Remember

Maundy Thursday
Light of Christ Anglican Church
The Rev. 
Bart Morrison, March 28, 2024

SCRIPTURE  John 13:1-15

Holy week is a supremely sacred and solemn time for the church, it's the time we've been preparing for since Ash Wednesday. At sundown today, Lent is officially ended and we enter into the three-day period called the Easter Triduum, or Paschal Triduum ending at sundown on Easter Sunday. The word "triduum" comes from the Latin word triduum, which comes from tris (“three”) + dies (“day”).

In our Lenten Supper devotionals we have enjoyed sweet fellowship, world-class soups, and learned that to serve our Lord well and break free from cultural captivity, we must set our face like flint towards our Lord, remembering our first love and trusting in His supreme goodness, unflinchingly committed to finish our race strong.

In Pastor Mike’s message on Palm Sunday, we were invited to pierce the veil of confusion and ignorance that vexed His disciples and all of His hearers. Without the quickening enlighten of the Holy Spirit, they were expecting an earthly conqueror but the truth is that God was and still is reaching out to all those who are lost.

Israel had failed at being the nation that revealed the only true God to all the kingdoms of the earth and Jesus had come to complete the task that the children of Abraham had failed to accomplish. He loved them more than to simply solve their immediate situation as servants of Rome and his task and vision were far broader than Israel.

So Lent is about remembering. Holy Week is about remembering. And on this “Maundy Thursday,” we remember two rites that Jesus commanded that night. One is the Holy Eucharist, in which He took the bread and said, “Poieo houtos eis ho anamnesis”…

“Take and, eat; this is my body.” (Matthew 26:26) Then He took the cup of wine, and said, “Drink from it, all of you. This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins.” (Matthew 26:27-28) His command was, “Do this in remembrance of me.” (Luke 22:19)

The message I bring tonight is about remembering the great things God has done. Remembrance is something God often tells His people to do. We see it in the Old Testament in the words of Moses, David, Nehemiah and the Psalms. And we see it in the Gospels, where Jesus tells His disciples to do things that will help them remember what He has taught them, what He has commanded them, and what He has promised them.

The word ‘remember’ is used over 500 times in the Bible. But the Greek word for “remember” that Jesus uses—anamnesis—is in a class by itself. Anamnesis is not merely a recollection of past events. It is a dynamic and active involvement. When Jesus tells his disciples to “Do this in remembrance of me,” he wanted to connect their lives with him and eat the bread and drink the wine in “real” time, without the distance of time and space. Jesus wanted to be remembered: joined together across the ages.

It's fitting that the Church, the body of Christ, walk with her Lord and Master through his passion, burial, and raising. So walking along that path, where do we find ourselves tonight on Maundy Thursday? Well, tonight, spiritually, we are in the upper room. Imagine we are with the 12 and our Lord for the Last Supper, where our Lord will enact the Holy Eucharist, the Sacrament of His Body and Blood that we participate in, as Saint Paul describes it in I Corinthians 10 every Sunday around the altar. And as we are joined with the disciples and our Lord in this upper room tonight we have the great privilege of drawing near to the Passover table, where we behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world, as Saint John the Baptist proclaimed. And we find that in him, in Christ we, though unworthy. even while we were still his enemies--we are spared. Passed over, saved and set apart to continue the work that He has given us to do.

The other ceremony Jesus performed that night was the washing of the disciples’ feet. And again, His command was, “I have set you an example that you should do as I have done for you.” (John 13:15) He has given us two rites to commemorate the grace and goodness of our Lord in a way He has shown us. I emphasize the commands, because that is where the name of this day, this Thursday of Holy Week, comes from. It comes from the Latin word, mandatum, which means “commandment.” In old English, the word commandment was spelled commaundment. So we have “Maundy Thursday,” the day we remember the Last Supper.

The Last Supper was itself a commemoration, commanded by God. It was a Passover meal. The Passover was the ancient celebration of the night God set the Hebrew people free from their enslavement under Pharaoh. The fact that the Last Supper fell on this night was no coincidence. With God, there are no coincidences. There are, instead, convergences, when things come together for us to see and understand that He has a plan, and that His plan has been in place and has been unfolding since time immemorial.

In our reading from Exodus Chapter 12 we read that on the 14th night of the month of Nissan, God brought down the final plague against the Egyptians to defeat the stubborn opposition of Pharaoh. God told them He would come to take the lives of all the first born in the land. And to protect the first born of God’s people, the Hebrews, God ordered them to kill a lamb without spot or blemish, and to paint its blood over the doorposts of their homes. The blood of the lamb would tell God to pass over that house and spare their first-born. Then they were to roast that lamb and eat it with unleavened bread and bitter herbs. And in Exodus 12:14, God commands the Hebrew people to commemorate this day for all future generations as a festival to the Lord.

When we hear talk of a lamb in the Bible, we would be wise to listen. There are several references to God’s saving work through lambs. In Genesis, Abraham obediently trudges up the mountain with his son, Isaac. Isaac is his only son, whom God gave him and Sarah in accordance with His promise. Now, atop that mountain, Abraham is poised to kill this son, because this is what he has understood God to demand of him. But an angel stays his hand, and God provides a ram, caught in a thicket. And because of God’s provision, that ram becomes the sacrifice.

In that ancient time, almost 2,000 years before Jesus, Abraham was moved to name that place “The Lord will Provide.” And the scripture says, in Genesis 22:14, “And to this day it is said, ‘On the mountain of the Lord it will be provided.’”

And just so, on Mount Zion, on a hill called Calvary, the Lord gave His only Son to die upon a cross for the sins of the world. John the Baptist knew it the minute he saw Jesus coming toward him in the Jordan wilderness. “Behold the Lamb of God,” he said. “Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world....” (John 1:29)

The spotless sacrificial lamb of the Passover and the Lamb of God, the Son of God without spot or blemish, who was slain to set the captives free. And around this great convergence, we see God commanding His people, the Jews and the Christians alike, to commemorate these events for future generations, so that they may know and remember that God is the great provider, the rescuer, the all-powerful one, the one for whom there are no coincidences.

When Jesus said, “This is my body, this is my blood,” He was pointing ahead to the cross. And He was assuring that the disciples would understand—and that they would remember—and that future generations would understand and remember. We human beings struggle to grasp all that God has done for us. And once we get it, we struggle to remember. Especially when things are going well for us, we forget that God has done great things for us. The Bible tells the people of God over and over to “remember.” “Remember.”

Remember how God brought you up out of Egypt.
Remember how God stayed with you and led you, a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night.
Remember how God gave you the Law.
Remember how God gave you a land that He had promised to your ancestors.

But they forgot. They made a golden calf and worshipped it, breaking the first commandment of God’s law. They were stiff-necked and disobedient. They killed the prophets. They worshipped the false gods of other nations. They became corrupt and unjust and wicked. And when God punished them and gave them into the hands of their enemies, they cried out to Him. And He heard their cry and restored the fortunes of Zion. But still they did not remember. Over and over they broke the heart of God. And over and over, we forget, and we break the heart of God. That is why Jesus has commanded us to remember.

The second rite Jesus prescribed at the Last Supper is the washing of the feet. We read about this in John Chapter 13 tonight. Listen again to the words of verses 3-5:

“Jesus knew that the Father had put all things under his power and that he had come from God and was returning to God; so he got up from the meal, took off his outer clothing, and wrapped a towel around his waist. After that, he poured water into a basin and began to wash his disciples’ feet, drying them with the towel that was wrapped around him.”

The disciples would have known exactly what Jesus had done for them. In their day, people wore sandals. They would walk in the dusty streets and roads, and their feet would get dirty. When guests would come to a host’s home, it was a courtesy—and a matter of hygiene—to wash their tired and dirty feet. Most households had servants in those days. And one of the servants would be assigned to wash the guests’ feet as they arrived for a social occasion. It was, as you can imagine, the most menial of tasks. Only the servant would be told to do it. The host would never take on so humble a role. What we see, then, is Jesus getting up from His seat, filling a basin with water and washing the disciples’ feet, and drying them with a towel tied round His waist. We can tell from Peter’s reaction that this gesture shocked them. After all,

Jesus was the host. They were His guests.
He was the master and they were His disciples.
He was the teacher and they were His students.

“Now that I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also should wash one another’s feet.” He was saying something He wanted all of us, His disciples, to remember well.”

He drove this point home that night at the Last Supper by His vivid demonstration, and then telling the disciples to commemorate this event by washing one another’s feet. Jesus was building to a climax. Just a few verses later, we hear Him say this:

“A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another. [John 13:34-35]”

He has given us these things for our benefit. We have finite minds with limited imagination. These rites are a way that God enables us to transcend the finite nature of our minds and reach into God’s eternal truth. Jesus is empowering us to overcome the corrosive human tendency to forget what God has done for us.

When we forget the great works of God, we become disconnected from Him. We lose our sense of His love. He seems far away, or irrelevant, or even non-existent. And we lose the glory that God has in store for those who love Him.

Obeying God’s commands always leads to blessing. When we drink the wine and eat the bread in remembrance of Him, we not only remember. We also experience His power and the renewal of His promises:

That is why the Eucharist is not just a Maundy Thursday ritual, but has become the central element of our weekly worship.

God has made many extravagant promises to us. He has blessed His people through His provision, His mercy, His forgiveness, His love, His guidance. To remember these things is to know that God is true to His promises.

Jesus bids us remember and believe. May we never forget.

Let’s Pray:

Almighty God, whose most dear Son went not up to joy but first he suffered pain, and entered not into glory before he was crucified: Mercifully grant that we, walking in the way of the Cross, may find it none other than the way of life and peace; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.

Amen.

©2024 The Bart Morrison