Maundy Thursday (Year C) - April 18, 2019

Maundy Thursday
Year C
April 18, 2019
1 Corinthians 11:23-26

This year, our midweek services centered around the Seven Last Words of Christ. As Richard Cline, pastor of Olive Branch, said in his sermon on Ash Wednesday this year, we tend to want to know and immortalize the last words of people - of friends and family or of famous people. For instance, tradition holds that the last words of Martin Luther (the namesake for our own denomination) were, “We are beggars, that is true.” Tonight, I’m less concerned with Jesus’ last words (that’s for tomorrow), but tonight, we encounter a related topic - how Jesus prepares his disciples (and us) for his death. These concrete actions are actions that prepare us for life with our loved one being absent from us. If I’m honest, we live in a death avoidant culture; we don’t often take moments to look death in the face. I think that’s one gift of Holy Week, in courageously facing the death of our Lord and Savior, Jesus, Jesus prepares us to look at death. This week, we face mortality with the promise that our mortality - and the mortality of our loved ones - does not have the final word.

Often, when people know (or suspect) that they’re going to die, they take moments to prepare their loved ones for that. A text to say “I love you” when a plane malfunctions. Gathering with friends and family, to talk about last wishes and to reminisce about the good times spent together. My grandfather died early in the morning on January 2, 2006. I was thirteen and a bit naive about what was happening. At the time, I had a fear of hospitals, so I only went to see him a couple of times while he was hospitalized that last few weeks. But we all - my folks, my brother, my aunts, uncles, and cousins - went to the hospital on Jan 1, New Year’s day. Much of that day, if I’m honest, is a blur in my mind. However, That day was important to him; to this day, I think he knew he was dying. I didn’t - I was waiting for him to come home, but I think he knew. For me, it was any other time seeing Pap, but for him, it was time to show his love to each one of us. We talked. We played cards in the hospital room. We told stories. We said our “I love yous” and after several hours we went home. After we left, my mom went back to spend some time with him and to share dinner with him, as she did most evenings. That evening, he said to her, “I love you. I’m going to go to sleep now.” He was ready to go. He had his day with his family - his day with the people closest to him. It was a day to make sure that we all knew that we were loved. It was his day to prepare us for no longer having him. (Thirteen years later, I still tear up thinking - and talking - about it).

Others have more obvious ways of preparing themselves for death and preparing their loved ones for their absence. “I hope that you’ll go on that trip that we always wanted to take, in my memory.” “I hope that whenever you go fishing, you’ll have a drink for me.” “I hope that you’ll tell the good stories about me when I’m gone.” Paul Kalanithi, a neurosurgeon, was diagnosed with stage IV Lung cancer at age 36. He took the time before his own death to look at death in the face, to write about his journey with cancer, to leave something behind for friends and family, especially for his infant daughter to have, in his absence. He never was able to finish the manuscript. His wife took on that task, writing the epilogue and getting When Breath Becomes Air published. In the last words that he wrote for the book, he writes for his daughter, hoping that she would always know the joy that she brought him, in her short time with him. He writes, “do not, I pray, discount that you filled a dying man’s days with a sated joy, a joy unknown to me in all my prior years, a joy that does not hunger for more and more, but rests, satisfied. In this time, right now, that is an enormous thing” (Kalanithi, 199). In the act of writing, he wanted to prepare his daughter for growing up in his absence, assuring her of all that she meant to him.

Tonight, Jesus does an enormous thing. He faces his own death (yet again) preparing those whom he loved for his own death. We hear about Jesus’ last supper with his disciples - in two places in tonight’s texts - in 1 Corinthians with the Institution of the Last supper, and in John with Jesus washing the disciples’ feet. Like me with my grandfather, I think Jesus’ followers were a bit in denial about what was happening; this was just another passover meal. Nothing special; they’d have all the time in the world together. However, Jesus knew that he was about to leave them. Jesus knew that he was going to die on Friday. He knew that, despite telling his followers again and again that he would be raised on the third day, that his death would bring fear, sadness, grief. He knew that once he rose, he would eventually ascend back to the Father and his followers and friends would have to keep this Kingdom building going without Jesus physically being there. These acts of foot washing and sharing a sacred meal are both concrete acts that Jesus takes to prepare his disciples, his loved ones, his friends - and the future Christian community - for his impending death. In these concrete acts, he prepares them - and us - for his absence - at least physical absence from us. He gives them and us gifts that shape who we are and our identities, grounded in what Jesus does in his own death.

The Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke - as well as our 2nd reading from 1 Corinthians, look at the institution of the Last Supper, Holy Communion to be the “thing” that Jesus does to prepare us for his own death. Our reading for today is the earliest known writing of the Institution of the Last Supper. For Paul, he is greatly disturbed by the misuses of the Last Supper by the Corinthians. They’ve used it as a way of reinforcing and even enhancing the differences between members of the community. In short, everyone brought their own food to the meal - so the hungry left hungry, and those who were well off left full.

Paul offers a corrective and turns them back to why Jesus instituted the last supper in the first place. After all, Jesus instituted this sacramental meal to prepare the community for his death and physical absence. Jesus instituted this meal in order to prepare this budding new Christian community for Kingdom building life, in community with one another.  In instituting this last supper as part of the Passover meal, Jesus links his death with the deliverance of the exodus. Jesus’ death (and resurrection), then is a new act of God’s deliverance. It is an act that establishes a new covenant between God and humanity as Jesus gives his own body and blood for them on the cross. Jesus’ death introduces a new way of being with one another and with God, one in which all societal norms are turned upside down - where the barriers between members of the community are broken down. It is a gift of radical grace that grounds their relationship, not just with God, but each other - those whom they gather around the table with - in the life-giving work of Jesus. They are bound together around that table. Jesus’ desire for the community is one of life, together, bound by Jesus’ gifts of bread and wine. When they gather, when they share together the bread and wine, they are to remember Jesus’ self-giving love and to trust in Jesus’ presence in the elements of bread and wine. It is a call for them to remember who they are and to whom they belong. 

When we gather each week around the table, we encounter Jesus’ death and resurrection, and we are brought back to who we are and to whom we belong. We gather in remembrance of everything Jesus does for each one of us. We gather in remembrance that Jesus did everything necessary for us to be made right with God, and nothing can ever break that relationship with God. We gather, giving thanks, for the gifts of forgiveness and new life found in the bread and in the cup.  Deliverance and salvation belong to us, as a gift. In this meal, Jesus prepares us for his physical absence by promising to be truly present in the bread and wine, strengthening and keeping us so that we may be Kingdom builders, that we may be bearers of the light of Christ. We are promised that, in the sacraments, we encounter the incarnate and risen Lord - we meet the Christ of memory, the Christ of the present, and the Christ of the future. In this meal, Jesus prepares us for his absence by binding us to one another - so that all around the table are united and become the one body of Christ for the sake of the world. So we don’t ever need to go it alone. In this meal, Jesus prepares us for his absence by binding us together in these gifts that indeed are for us and for all people. In this meal, Jesus prepares us for his absence by promising that he indeed will come again; neither his death nor his ascension will be the end to our life and our mission with Jesus. In this meal, we are invited to look at Jesus’ death, to stand in the shadow of the cross, to be assured of Christ’s presence among us, to trust in Christ’s saving act on the cross, and to be united with one another around this table.

“For as often as you eat of this bread and drink from this cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.”

Amen.