Maundy Thursday 2023 New Commandments

 

Maundy Thursday 2023: A New Commandment

From the Latin, mandatum, for “commandment,” this evening gets its name. We celebrate the Last Supper, after which in John 13 Jesus issues a new commandment. In the other three gospels he also issues two commandments regarding the bread and the wine.

 

The earliest document in the New Testament to tell is reported by Paul in his First Letter to the church in Corinth. Paul, an apostle, had previously been known throughout many parts of the Empire as Saul, a Jew and a citizen of Rome, who was employed by the Empire to harass and arrest people of The Way, as followers of Jesus were known. As Saul, Paul was not at that final meal, which he acknowledges: “I received from the Lord what I also handed on to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took a loaf of bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, “This is my body that is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.” In the same way he took the cup also, after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.” For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.” The commandment is to do this to remember Jesus.

 

The evangelists Matthew, Mark and Luke also hand on essentially these same words which Paul handed on wherever he went. As familiar as they have become in Christian Liturgies around the world and throughout the ages, we need to recognize just how radical and problematic they were at the time, and remain so to this day. We are to understand the bread is Jesus’s flesh, and the wine is his blood. The blessing of these elements has long been standard at Friday night Sabbath meal throughout the ages. It is not standard in Jewish life to eat flesh and blood.

 

Matthew, Mark and Luke insist this Last Supper was a Passover meal. Nevertheless, it was not a Passover Seder as currently celebrated these days. Yes, it was a Freedom Meal, recalling the mighty act of YHWH to rescue, save, a disparate band of Hebrew slaves from Egypt under a previous Empire of Pharaoh. This saving action was to become the birth of Israel. It is recorded in the book of Exodus chapter 15:2-21 that Miram, or Mary, sister of Aaron and Moses, gathered the sisters to sing the song of freedom as they took up their tambourines and began to dance singing, “Sing to the Lord, for he has triumphed gloriously; horse and rider he has thrown into the sea!” The falseness of the Empire is exposed as the Empire, glug glug glug, cannot tread water.

 

John, alone among the four evangelists, places the Last Supper on the night before the Day of Preparation for the Passover. This means that Jesus would be crucified on the day that everyone else in Jerusalem is busy getting a lamb, heading over to the Temple to have it sacrificed, and home to prepare it for the Passover meal in which it must be wholly consumed. Still, it was not a  Passover Seder like people celebrate today. And as John presents it, it is unlike any meal any of us has ever experienced. There are no words about body and blood in all of chapter 13. No mention of bread and wine and blessings. Jesus disrobes, takes up a towel, gets down on his knees and proceeds to wash the feet of all who are present and wipe them with a towel. Afterwards, he says, “So if I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet. For I have set you an example, that you also should do as I have done to you.”

 

How does he come up with this foot washing? About a week earlier in chapter 12 Jesus is visiting his friends in Bethany, Martha, Mary and Lazarus, whom he had liberated from a tomb just days ago. People outside the house are calling for Jesus and Lazarus to be killed. Mary takes a jar of precious oil of nard. The house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume. She kneels before Jesus, anoints his feet with the oil, and wipes them with her hair. Judas, already aligned with the people outside complains that it is a waste of money that could be used for the poor. Jesus replies that she has purchased this expensive ointment to be used at his burial. And besides, you can always serve the poor. You don’t need the money for this oil. Go to it, Judas, care for the poor. This is what it means, Judas, to love your neighbor Besides, this feels really good!

 

Later in the thirteenth chapter of John is when Jesus issues the “new commandment”: “34 I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. 35 By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” Is it too much to suggest that Mary’s gesture of devotion and generosity inspired Jesus’s sudden gesture to kneel, wash feet and wipe them with a towel as a way to drive home how followers of his are meant to serve others: one another and all others? It seems quite possible that at the “first supper” in Bethany that he formulates his new mandatum: love one another as I have loved you –  for Mary has shown me how we are to empty ourselves and serve others. All others. One another. And the poor.

 

At modern Passover Seders a child is designated to ask a question: why is this night unlike any other night? Maundy Thursday asks similar questions of us all. What does it really mean each time we receive his body and blood? What does it feel like to kneel before one another to wash one another’s feet? How good must it feel to have Jesus wash your feet? My feet? What can we do for the poor? Why is that so important? What does it really mean when he says, “Do this in remembrance of me?” What can we learn from Miriam about freedom? What can we learn from Mary of Bethany about love for one another? What about our life in Jesus is capable of bringing us to our knees?

 

In the end, as John presents it, Maundy Thursday is when we get the most succinct summary of our job description as those who walk in The Way – The Way of Jesus: Love one another as he loves us, and love all others, especially the poor and all who are in need. This is his final gift to all his disciples – the gift of unfettered, unconditional love. Jesus loves us that much so that we might embody his love in all that we say and all that we do. Amen.