Maundy Thursday - B

April 9, 2009

The Very Rev. Peter Swarr

Maundy Thursday, 2009

In September of 2007 a man named Randy Pausch, a professor of computer science at Carnegie Mellon University, gave a lecture entitled “Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams.” Just the year before Randy had learned that he had pancreatic cancer, a terminal illness. Randy knew that this diagnosis was the defining moment of the rest of his life. What Randy set out to do was give his last lecture, his last statement of who he was, for both his children, family, friends, and students. In reflecting on his desire to give a last lecture Randy wrote,

"I knew I had to look honestly at my motivations…Was it a way to remind me and everyone else that I was still very much alive? To prove that I still had the fortitude to perform?...I told Jai [my wife], ‘it’s about dignity and self-esteem.’… There was something else at work here, too. I had started to view the talk as a vehicle for me to ride into the future I would never see. I reminded Jai of the kids’ ages: 5, 2, and 1. ‘Look’ I said. ‘At five, I suppose that Dylan will grow up to have a few memories of me. But how much will he really remember?’...’And how about Logan and Chloe? They may have no memories at all. Nothing…And I can tell you this: When the kids are twelve of thirteen, they’re going to go through this phase where they absolutely, achingly need to know: ‘Who was my dad? What was he like?’ This lecture could help me give them an answer to that…It will help them understand who I was and what I cared about."[1]

This “last lecture” became a New York Times bestselling book and led to interviews on TV and radio looking at this last statement by a man, soon to die, about who he was and what he believed. This lecture was, in many ways the definition of Randy, the definition of his beliefs, the definition of his life, the hopes, fears, and joys which made him who he was.

In a similar way we too are entering into a last lecture today, the last lecture of Jesus to his disciples. Jesus knows what stands before him. According to the Gospel of John, he knows that his “hour had come to depart from this world.” And so Jesus teaches his followers one last time who he is, and who they must be. Today we enter into the very foundation of who Jesus is, and who we are as his followers.

Maundy Thursday is rich and multi-layered, laying the foundation of our Christian faith and life. In it we enter into the Passover, the institution of the Eucharist, and Jesus’ Last Supper with his followers wherein he gives the great commandment to love one another as he has loved us and charges us to enact this love through the self-sacrificial act of washing one another’s feet. Finally, the gathered community of God prepares for the stark realities of tomorrow, Good Friday, when Jesus dies and is laid to rest in a tomb. We will strip this church bare, removing all its hangings, all of its holy objects, and we will leave this place as an empty tomb, ready to receive the body of Christ. And then we will wait, we will keep vigil, just as the disciples kept vigil with Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane after his last lecture. Today’s service is incredibly rich, incredibly meaningful. Today’s service lays the very foundation of our Christian faith and life.

Our reading from Exodus points to this foundational reality in a powerful way. According to our reading, the Passover which is to be celebrated is the very beginning of reality, it marks the beginning of time and so too does this night mark the beginning for us. Exodus says, “this month shall mark for you the beginning of months; it shall be the first month of the year for you.” Our reading from Exodus tells us that what we are entering into today is a reality which shall define us, mark us, make us who we are as Christians.

So what is the foundation of our faith, the very essence of Christ which he speaks to us today? For me, the essence of this day, and the essence of Christ’s last teaching to us is love. The love of Christ is powerfully present on this day, in this last supper, in the great commandment, in the actions of foot washing and Eucharist. The Gospel of John, speaking of Jesus says, “Having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end.” The very essence of Christ’s life, the very essence of his teaching was deep, abiding, palpable love.

It is this love, this abiding love, which Christ commands us to demonstrate to each other in sacrificial service. It is this love which is made visible when we bare ourselves to each other and permit fellow Christians to wash us, to cleanse us, to hold us up even in times of grief and confusion.

It is this love which echoes through the Eucharist Sunday in and Sunday out wherein we remember the love of God which formed us, sustains us, saves us, and strengthens us, which meets us here at this Holy Altar time and again,  no matter where we’ve been or what we’ve done.

It is this love which demands that the church “love one another…Just as Christ has loved us.” And it is out of this deep well-spring of love that the whole world may know that “we are his disciples”, that we have listened to his foundational lecture.

Today, as we kneel at each others feet, as we listen to Scripture, as we partake of the meal that the Great Teacher shared with his followers so long ago, we are reminded of the very basis of who God is, and the very basis of who we are called to be: people of love, people of service, people of thanksgiving.  

This is Christ’s last lecture, this is the very essence of God. This is the reality which we celebrate, even as we enter into Good Friday and the depths of the tomb and death. This lecture and action of love holds us, even in death’s dark valley, this lecture and action of love sustains us even as we sit in silence through the night, this action of love transforms us as we come the  empty tomb on Easter and grasp in some small way the incredible power of the love of God which knows no end, the love of God which cannot be stopped, the love of God which Christ has made known to us and called us to make known to others.