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Maundy Thursday
Almighty Father, whose dear Son, on the night before he suffered, instituted the Sacrament of his Body and Blood: Mercifully grant that we may thankfully receive the same in remembrance of him who in these holy mysteries giveth us a pledge of life eternal, the same thy Son Jesus Christ our Lord; who now liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit ever, one God, world without end. Amen.
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Maundy Thursday
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A Sermon by
The Rev. Canon Carl Turner
✛
To be Drawn to Him
“In receiving Communion, it is not sufficient merely to perform a soul-less, external action…We are familiar with the fact that Christ ‘comes to us’ in Communion, but we forget the far more important aspect of this great mystery: in order for him to come to us, we must ‘come to him’, we must allow ourselves ‘to be drawn to him’ by the Father.” Words of Thomas Merton: (The Living Bread p84)
In the early Church the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist was understood as one and the same as the real presence of Christ in the Community of Faith – not called ‘the Church’ but the Mystical Body of Christ. Thus, at the heart of the Eucharistic Community is the greatest sign of love. And that love needs to effect a change in our lives so that we can become more like Jesus – more like God. Merton goes on to say “ If we do not love one another, we cannot eat the Bread of Life, we cannot come to the Father. It is only by loving one another that we allow the Father to draw us to Christ, for it is by love that we become one Mystical Body, one Christ.” (The Living Bread p.89)
In John’s Gospel love is at the heart of the Last Supper. After washing his disciples’ feet he gives the disciples a new commandment – that they love one another … “Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you have love for one another.” (13:34-35)
But this love will soon be tested, for Jesus has to leave the upper room and enter into the darkness – into the night, which has already hidden the betrayal of Judas. And in the darkness of Gethsemane Jesus will feel the fear of his love being rejected or, worse, not even noticed; a fear that all human beings live with.
Over the past three days I have explored in my addresses the presence of darkness in the Passion story but how, paradoxically, that darkness is a means to the discovery of God’s presence.
Jesus gave his followers a new commandment of love – and this love was to be the centre of all things but it would be tested through darkness. Paradoxically, the Glorification of Jesus will only come through entering the darkness just as Judas needed to enter into the night in order for this to begin.
True love – God’s love – is different from human love (yes, human love is a reflection of God’s love and sometimes it can be unselfish or even sacrificial and is then very close to God) but human love often has strings attached and can have hidden demands of those who are the recipients of love. God’s love is such that it allows the possibility for pain and rejection, which gives the depth to his self-offering in Jesus Christ; his self-emptying into creation when, in Jesus, true love is made manifest.
John Austin Baker says this:
“There is no security in love. It is the most superficial of optimisms to think that love has only to be shown in order to evoke a like response. The parent who loves his child cannot be sure, even when his love has exercised the greatest wisdom that the child will turn out well. Love knows perfectly that it may be cheated, laughed at, betrayed, vilified, tormented, even killed – or worse still, perhaps ignored, never even noticed. Love does not say ‘I affirm your absolute right to exist so long as you come up to my expectations,’ but simply: ‘I affirm your right to exist’. Just that – nothing more.” (The foolishness of God – p140).
On the night of his Last Supper, Jesus was about to enter into the darkness of his agony and Passion; a time when he would have to live out that affirmation ‘I affirm your right to exist’. Just that – nothing more.
After his arrest, the Temple Police blindfold Jesus and mock him throughout the night. This torture of Jesus is made all the more sinister through this blindfolding during which he was forced to endure an inflicted darkness which would soon be replaced by the terrible darkness of his death. Now abandoned by friends Jesus also has to give himself up to an even more sinister darkness – the darkness of loneliness and the temptation to despair. His example, though, is one of acceptance; but an acceptance that is not passive. He has already been distressed and prayed that ‘this cup might be taken away’. Luke’s Gospel also tells us that in his stress his sweat became like great drops of blood falling to the ground; Jesus may not fight or lash out in fear but he is no meek lamb being led to the slaughter. The torture, humiliation, flogging and scourging of Jesus must have almost killed him before he even reached Golgotha; in his agony he was now to be tested to see if that love which he offered so freely would amount to anything at all.
By being blindfolded, Jesus is forced into the darkness of human rejection and sin but it is on the Cross, when he says “Father, forgive them” that Jesus accepts and freely enters the darkness which becomes dazzling.
Henri Nouwen says “The same love that reveals the absurdity of death also allows us to befriend death. The same love that forms the basis of our grief is also the basis of our hope, the same love that makes us cry out in pain also must enable us to develop a liberating intimacy with our own basic brokenness.” (A letter of consolation. p. 33)
Life and death; light and darkness; love and hate; healing and brokenness; these are the things that human beings know only too well. God experiences them in Jesus and therefore, when we truly enter into the darkness of our own woundedness or rejection we find the dazzling darkness of God who is already there.
In the 1st letter of John we read “God is love, and those who abide in love abide in God, and God abides in them…There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear; for fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not reached perfection in love.” (1 John 4:16b,18)
On this night of love and betrayal we find the themes of our own lives played out yet again. Jesus has walked this way for us and his perfect love casts out all fear of eternal darkness for he has been to the darkest place and made it dazzling by the presence of his redemptive love.
