Maundy Thursday 2018

Maundy Thursday 

This is a most holy and a most joyful night: it is a night of family feasting in grateful remembrance of God’s wondrous blessings.  It is indeed a family night because the Passover feast was, from the times of Moses, not a temple feast celebrated according to minute details of ritual, but a family gathering in the privacy of the home, a celebration with family and friends.

On returning home for this celebration, and after prayer, the head of the family gathering had to consider himself a prince: decorating his table with the best food and the most acceptable wines.  In fact, it was his duty to prepare sumptuously according to the measure of his possibilities.   We are told in the Gospels that Jesus reclined at table with His disciples for the Last Supper as we call it today.  This was prescribed for faithful Jews; they would have been seated for an ordinary meal, but for this special Passover meal they had to eat reclining, stretched out on their left side with head towards the food; it was a symbol of the liberty they were celebrating, the liberty God had won for His Chosen People by the wonders He had worked in Egypt and throughout their desert wanderings, delivering them from slavery and bringing them to the freedom they now enjoyed.  They had much to be grateful for, and this was the night on which they gave whole-hearted expression to that gratitude, in accordance with the Lord’s command.  Each generation of faithful Israelites was taught to consider that they themselves had been brought out of Egypt, saved from slavery, by the Lord; they were not celebrating something that happened in the past to their fathers only; no, they had to realize that they themselves were among those that had been saved by the Lord.  The sages, the wise men, of Israel, when speaking of this night’s celebration, tell us that when it is celebrated with such dispositions, the God of Israel, the Holy One Himself, leaves His normal, familiar, entourage of angels and of the righteous in the Garden of Eden, and comes this night, to watch with delight the children of Israel here on earth rejoicing in the deliverance He won for them, gratefully singing His praises and loyally observing His commandments.

This was an occasion to which Jesus had really been looking forward:

I have eagerly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer. (Luke 22:15)

We must be quite clear about this: the Last Supper was no sad occasion for saying “Good-by”.  How on earth could Our Lord have “eagerly desired” to eat a sorrowful leave-taking meal with His disciples?  This was, on the contrary, something to be “eagerly desired”, something towards which His whole life’s work had been leading, something that would express the fulfilment of all His efforts and desires for His disciples and for us.  This was no sorrowful leave-taking anticipating the end of a lovely earthly relationship, it was the preparation for a new and heavenly future for believers in Jesus, and our memorial of it should be a festal gathering:

How eagerly I have desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer.

Why so eagerly?  Because this meal was the symbol of, the ultimate preparation for, and above all, the decisive inauguration of that heavenly banquet celebrating and conferring the salvation brought by Jesus: freedom from sin, and membership -- as adopted children in Christ -- into the family of God, where all can call Him “Father” and have a share in His eternal blessedness, according to the words,

Blessed are those who are called to His Supper.

That was the blessing the Son had come to bring to a humanity which had long been in darkness, had long been alienated from true happiness and life: a humanity created by God and for God, but deceived by Satan and enchained by sin; a humanity which stirred such compassion in the Father that He sent His only Son to share in and to save the weakness of human flesh by dying sinless and rising again; and in the power of His Resurrection pouring out His Holy Spirit upon those who would believe in His name, the Spirit who would form those disciples in the likeness of their Lord for the glory of the Father.

It was now so near to fulfilment; this was no time for sad reminiscences of the past but for ardent longings for what was to come: Jesus was indeed to suffer and to die but that was for a purpose which would be surely achieved through His suffering and death.

Let us now just look at that suffering and death, which was so close at hand but which, Jesus refused to allow to deter Him:

Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, Who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. (Hebrews 12:2)

It might have seemed that Jesus’ life was to be taken from Him by the superior power of death after having been betrayed by those to whom He had been sent and condemned by official fear and hatred.  Had that been the case, then indeed, Jesus’ death would have been the supreme tragedy and the Last Supper an occasion for agonizing farewells and deep-felt loss.  That was not what Jesus wanted and was not what Jesus was going to allow.  This meal and the morrow's crucifixion were to be occasions of deepest fulfilment, joy and love, because at this Supper Jesus deliberately offered His coming crucifixion and death to His Father, resolving to accept it and embrace it out of obedient love for His Father.  It would not be the power of sin and death which would take away His life from Him, but rather -- just as now He was offering it, to His Father -- so tomorrow He would be giving it in obedience to His Father’s will and purpose for His only-begotten Son made flesh for us.  His suffering and death would not be the tragic betrayal that Judas’ action would seem to signify; because that Passion and Death was being dedicated and offered by Jesus now to wipe away the sins and betrayals of men and women of all times.  The whole tenor of tomorrow’s crucifixion was being pre-determined now, at this meal, by Jesus.  He would die out of obedient and loving zeal for His Father, out of redeeming love for the whole human race.

At the Passover Meal the Jews celebrated God’s wonders in Egypt which saved the nation from physical slavery; how much more should we, the new People of God, celebrate the wonder of God’s love for us manifested in the gift of His Son to us and for us?  How much more should we rejoice in the love which Jesus had and has for us; that love which led Him to endure the Cross and to scorn its shame so that He might enable us to have access, in Him, to our heavenly home:

Who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.

Tonight, Jesus rejoices that by dying He is going to destroy death and turn betrayal into faithful love; He rejoices that soon He will meet up, once again, with His disciples in the great joy of a heavenly banquet shared among friends; friends to whom, in the meantime, He is going to leave this pledge and this food along with the loving request: Do this in memory of Me.