Sermon preached at St John’s Bexley: 28th March 2024: Maundy Thursday: Exodus 12:1-4; 1 Corinthians 11:23-26; John 13:1-17
“On the night before He died…”
…And with those words, we travel in time – back two thousand years, to that night: The night before He died.
It happens every time the Eucharist is celebrated: The altar – that wooden table, clothed in frontals and linen, becomes the Supper-Table. This church, these walls, this place where we’ve sat so many times – our neighbourhood parish church on the doorstep, becomes that Upper Room, Two Millenia ago, in Roman Occupied Palestine…
When we celebrate the Eucharist, breaking the bread, sharing the cup, that’s not simply a re-enactment, we’re not just going through the motions… It’s deeper than that… A sacred moment: A Sacrament which although played out over and again on altars across the world and throughout the ages can only ever be a single moment in God’s Eternity.
That moment in the Upper Room, on the night before He died.
A moment of Communion: When our lives, and the life of Christ – our stories, and the Gospel Story, touch and become one.
On the night before He died, he had supper with His friends.
And friends, here we are: Gathered around the supper table in the Upper Room. The reredos is veiled through Passiontide: Its image of arguing, chaotic disciples gathered round the serene Christ, at the point of instituting the Eucharist… But do we need to see it?
Do we need to see it when we can simply look around at each other – and at ourselves… And see the Disciples here…? John, resting in Christ’s bosom; Thomas, with his doubts; Peter, so faithful now, but so ready to deny His Lord in the hours that will follow; And Judas, because we are all of us capable of betrayal…
They are here. We are there. In the Upper Room, on that night – the night before He died.
Soon, twelve feet will be washed; Soon, the Commandment will be mandated – To love one another…
Soon bread will be broken and we will take and eat; Soon wine will be poured out, and we will drink;
All of this we do in Remembrance of Him.
A Sacramental Remembering: A remembering that, in the sacred moment, makes it all real: Christ enacting the motions of His own sacrifice so that His friends, His disciples, His Church might ever have that one moment to return to.
From here we shall depart in disarray; some will disappear into the night, some will go on to betray, some will be present before the Cross, and some will celebrate the Resurrection in three days’ time.
Some of us here will go on to Love – loving one another as Christ has loved us.
The remaining Sacrament, the Body of Christ will be placed on the Altar of Repose, a silent Gethsemane in miniature, and like the Disciples we will be invited to keep watch with Christ… To tarry, and pray with Him into the night… The night before He died…
The Disciples fell asleep… But maybe this night, tonight, maybe this time will be different and the Disciples here will get it right: We’ll stay awake with Him.
On the night before He died. So many things happened that night: The night the Universe succumbed to the gravity of the Cross -plunging headfirst toward Good Friday… And this night of all nights, that night before He died:
It’s tonight.
And here we are.
As we recall the events of that one night, so long in the past, we learn that these are also the events of our present and our future: A moment that was, and is and is to come; pervading through Earthly history whilst also eternal, beyond our Universe, ensconced in the Heart of God so as to embrace all of Time and Space in that Love – the love of a Servant God who washes feet and has supper with His friends.
On this night, on this fragile night, when the World is made of porcelain and the cracks break across the surface of our frail reality to show there is something so much greater, deeper, and more terrifying beyond:
And that something, perhaps, is love…
The Love of God, exemplified by the Son of God, and mandated to the people of God to exercise – love that takes us into service, that forces us down to the feet of those who will betray us, that breaks our bodies on the altar and hangs us on the Cross.
Love doesn’t half make us vulnerable, and yet in that vulnerable Love, we are in communion with God:
Ubi caritas et amor, Deus ibi est.
Where there is love, God is there.
On the night before He died, God, in vulnerability, loved.
…And tomorrow God, in love, will die.
Fr. Edward 