people and their experience of Passover. The Exodus from Egypt becomes the root story for understanding liberation, for homecoming, and for community-making.
In the Exodus account, the thumb-screws of the oppressors are forced to become released, and the path to a new life and a movement to the promised land is begun.
In the recipe for the Seder Meal commemorating the event already in Exodus 12, the lamb eaten hurriedly includes details of the menu that become reinterpreted throughout subsequent years to root memory. That memory includes the threat of death, the spilling of blood, and deliverance for those who renew God’s covenant.
In the gathering of Jesus with his disciples, another lens of meaning covers the Seder Meal, so that tonight we might remember the threat of death, the spilling of blood, and deliverance for those who renew God’s covenant.
In our communion meal, we take bread and wine as if we are taking in Jesus’ body and blood, and discover in the eating and the drinking a new found freedom.
In our communion meal, we are pronounced forgiven, and remember the great act of Jesus’ death for our sake and for the sake of the world.
Our ritual activity in these Three Days’ makes us who we really are, as in
we are what we eat.
we are known for our loving service to one another
Jesus’ death and resurrection draws the world to be reconciled to God.
How does it feel to be loved so deeply?
How does it feel to be washed, fed, and forgiven?
How does it feel to have Christ’s death and new life in you?
Isn’t it awesome?
I.N.I.
The Rev. Timothy J. Keyl, Pastor
Christ the King Lutheran Church
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