Sermon preached by the Rev’d. Cynthia Jackson on Maundy Thursday 20.3.08.

‘I give you a new commandment that you love one another. Just as I have loved you should also love one another.’(John13: 34).

On Monday and Tuesday in Holy Week we had the privilege of listening to two meditative talks given by Tulo Raistrick and  by Richard our Vicar. They explored the cleansing of the Temple by Jesus and Jesus being anointed by an un-named woman in the house of a friend.  A very public and a very private act.

Yesterday evening we then moved on to an even more public act – following in the footsteps of our lord Jesus Christ as we walked the Way of the Cross in church. We started with our Lord’s arrest and trial, his journey to calvary, crucifixion, death, burial, but also the anticipation of the Resurrection. This was very much a corporate act of worship with 14 members of the congregation reading at each station.  Again Jesus was very much in the public domain.

Tonight on this Maundy Thursday the scene changes initially to the private domain of a dinner party. We move from the red of Palm Sunday and Monday Tuesday and Wednesday of holy week to white or gold.  Tonight we commemorate and re-enact the institution of the sacrament of Holy Communion by our lord Jesus Christ.  Our Gospel reading is from John’s Gospel and strangely unlike the gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke there is no mention of the taking, breaking and sharing of bread and wine.  Tom Wright suggests that the synoptic gospels tell us what Jesus said; John tells us what Jesus never said but what he was always saying! We hear the account of the institution of Holy Communion from St. Paul’s letter to the Corinthians.

So Jesus meets with his friends once again over a meal but a very special type of meal. The last meal he would eat with his disciples. But these disciples still cannot comprehend, despite all that Jesus has told them, that their Lord and teacher is moving nearer and nearer to his death.  The disciples are too bound up in their thoughts and desires still concerned with who was to be the greatest in this new kingdom that Jesus had proclaimed.

It was the custom before a meal especially if visitors were present for a slave or servant to wash people’s feet. No slave was present at this meal and none of the disciples were willing to take on this menial humble role and wash Jesus and their fellow disciples’ feet.  So what happens Jesus wraps a towel around his waist and gets down on his hands and knees and washes his disciples feet himself.  We shall re-enact that foot-washing presently as those members of the congregation who want take part do so.  We literally trust ourselves to one another’s hands.

 It is a reminder to us of Jesus’ role as the ‘Servant King’.   A reminder too that we are to become servants one to another. Peter you remember blusters and does not want his feet washed but we heard in John’s Gospel how Jesus told him ‘Unless I wash you , you have no share with me.’ (John 13, v. 8.) And then typical over-the-top Peter replies, ‘Lord, not my feet only but also my hands and my head. (John 13 v. 9.) How appropriate that the traditional anthem for Maundy Thursday is ‘Mandatum novum do vobis’ – A new commandment I give you. And of course that new commandment is that you Love one another as I have loved you.

Tonight we use a pottery chalice and paten and a bread roll instead of wafers to remind ourselves that this was a real meal that Jesus had with his friends.  He took, blessed and broke the bread, signifying his body that was to be broken on the cross for his disciples and for the whole world, for you and for me

Jesus took, blessed and shared the wine, signifying his blood that was to be outpoured for his disciples and for the whole world, for you and for me.  What a privilege we have each time that the Holy Communion is celebrated to share in this re-enactment.  We receive the life-giving power of Jesus Christ into our lives, this life-giving power of sacrificial love.  How can we be absent from such a celebration? What else is going to give us the spiritual food that we need to sustain us?  Where else do we receive unconditional Love this free gift of grace?

Our next scene in the events of Maundy Thursday is the scene in the Garden of Gethsemane, a place well known to the disciples and Jesus, a public place.  Jesus knows that Judas has betrayed him to the Jewish authorities. He is exhausted in body and in agony of mind as he contemplates his road to crucifixion.  With him are his disciples oblivious to the sequence of events that Judas has set in train.   Jesus goes apart to pray and takes Peter and James and John with him. Jesus flings himself down to the ground to pray desperately trying to come to terms with all that is to happen. Jesus the man not wanting to go through torture and crucifixion, Jesus the divine being who know that he has to follow the will of God.  But we do not read of these details in John’s Gospel but we can pick up the detailed story in Matthew’s Gospel, chapter 26. Jesus says to Peter, James and John, ‘ I am deeply grieved, even to death; remain here, and stay awake with me.’   Jesus commends himself into God’s hands,  ‘My Father, if this cup cannot pass from me unless I drink it, your will be done.’

But the disciples are tired and cannot keep awake to support Jesus in prayer. After the third time Jesus allows them to sleep and goes away to pray on his own.

We may feel outraged by the action of the disciples, how could Judas betray Jesus, how could the disciples fall asleep in Jesus’ time of need? What would we have done? How strong would we have been in the defence of Jesus? How do witness to Jesus today? I am sure that we are all to well aware of our own human frailty.

Tonight at the end of this service as the consecrated bread that is over from the communion, the broken Body of Christ, that is to be kept for communion on Good Friday, is taken in procession to the Chapel representing the Garden of Gethsemane, we follow Jesus like the disciples and meet in the Garden.

Our watch of prayer until midnight represents the time that Jesus spent praying in his time of need for the strength to go on and face suffering and death. So let us gather there and pray silently each one of us here tonight, staying as long as we are able. We meditate on the enormous sacrifice that Jesus made for the whole world and for you and for me. We watch in prayer with Jesus hoping unlike the disciples that we can stay awake.

We may want to read an account of Our Lord’s Passion and there will be bibles on the table at the entrance to the chapel.  In our prayers we can offer up to God our own sorrows and failures, our thanksgivings and joys, and pray for God’s broken world, for all who are sick or suffering or dying at this time.

We are united in this special time of prayer with Christians around the world, with all our loved ones who have gone ahead of us, and with angels and archangels and the entire heavenly host.  If we do not know what words to use we can just light a candle, letting the light express those words we cannot say, the light uniting us with Christ the Light of the world. 

Our Eucharist ends in silence as we each ultimately depart for our own homes until we meet again for our Good Friday worship.

We adore you O Christ and we bless you because by your Holy Cross you have redeemed the world.  Amen.