Maundy Thursday: A New Way

In the end, we all run out of time. We have eight or nine or ten hour work days, and too often we jam the bulk of our work into the last few hours due to deadlines. There may be 168 hours in each week, but Friday (or whatever day of the week constitutes your “end of week) is always full to the brim as the “must do” projects and conversations vie for attention. If its any consolation, it happened to Jesus just like it happens to us: he ran out of time. The last trip Jesus takes from Galilee to Jerusalem takes up a full 1/3 of Mark’s gospel. As the gospel writes tell the story, the journey is both long and eventful. Lazarus is raised from the dead, Zaccaeus entertains Jesus, the residents of Jerusalem hail him as a deliverer King, and Jesus goes into the temple and sets things right. And then, he runs out of time. The teacher has so much yet to say, so many lessons are still needed. But, all Jesus has left is a single meal, one last time with those he knew best. The that mix off all the things left to say and do, we have this:

John 13:34 ESV

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.

From that “new commandment” this night gets its name. The Latin translation of translates the “new commandment” “mandatum novum”. Maundy Thursday is all about this “new commandment.” My question this evening is what is so “new” about the “new commandment.” There are a couple of ways that we use the word “new”. When you go down any isle in the store, you see lots of products with “New and Improved” all over the packaging. Every week or so the makers of Tide tweak the formula and we get “new and improved” Tide. Since 1946, every little tweak made to the product or the packaging has been trumpeted as “new and improved” tide. Jesus isn’t talking about “new” in this sense of “new and improved.” NASA has of late been working on something called exoplanets, planets that appear to have the prerequisites necessary to support life. Yesterday, they announced a major find: a cluster of seven of these exoplanets orbiting a single star, three of them in the so-called goldilocks zone that could support life. When NASA talks about these “new” planets, they aren’t talking about “new” in the same way the makers of Tide use the word. When NASA talks about 7 new planets, they mean 7 planets we didn’t know about before, but now know about. It is this sense of something totally new and previously unknown that Jesus talks about this “new” commandment to love each other. My question tonight is what’s so radically “new” about loving the people around me? There are clear commands in the Old Testament about loving my neighbor:

mandatum novum”. Maundy Thursday is all about this “new commandment.” My question this evening is what is so “new” about the “new commandment.” There are a couple of ways that we use the word “new”. When you go down any isle in the store, you see lots of products with “New and Improved” all over the packaging. Every week or so the makers of Tide tweak the formula and we get “new and improved” Tide. Since 1946, every little tweak made to the product or the packaging has been trumpeted as “new and improved” tide.

Leviticus 19:18 ESV

You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against the sons of your own people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself: I am the Lord.

Let me suggest that there are a several ways in which Jesus command of is radical and new.

One of Many vs. The One

The Old Testament law was made of of 613 commands. Some of those are things we shouldn’t do “Thou shalt not”; others are things we are command to do, “Thou shalt.” The command of Leviticus is one of those 613 commands, the things Israel agreed to on Mt. Sinai. The advantage of 613 commands is that they are detailed and covered all aspects of life. Along side of loving our neighbor and Loving the Lord, we have commands about what food we can and cannot eat, what kinds of clothing we can wear and what we can and cannot do in worship. The problem is that with 613 commandments, sometimes choices are necessary. What do I do when the command to love my neighbor comes into conflict with my neighbor’s legal obligation to damage they have done to me good. How do I love my neighbor when they have dishonored someone in my family and my honor is at stake.

For Jesus, the command to love wasn’t one of many commandments to be sorted through in each situation. Jesus starts with a simple idea: love is the foundation of everything. The whole holiness code of the Old Testament, all the things about purity and impurity grow from a single simple idea taught Jesus: love the Lord your God. All the detail in the Mosaic Law about honor and restitution find their basis in a simple thing: love your neighbor. Taking 613 commands and applying them to every day situation was complex. What was new was the one simple command: love.

Abstract vs. Practical

Complex legal codes are the stuff of attorneys and lawyers, of specialists and technocrats. In Jesus day, those technocrates were called scribes and Pharisees. It was a full-time job just knowing the details of the law. The Pharisees then took the knowledge of the scribes and tried to apply it to a situation. Who among us doesn’t like interpreting what God wants for other people? That was the problem with the Pharisees: they were forever putting their noses in other people’s business. It was hard to like the scribes and the Pharisees: they just made life harder. It was hard to experience God though them.

Jesus had a much better idea. Nothing abstract, no specialists, no technocrates. Jesus had a much better idea:

John 13:34 ESV

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.

His followers had just spent three and one half years watching and learning and living with Jesus. It was simple said Jesus: do what I do. Do we want to know how God wants us to respond in a particular situation: look at Jesus. How should we act towards the people around us: look at Jesus. No abstract concepts here, just relationships and repeating what we’ve

Family Ties

In the Old Testament, “holiness” is central. God wasn’t like the children of Israel, but the children of Israel needed to be more like God.

Leviticus 20:17 ESV

“If a man takes his sister, a daughter of his father or a daughter of his mother, and sees her nakedness, and she sees his nakedness, it is a disgrace, and they shall be cut off in the sight of the children of their people. He has uncovered his sister’s nakedness, and he shall bear his iniquity.

Leviticus 20:17 ESV

“If a man takes his sister, a daughter of his father or a daughter of his mother, and sees her nakedness, and she sees his nakedness, it is a disgrace, and they shall be cut off in the sight of the children of their people. He has uncovered his sister’s nakedness, and he shall bear his iniquity.

Leviticus 20:7 ESV

Consecrate yourselves, therefore, and be holy, for I am the Lord your God.

Jesus suggests it seems to me that we can’t pull ourselves up to holiness; we can understand ourselves to be the objects of God’s love and then respond to that love. Jesus stands between the disciples and God and Jesus mirror to his followers what Jesus has experienced in relationship with God the Father:

John 15:9 ESV

As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Abide in my love.

As Jesus has experienced and known the love of God the Father, he has extended that same love to his followers. says that Jesus loved them right up to the very end. God the Father loved Jesus the son who loves us so that we can love each other. This idea of love in relationship is as foundational in the New Testament as is holiness in the Old Testament. Love is how we know God and how we are known as those who know God.

John 13:35 ESV

By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”