SACRED NOURISHMENT AND MINISTRY

An Homily for Maundy Thursday

20 March, AD 2008

TEXT: Epistle and Gospel for Maundy Thursday

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.

          Tonight commemorates a night unlike any other night you could ever imagine. The effects of what happened on this night almost two thousand years ago are still felt and I dare say will be felt for some time into our collective future. Tonight was/is/and will be a night where the ancient past, the present, and the future all converge as we, Christians, gather to commemorate and remember what happened at this time so many years ago.

          Tonight has characteristics of the original Passover – that night when God saved the Hebrews from the avenging angel of death as he visited the first-born of the Egyptians and smote them in their beds, thus securing the freedom of the Hebrews slave from Pharaoh. Tonight also calls to mind the night on which Our Lord celebrated that event of deliverance with His Apostles in the Upper Room – a celebration of the Old Covenant with God by which He came to have a relationship with His people. Yet, what happened on that night was no ordinary Passover celebration. For what Jesus did in that Upper Room with His Apostles would turn the world’s conception of reality upside down if it only had the eyes to see with and the ears with which to hear.

          For what Jesus did in the sacred signs and symbols of the Old Covenant created a New Testament, a new covenant, a new relationship with God in which the old was fulfilled and transformed by the New. The old system of Jewish sacrifice would be made complete – once and for all by the Sacrifice of Jesus Christ on the Cross. Jesus told them, Himself, that now the bread which they ate was His Body and the Cup which they drank was His Blood and that all of this was to come to be for the remission of their sins and the sins of the whole world – even yours, even mine this very night!

          St. Paul took up what happened in the Upper Room when the first Scriptures began to be written, and recorded that event for us in the Epistle tonight. He passes on to us what he, himself received – that on the night in which Jesus was betrayed, He took bread and He took the cup and said that this was the New Testament, the New Covenant between God and His Creation and that we should continue to celebrate this great act of newness – this new relationship of Life, every time we come together to worship God, which we, as faithful Anglicans do every Sunday. So the Sacrament of Our Lord’s Body and Blood has become for us through these 2000 years, a true memorial meal, a symbol full of reality and meaning which transcends all time and all space even up to now at this very moment. An empty symbol cannot do that. Only the fullness of God can; the fullness of God’s presence in our lives each time we come to that altar rail and consume God into our body and soul. We can only be made full by God and only God provides us the means whereby we can truly be filled and lack nothing. It is by that great miracle, the great miracle that happened on the Third Day which was set into motion this night – the night in which Our Lord was betrayed into the hands of sinful men, that we are nourished unto everlasting life. As great as that spiritual nourishment is; past, present, and no with a never-ending future, yet there is still more.

          After supper; that transformed Passover meal, Jesus wrapped a towel around Himself and proceeded to wash His Apostles’ feet as a servant would do. The Apostles were astonished and taken aback and dear Peter didn’t want to have anything to do with it at first. Yet, when Jesus explained what he was doing, Peter enthusiastically acquiesced.

          Earlier this week, Jesus posed a seemingly simple question to them – “Who is greatest? He who sits at meat or he who serves the table?” In the world’s eyes the greater would be he that sits at meat and Jesus confirms that fact. “Yet”, Jesus says, “I come as one that serveth.” He washed His Apostles’ feet as a servant would have, but not out of subserviant drudgery, but out of the humility and Love of God, the Creator of all that is, and by doing so gave us Christians a sign to show the world that we are followers of Jesus Christ. “A new commandment I give unto you”, Jesus told them, “that ye Love one another”. We are not to love as the world loves. That’s too cheap and shallow. No, we are to Love as God loves. We can, you know – or we can strive to. For as we receive God, Himself into our heart, soul, and body through His Sacrament day in and day out, week after week, and month after month, a transformation occurs, if we don’t consciously try to stop it or prevent it – a transformation of our will into God’s will and our actions into God’s actions. Actions of Love, humility, and servant ministry which change people’s lives when we encounter them and then who, hopefully, minister to others when they see their brothers and sisters in need. It is by this new commandment this new sign, Jesus says, that the world will know we are His and He is ours. This is the dimension of the reality we commemorate tonight that informs our future and the future of our civilization. And it hinges on one very serious question tonight as evil thinks it has won the day; How seriously do we take the sacred nourishment available to us in the Sacrament of Our Lord’s Body and Blood and then how fully do we let its power transform our lives so that the world will know we are Christians by the way we Love each other and it? God Almighty has given us almost two thousand years to answer that question. How much more time is He willing to give us until He comes again?

And now, unto God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost be ascribed all might, majesty, power, and dominion as is most justly due this day both now and forever. World without end. Amen.

                                                                SOLI DEO GLORIA – JEU+