Stranger Things

Propers: Maundy Thursday, A.D. 2019 C

Homily:

Lord, we pray for the preacher, for you know his sins are great.

Grace, mercy and peace to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.

Tension. Anxiety. Fear. The foreboding is palpable this night. For as much as we’ve come to romanticize Jesus’ Last Supper, the truth is that this was a meal shared in the dark, in a secret location; because if the authorities were to find out where Jesus is celebrating the Passover with His disciples, so quietly and so fervently, they would likely all be killed.

All Jerusalem has been in uproar since Jesus rode into the city this past Sunday astride a donkey. There the people hailed Him as king, as messiah, as the rightful heir to the throne of David. They laid their cloaks on the road before Him in obeisance, and when they ran out of cloaks they pulled down palm fronds to pave the path. It’s a miracle the people didn’t riot then and there, and even more a miracle that the Romans kept their spears lowered and their swords sheathed.

For His entire life, some 30 years or more, Jesus has been coming to Jerusalem, coming to the Temple, in order to celebrate the high holy days. Why are things so different now? What makes this night different from all other nights? For three and a half years He has preached and healed, taught and fed, rebuking sinners and forgiving sins as though He Himself were God on earth—which of course He is. And this all has given Him something of a reputation.

Finally, after all these many centuries, could it be? Could the Christ have come at last, come down from heaven to establish the Kingdom of God promised from of old? Inquiring minds want to know.

The straw that breaks the camel’s back—or rather, the spark that sets the fire—is that, according to the Gospel of St John, Jesus, just before Passover, raised from the dead a man who had been rotting in the tomb for four long days just outside of Jerusalem, less than two miles away, at Bethany. There the assembled mourners from the city saw before their very eyes what had only been whispered up until then: that here was a Man, a Prophet, a Christ who had the power of God, the power of life over death. And that makes quite an impact.

The only reason they didn’t riot when He then rode into town, the only reason that the Romans chose not to immediately bring the hammer down, was because He entered on the back of a donkey, an ancient sign that the King comes in peace. In doing so, Jesus made clear to all that He hadn’t come to start a fight, or a riot, or an uprising. But He also made clear that they were right: He is the one true King.

He spends the week preaching in the Temple, warning of a great conflagration to come. Not one stone shall be left upon another! And because of such talk, the movers and shakers of the city conspire to kill Him off before He starts a war. But they can’t just snatch Him in broad daylight. Too many people, all too volatile. What they need is an inside man, an informer, to lead them to Christ by night, when there are no crowds to protect Him, no followers to riot in the streets.

Conveniently then along comes Judas, who for reasons of his own seems determined to force Jesus’ hand. And he promises to lead them to Him, to betray His Lord. Judas will turn Him over to the proper authorities. He just needs the opportune time.

Thursday night, Jesus sends Peter and John to the upper room of a stranger’s house, there to prepare the Passover meal. Passover, of course, is an ancient observance, well over a thousand years old even before Jesus’ birth. In the Passover, God’s people Israel tell again the great story of how the Lord led His people out from slavery in Egypt to freedom in the Promised Land of their ancestors: Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

The whole meal is one of remembrance, with each dish, each song, each cup of wine telling a part of the old, old story. But this is not remembrance as we think of it, about the long ago and far away. This ritual and religious remembrance mystically connects the celebrants to the original event, so that when people share in Passover it’s not about what God did for our nth-great-grandparents but what He does for us, here, now, today; how He liberates us from slavery, makes of us His people.

The meal is prepared. Low tables, only six inches high, are laid out on the floor in a horseshoe shape, so that the hosts—John and Peter sitting at the ends—might enter the curve to serve the meal. Guests recline upon pillows, propping themselves on their left elbows, leaving the right hand free for dining. The guests’ feet, dusty and grimy from the road, are thus pointed out and away from the tables, so that servers might wash them.

The guest of honor is placed to the left of the horseshoe, next to John, so that John is literally reclining with his head near Jesus’ heart. The other guests are seated in order of descending prestige all the way down to Peter at the far end. It is a close and intimate meal. Dishes are shared with those beside you. Feet are washed and heads recline against the neighbor’s breast. It would be almost tender, were it not for the overriding fear that keeps them cloaked in darkness and secrecy.

From the start, however, things go most unexpectedly. Jesus flips the script. Instead of waiting for Peter to wash the disciples’ feet, Jesus, the guest of honor, gets up to do it Himself, making of this a lesson. If He, the King and Christ and Lord of all, deigns to stoop and humble Himself by washing His disciples’ feet, so must we, in imitation of Him, humble ourselves to serve and wash others, discomfort be damned. “I give to you a new commandment,” Jesus says, “that you love one another just as I have first loved you.”

Then the bombshell: “One of you will betray Me,” He proclaims, “the one who is dipping bread into the dish with Me.” And who should that be, in the next seat of prominence after Jesus Himself, but Judas, one of the Twelve. “Go,” He tells Judas. “What you are going to do, do quickly.” And out Judas runs into the night, leaving his brother Apostles shocked, confused, and afraid.

Unperturbed, Jesus then takes up the flat bread, but instead of telling the old story—how the bread is flat because freedom came to the Israelites so quickly their bread had not time to rise—now He says, “This is My Body, given for you. Do this for the remembrance of Me.” No longer in remembrance of Moses, mind you, no longer in remembrance of Passover, but in remembrance of Me, of Jesus. Christ is now the heart of the meal.

Then He takes the cup, and rather than proclaim it to represent the joy of liberation, He says instead, “This cup is the New Covenant in My Blood, shed for you and for all people for the forgiveness of sin. Do this for the remembrance of Me.” It is no longer the blood of the Passover lamb that liberates one nation from slavery and inaugurates the Covenant, but now it is the Blood of Jesus, the new and true Paschal Lamb, who liberates all nations from slavery to sin and death and hell. This is the New Covenant promised from of old, a Covenant not between God and one people but betwixt God and all peoples. The Old is here remade, made New.

The Apostles can only respond with bafflement, yet the meal continues. In a traditional Passover, the celebration ends with the singing of psalms, the Great Hallel, and a final cup of wine. The Apostles sing the closing psalms together—but then Jesus abruptly states, “I shall not taste the fruit of the vine again until I taste it anew in the Kingdom of God.” And He gets up, and leaves.

This is utterly astounding. The Apostles can but gape in bewilderment. Of all the astonishing things to occur this night, the premature cutting off of the Passover feast and Jesus’ sudden flight from the table must be the most perplexing of all. There are no streetlights, no police in the ancient world. Good and decent folk do not venture out alone after dark, especially not when they are wanted men.

Yet Jesus leaves the room, leaves the building, leaves the city itself through the eastern gate, and travels down, down into the Kidron Valley, a great gash in the earth filled with innumerable tombs, and up the other side to the Mount of Olives, where He has so often sat teaching His Apostles—a place that Judas knows well. And what can His disciples do but follow Him, out into the night, out into the valley of death, out to the garden of Gethsemane, there to await with Him in fear His fate.

Only one thing they know for certain on this strangest of nights: that the Passover of our Lord has not ended yet. Indeed, it has only just begun.

In the Name of the Father and of the +Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.