Love as Strong as Death
Deacon Scott Elliott
Maundy Thursday
The Eighteenth Century British writer, Samuel Johnson, once said, "Depend upon it, sir, when a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind wonderfully."
We don't know how long it took Jesus and his companions to travel from the Mount of the Transfiguration to Jerusalem. We revisit the Transfiguration on the last Sunday of the Ordinary Time, just before Ash Wednesday. So it's taken us about three fortnights, six weeks, to make that journey.
Before going up that mountain, Jesus had pretty much just been wandering around Galilee, doing a healing here and a miraculous feeding there. Pretty aimless, if not pointless. After coming down that mountain, Jesus began to make his way to Jerusalem, encountering people and opportunities as he walked. But he was on his way. On his way to Jerusalem: to die.
Since the third century, Mount Tabor has been identified as the place where the Transfiguration happened. It's about ten miles or so west of the Southern tip of the Sea of Galilee. As the crow flies, it's about 65 miles from there to Jerusalem. If Jesus had followed the bank of the Jordan River, and it appears he did – modern Route 65 to 71, then 90 south to Jericho and then Highway 1 west to Jerusalem – it would have been about 85 miles.
At an easy ten miles a day, it would have been a little over a week. A few stops along the way, and a few days in town following the Triumphal Entry, back out to Bethany to hang with Mary and Martha and Lazarus a while, and Johnson's fortnight sounds about right to me.
A fortnight of travel to … tonight. Tonight is the last night of Jesus's life. And Jesus's mind was concentrated wonderfully.
The Gospel witnesses tell us that he knew he was going to be resurrected, but there is no suggestion that he had any idea of what that would be like. Would he do anything, afterwards? Say anything? Would he be able to say or do anything? Would he be around for an hour? A day? A week? A year?
So, so far as we know, so far as he knew, this was It. Anything he was ever going to do with his friends, his followers, his disciples, he was going to do tonight. Anything he was going to give to that little band of glorious dummies that had been following him around all this time, he was going to give tonight. And what did he do? What did he give us? He gave us three things:
A symbol, a practice, and an order.
The symbol he gave us is the footwashing. It was an essential part of hospitality in first-century Jewish Palestine that a host would give his guests the opportunity to wash their feet upon entering the house. Out there in that part of the world, it gets hot and dusty, and they didn't wear shoes. Jesus himself observes that one who has bathed does not need to wash, except for the feet.
Of course, the host would never ever ever do such a thing himself! He would have the slave do it. It's dirty work. If there were many slaves, that task went to the newest, youngest, least-ranking slave. It's dirty, nasty work. If the host were too poor to own a slave, then the youngest child – probably the youngest daughter, but I don't know that – the lowest-ranking person in the household would be compelled to do it. It's sloppy, dirty, nasty work.
And just like Jesus does it, that work would have been done naked, or nearly so. It's sloppy, dirty, nasty, shaming work.
So when Jesus stripped down to his underwear to do that, no wonder the disciples, and everybody else there, were scandalized! No wonder Peter, who really believed he would go to the ends of the Earth for his master, refused at first!
But Jesus requires it of himself, that he submit to Peter and the others. And Jesus requires it of Peter, that he submit to Jesus's submission. So Jesus requires it of us, that we may have a part of Jesus. Sloppy, dirty, nasty, shaming work. But it is an essential, mandatory part of hospitality. And hospitality is an essential, mandatory part of living in community with Jesus.
As part of this community's self-assessment which we will need to do over the next year or two, to prepare to welcome a new pastor, we really need to ask ourselves: What does it mean that this community doesn't do footwashing?
A symbol, and a practice, and an order.
The practice he left us is the Eucharist. It's funny, given the extreme emphasis John places on this last week of Jesus's life, and especially this last night of Jesus's life, that only in John's Gospel is the Institution of the Eucharist NOT mentioned – which is why we hear tonight from Paul's recounting of it in the First Letter to the church at Corinth.
In the Institution of the Eucharist, Jesus does four things with the Bread: He takes it; He blesses it; He breaks it; And he gives it.
He declares that the Bread is not just bread, but that the Bread is himself: "This is my Body."
And Jesus does with that Bread what God did with Jesus: God took him; blessed him; is about to break him; and to give him — to be a full, perfect, and sufficient sacrifice, for us and for the whole world.
We are the Church: the Body of Christ. And God does with us as God did with Jesus: Separately and together, God takes us; and blesses us; and – make no mistake – God breaks us; and God gives us to each other and to the world he came to love.
When we come here, when we bring our gifts and creatures of bread and wine; We place ourselves on the altar, to proclaim the Lord's death until he comes again. As we've been saying for six weeks now, By his blood, he reconciled us; By his wounds, we are healed.
A symbol, a practice, and an order.
The order he gives us is where we get the name of the Day: Maundy Thursday. "Maundy" is an old English word, which comes from the same Latin word which gives us the word, "mandate."
If something is mandatory, it is required: a command. And the Commandment Jesus gives, the New Commandment Jesus lays upon us, is harder and stronger than all the Commandments, all the mitzvot and avierot, all the "do thisses" and "don't do thats" in the Laws of Moses and Leviticus and Deuteronomy, which this Commandment fulfills and supercedes:
A Commandment harder and stronger than anyone can possibly withstand: that we shall love one another. That we shall love one another, just as Jesus loved his disciples. That we shall love one another, just as Jesus loves us. That our love for one another shall be as strong as Death, as it says in the Song of Songs; as fierce as the grave to which Jesus is about to go out of love for us. That our love for one another shall burn so hot and bright that every gathering of Christ's people should be visible from space, so that everyone can see and know that God is Love.
That in this and every community, gathered around our Lord's Table, God's love shall be so obvious and clear in every one of us, that everyone who has eyes can see and know that God is Love.
Now, if someone has a mandate, that one has an obligation – but also the authority to fulfil that obligation, and the power. We have that.
We have that obligation from Jesus, and we have the authority from the Father, and we have the power through The Holy Spirit, to love one another.
By setting aside our fear and pride, by taking off our outer garments and taking on our Lord's abject hospitality; by placing ourselves on the altar, to be given for the life of the world; being free to live as sons and daughters in our Father's house, sharing in the joy of Christ's obedience.
So let us give Glory to God, whose power, working in us, can do infinitely more than we can ask or imagine; Glory to God from generation to generation in the church, and in Christ Jesus, for ever and ever. Amen.
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