Sermon March 28, 2013: Maundy Thursday
(James W.)
Let us pray.
May the words of my mouth and the meditation of our hearts
be acceptable in your sight, Oh Lord, our strength and our Redeemer.
One of the things I most appreciate about Anglicanism is its
view of sacraments. In its most basic
definition, a sacrament is an action or ceremony that communicates God’s grace
to us. These are amazing ways that God
has created to communicate the Gospel to us in a way that goes beyond words and
books.
Maundy Thursday is perhaps the most sacramental service in
the Christian year. Not only does it commemorate
the Institution of the Lord’s Supper, but also includes foot washing and the
stripping of the altar. We can hear a
lot about the need to serve others, but seeing our pastor wash other's feet,
or having our own feet washed, confronts us with the physical act of caring for
another person in a way that words are not able. Similarly, we can hear about how Jesus died
on the cross on Good Friday, but seeing the stripping of the altar can send
chills up our spine and bring tears to our eyes.
Today, I would like to talk to you about the Lord’s Supper,
also known as the Eucharist, Communion or the Mass. One could spend a lot of time talking about
the possible meanings in the Eucharist and only scratch the surface. That is one of the amazing things about
sacraments. They are simple actions or
ceremonies, but they convey such a depth of meaning. Think about the Eucharist. It is involves both a sacrificial death and a
meal all in one! Who else but God could
have come up with such symbolism? A
sacrifice and a meal! The ancient Romans
were scandalized by this and accused the Christians of being cannibals.
So how can we think of the Eucharist? How can we understand something that is both
sacrifice and meal? Often we tend to
focus on only one aspect of it. Some
tend to focus on the sacrificial aspect of it, reflecting on how the death of
Jesus atoned for our sins, while others tend to focus on the Eucharist as a
welcome meal. Understanding the connection
between the Passover and the Eucharist helps us understand how both of these
aspects work together.
We read about the Passover in our first reading and a brief
background is in store. The Passover
came about when God was rescuing the people of Israel out of their bondage and
slavery in Egypt. Those who are doing
the Bible Challenge would have read about it a month or two ago. About two thousand years before Christ,
Joseph brought his rather large family out of Canaan to Egypt in order to
escape a famine. The Pharaoh at the time
welcomed the family of Israel. But over
the next 400 years, the people of Israel multiplied and prospered in Egypt. Successive Pharaohs and the Egyptian people
came to fear and hate the people of Israel and so they enslaved them. Finally, God decided to rescue his people
through Moses. God sent several plagues
on Egypt but the Pharaoh refused to let the Israelites leave.
Finally, God decided on the final plague that would surely
cause the Pharaoh to release the people of Israel. God would send the Angel of Death to each and
every household in the land of Egypt and the first born – both human and animal
- would be killed. God set up a way by
which the people of Israel could avoid this deadly fate, and we read about it
in the passage from the book of Exodus.
Each household was to take a lamb, without spot or blemish, and
sacrifice it. They were to dab the blood
of the lamb on their door frame. When
the Angel of Death saw this blood on the door frame, he would pass over that
house. This is where the term Passover
comes from.
But there is more.
God knew that the Pharaoh would most certainly let the people of Israel
go after this event, indeed he would be most anxious that they left right
away. And so God also instructed the
Israelites that they should cook and eat the entire lamb that very night. What’s more, they should eat it, while being ready
to leave at moment’s notice.
Understanding the Passover can give us important clues to
one way of understanding the Eucharist.
We have all heard of Jesus referred to as the Lamb of God. In fact, we often sing the Agnus Dei, which
is Latin for Lamb of God, before we receive communion. In the Eucharist, Jesus represents the lamb
that was sacrificed for the Israelites.
If we come to the Eucharist in faith, we are trusting in the blood of
Jesus to save us from sin and death, in the same way that the Israelites had to
trust that the blood of the lamb on their door frames would save them from the
Angel of Death. Jesus is our lamb who
was sacrificed for us and whose blood will save us from our sins. This is what we must accept in faith – Jesus’
death on the cross has saved us from our sins.
But just as the people of Israel had to act in faith and sprinkle the
blood of the lamb on their door posts, so we have to act in faith and accept
both our need for salvation and transformation in our lives, and the wonderful
gift of Jesus’ love, forgiveness and transformation.
The Israelites also ate the lamb to give them nourishment
for their journey out of Egypt. And in
the Eucharist, we not only commemorate the sacrifice of Jesus, we also partake
of His body and blood. We are fed by the
body and blood of Jesus. Just as the
Israelites were nourished by the lamb that died to save them from the Angel of
Death, so are we nourished in the Eucharist by Jesus, our lamb that died to
save us from sin and death. And the
nourishment we receive in the Lord’s Supper will give us the strength we need
to keep us on in the journey that God is calling us to take.
In this way, just as the lamb was both sacrificial victim,
savior and nourishment for the people of Israel who were about to escape from
Egypt, so is Jesus our sacrificial victim, Savior and nourishment. And so, turn with me to the middle of page
364 in the Book of Common Prayer as we recite together the refrain that we
always recite before we come up to receive the body and blood of our Lord.
Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us.
Therefore let us keep the feast.
Amen.
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