Maundy Thursday

Jesus' disciples were all good and faithful Jewish men. Although they weren't the most highly educated, they came from faithful families. They had almost certainly celebrated a Seder meal every year of their lives. The word "Seder" actually means "order." As in the fact that there is a specific order to the meal. Just like we are known as Methodists, because of our specific methods of organizing.

The disciples entered into the upper room with the knowledge that they knew what was coming next. They knew the routine, the knew the order of the seder meal.

But that night in the Upper Room would be very different. From the very entrance, Jesus changed the formula. In place of the lowly servant to wash their feet, Jesus kneels before them. Jesus used the ritual and tradition that was so very familiar to them, but Jesus infused it with new meaning.

Tonight we will celebrate a traditional Jewish Seder meal, but because of our faith in Jesus as the Messiah; these symbols mean something different to us. The Jewish Seder meal celebrates the past and longs for the future - our meal tonight celebrates the past, the present, and the future.

Let's begin with the past.

Read the account of the passover.

The Jewish people were slaves in Egypt. We remember the stories of Moses' birth. As the Jewish population increased, they began to outnumber the Egyptians, so Pharoah called for all newborn babies to be killed.

Slavery is the backdrop for our meal tonight. Take the horseradish and eat it. It is bitter. This reminds us of the harsh bitterness of slavery endured by the Jews in Egypt. As Christians, we live in the present, and this bitter herb must also remind us that many people still live with the bitterness of slavery. Around the world millions of people are enslaved. Women and children are subjected to unimaginable horror as sex-slaves, women and children are used as cheap labor in banana republics where they are paid pennies for a solid hour of work, and the lost and the hurting often find themselves enslaved to sin. We taste this bitter herb to remind us that slavery is still an all too real part of life for all too many people.

To wash that taste out of your mouth, you may eat some of the Haroset. It's the apple, cinnamon mix. We eat it because it symbolizes the mud used to create bricks. [As moses was fighting for the freedom of his people, God sent plagues. Pharoah punished the Jewish slaves by demanding that they increase the number of bricks they made each day - but he refused to give them any straw. God provided a miracle and the bricks set up.] This Haroset is used to sweeten the bitterness of slavery. Because of our faith in God, we know that we can survive anything - we know that God is with us. As Christians we work toward the future. We believe and fight for a future free from the yoke of slavery. We pray for wisdom and try to remember that our actions and purchases either encourage or stem the tide of unfair practices globally.



On the night of the final Plague, Moses instructed the faithful to take the blood of a lamb and to spread it around the doorframe of their house. Take your green and dip it in salt water. This represents the hyssop branch dipped in the Lamb's blood. When death came through, it would passover the homes with the blood of the lamb on their doorframes. That night death took the firstborn of every house in Egypt. Even Pharoah's youngest was killed. This is the reason for the celebration - death passed over the Jewish homes.

Go ahead and taste the lamb, and remember the sacrifice made for you.

You know, oddly enough, in many languages the word for Passover and Easter are the same word. Dear friends, death is coming - it is on its way - and God asks you to take the blood of the lamb and to put it on the doorframe of your heart. Jesus is our sacrificial lamb. His presence in our lives shows without a doubt that death is not welcome here.

This last year has been an especially difficult one for me. More than a year ago one of my closest friends had been diagnosed with terminal cancer. From the other side of the world I watched as my healthy, active 23 year old friend succumbed to the long slow debilitating effects of the cancer. As Christians, we celebrate the tension of living in this era. Death is not welcome here, but it is yet to be fully vanquished.

One day we will live in a world free of sadness and tears. "The last enemy to be defeated shall be death." This lamb is for us a symbol of the blood of the lamb that protected the Jewish people, the blood of our Lamb who protects us, and the promise of a better future - one in which the lion will lie down with the lamb.

The hard boiled egg represents for us the old covenant. The system of offering burnt offerings to appease God. This should remind us of the new covenant - that Jesus Christ died in our place as our sacrifice.

And we come to our final items. Bread and wine.

The Matzah bread is specific because there wasn't time to make yeast breads which would need time to rise. Although the people had been waiting on God, they weren't acting like it. They weren't acting as though they believed that God would free them from slavery. If they had trusted that God would set them free as God had promised, the people would have had bread already prepared.

Sometimes in our own lives, although we say that we trust God, we fail to plan and act accordingly. My great aunt Mabel was a very strict old-school-religion kind of Christian. Her financial adviser had advised several end-of-life care options. He felt that she should buy life insurance and a burial plot, but Aunt Mabel staunchly refused. One day she was going over her finances with my mother who pressed for a reason why she wouldn't make those logical investments. "Well, I plan on going up in the rapture." After she lived for a decade longer than any of her brothers and sisters - we all started getting a little readier for the rapture.

Nothing is funnier than watching children sing "If you're happy and you know it" while obviously not being happy about the fact. Few things are sadder than watching Christians sing about the joy of the Lord with no trace of joy on their faces. Eating the Matzah reminds us to live each day as though we actually believe the things we say we believe.

We drink the wine to remind us that this is a celebration. When Jesus held up the wine, he was reminding his disciples that even at the end of his life - life is a party. As we move closer to Good Friday and we remember the death of Jesus, it is important for us to remember that this Friday truly is good. This sacrifice saves us from sin, from Hell, from ourselves - this sacrifice saves and redeems the world. This bread and this cup are a symbol for us that truly Jesus Christ is our sacrifice. We share in his body and blood and we are saved by nothing less.

After the choir anthem, we will share in Holy Communion together. Like the disciples gathering for the Seder meal - this is something we have done at least dozens of times. We know the order, the method, the ritual; and that knowledge makes it even easier to miss the significance and the meaning of this sacred order. I urge you to remember in earnest the sacrifice of our Lord as we share in communion together.