Maundy Thursday A

Maundy Thursday, Year A

In the name of the Father, and of the +Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Brothers and sisters in Christ: grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father and Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Our Lenten journey has reached its destination. When we began on Ash Wednesday, we confessed our sins and admitted our need for mercy and forgiveness. During that service, we concluded our confession without hearing God’s Word of forgiveness so that we might take those 40 days to reflect on what we confessed. This season has been our opportunity to repent of those things that get in the way of our relationship with God and with our neighbor. This is the purpose of Lenten discipline.

Tonight, as we celebrate Maundy Thursday, we will finally close that time with one final confession, and I am blessed to be able to share with you the Word of Forgiveness from God that we have been waiting to hear for the entire season. Forgiveness is essential to any relationship, and that certainly includes our relationship with God.

The world doesn’t like forgiveness though, does it? When was the last time someone on the national stage was forgiven for something? You’ll search far and wide for an example, and you’ll come up empty-handed. Take your pick of celebrities: Will Smith is still under a shadow for slapping Chris Rock on stage at the Oscars last year. He was one of the most successful and sought-after actors in Hollywood, as well as being a very successful musician. He had become an icon. He was starting to It will be a long time before anyone will work with him again in anything entertainment-related. What would it take for them to forgive him?

And politics is so much worse. We no longer debate policies and platforms. Now we do what historians used to call “muckraking” and “mudslinging”. It doesn’t matter what their proposals are: what they’re doing about taxes or the economy or foreign policy or national defense. What matters is that when they were in college they dressed for a Halloween party in a costume that misappropriated the dress of another culture. Or that they had a DUI 25 years ago. No one who ever runs for office may ever have done anything remotely unsavory ever in their lives, or they are unfit for office.

Now, consider this: the current wave of politicians grew up in 70s, 80s, and 90s. That’s all before there was such a thing as social media. Now in the age of Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube, all of our children have been captured in pictures online since they day they were born. Think about how this will affect them. When your high schooler applies for a college, the school looks at their online presence and social media. Oh, you’ve taken a stance on a political issue that we don’t like? No admission for you. Job application: you went to a party where there was underage drinking? Your behavior is too risky. There is no grace in this world, and there is certainly no forgiveness. You make one mistake, and you’re done.

But God - who knows ALL of our sins and trespasses … “from whom no secrets are hid”, right? - God still forgives us. Think about the story of God’s chosen people Israel. How many times did they betray Him and worship other false gods and fabricated idols? Over and over again, they turned their backs on God. He would punish them, and then He would come back and save them. Would He have saved them if He had not forgiven them? No, of course not. It doesn’t work that way. And when God’s people humbled themselves, admitted their sin, and turned back to God, life got immensely better very quickly.

My fear is that instead of following God’s example of forgiveness in dealing with our neighbors, we are allowing the world’s attitude to infect us. I see this in myself far too much. I have grudges that I hold. I know there are people in my life who have hurt me or done me wrong, and I still clench my teeth just thinking about it. That’s my indication that I haven’t forgiven them. I’m still learning how to do this. But like many of God’s commands to us, He’s told us what He wants us to do, but the “how” of that command is less than clear. I recently found something that I think is very helpful:

Christian writer Corrie ten Boom told of not being able to forget a wrong that had been done to her. She had forgiven the person, but she kept rehashing the incident and so couldn't sleep. Finally Corrie cried out to God for help in putting the problem to rest. "His help came in the form of a kindly Lutheran pastor," Corrie wrote, "to whom I confessed my failure after two sleepless weeks." "Up in the church tower," he said, nodding out the window, "is a bell which is rung by pulling on a rope. But you know what? After the sexton lets go of the rope, the bell keeps on swinging. First ding, then dong. Slower and slower until there's a final dong and it stops. I believe the same thing is true of forgiveness. When we forgive, we take our hand off the rope. But if we've been tugging at our grievances for a long time, we mustn't be surprised if the old angry thoughts keep coming for a while. They're just the ding-dongs of the old bell slowing down." "And so it proved to be. There were a few more midnight reverberations, a couple of dings when the subject came up in my conversations, but the force -- which was my willingness in the matter -- had gone out of them. They came less and less often and at the last stopped altogether: we can trust God not only above our emotions, but also above our thoughts."

Every grudge I hold is me not letting go of that rope, and the bell keeps ringing. Every time I take the time to remind myself of the event, and how angry or upset it made me, I’ve just pulled on that rope again. But that’s a choice I’ve made. I’ve chosen to pull on that rope. I’ve chosen to clench my fingers around it and keep the bell swinging. My command from God is to stop pulling on the rope, and to let go of it. That begins with me saying: “I forgive you” to that person. Maybe I don’t even say it to their face, but I can start by saying it in my heart, or out loud in a room by myself. At the very least, it’s a step in the right direction.

The title for this day of the Church Year is “Maundy” which comes from the Latin word “mandatum” which means “command”. This refers to Our Lord’s command to his apostles: “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another.” [John 13:34] Jesus said this just after having washed their feet, showing to all of them that by performing the lowliest, filthiest task in any household, if he can do that for them, then there’s nothing they shouldn’t do in love for each other.

But there’s another part of the story of that evening that spells out God’s love and grace and mercy and forgiveness even more beautifully: what we often call the “Last Supper”. The point of their gathering on this particular night was so that they - all faithful Jews - could follow another of God’s commands - to remember and celebrate the annual Passover meal. This meal was a reminder of how God had delivered them from slavery and oppression in Egypt. How He had fed them and protected them in the wilderness, and how they had to completely depend on God for their sustenance and well-being. And God instructed His people that they must observe this event each year by eating the meal He commanded them to eat: unleavened bread with bitter herbs, an animal that has been sacrificed, its blood painted on their door as a sign of their obedience, so that they would be spared from death, because of God’s mercy.

Jesus calls his closest friends together for this celebration and in doing so, keeps God’s command. However, he also institutes a new meaning to this meal. It is a NEW covenant that is now celebrated, and there is a new sacrifice: Christ Himself. He is now the sacrificial lamb, offered up as the atoning sacrifice to pay the price for sin. And as the PERFECT sacrifice, His death pays the price for the sins of the whole world - everyone, for all of time. Like the blood Moses threw against the altar and on the people, instituting God’s covenant with them. Now Christ’s blood institutes a new covenant with God’s people. Like the blood on the doorposts, Christ’s blood also allows God’s people to be spared from eternal death, and this is once again because of God’s mercy… mercy that comes to us because of Christ’s sacrifice, not because we deserve it. Christ’s body broken and His blood shed - for us - are the visible and tangible elements that bring forgiveness to us.

Our first parents - Adam and Eve - fell from grace because they ate something they were not supposed to. Sin came into the world by eating. Now we eat not to be condemned, but to be forgiven. Jesus’ perfect sacrifice is remembered in this meal. Tonight we remember the very first time it was celebrated in this way. In these elements of bread and wine, we bring Christ’s body and blood into our own bodies.

“The body and blood that won the remission of sins is there, but it doesn’t benefit anyone who doesn’t receive it by faith. Mankind fell by eating. Mankind is saved by eating. Man ate from a living tree and death came. Man eats the fruit from a dead tree, the cross, and life comes. Satan overcame by a tree, and yet was overcome by a tree.” (Pr. Will Weedon)

Tonight and every time we take part in this meal, let us always remember the perfect sacrifice that Christ made “for us and for our salvation”. Let us always remember that in this meal we receive God’s forgiveness. Let us always remember that God’s promises to us are realized in this meal. This is the forgiveness that heals, that nourishes, that builds up the children of God. This is forgiveness that we will not find anywhere else in the world. This is the forgiveness that we are called to share with the world - yes, that same world that will not forgive us.

Who do you need to forgive? What grudges are you holding onto that the world encourages you to keep a firm grasp on? Brothers and sisters, let go of that rope. Stop ringing that bell. If we want to see a world that starts to learn about forgiveness, then we must be the ones to teach it how to forgive. We must be the ones to forgive those who don’t even ask to be forgiven. We must be the ones to show the world that God’s way is a better way. God’s way is a loving way. And love and forgiveness go hand-in-hand.

(transition to The Instruction)

In this Lenten season we have heard our Lord’s call to intensify our struggle against sin, death, and the devil—all that keeps us from loving God and each other. This is the struggle to which we were committed at Baptism; God’s forgiveness and the power of his Spirit to amend our lives continue with us because of his love for us in Jesus, our Savior.

Within the community of his Church, God never wearies of giving peace and new life. In the words of absolution we receive forgiveness as from God himself. This absolution we should not doubt, but firmly believe that thereby our sins are forgiven before God in heaven, for it comes to us in the name and by the command of our Lord.

We who receive God’s love in Jesus Christ are called to love one another, to be servants to each other as Jesus became our servant.

It is, however, in the Holy Communion that the members of Christ’s body participate most intimately in his love. Remembering our Lord’s last supper with his disciples, we eat the bread and share the cup of this meal. Together we receive the Lord’s gift of himself and participate in that new covenant which makes us one in him. The Eucharist is the promise of the great banquet we will share with all the faithful when our Lord returns, the culmination of our reconciliation with God and each other.