 St Alban’s Episcopal Church Bolivar, Missouri Thursday, April 14, 2022 Maundy Thursday Eucharistand foot washing 6 pm   The Paschal LambExodus 12:1-4, 11-14 The Lord said to Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt: This month shall mark for you the beginning of months; it shall be the first month of the year for you. Tell the whole congregation of Israel that on the tenth of this month they are to take a lamb for each family, a lamb for each household. If a household is too small for a whole lamb, it shall join its closest neighbor in obtaining one; the lamb shall de divided in proportion to the number of people who eat of it. This is how you shall eat it; your loins girded, your sandals on your feet, and your staff in your hand; you shall eat it hurriedly. It is the passover of the Lord. For I will pass through the land of Egypt that night, and I will strike down every firstborn in the land of Egypt, both human beings and animals; on all the gods of Egypt I will exact judgment; I am the Lord. The blood shall be a sign for you on the houses where you live; when I see the blood I will pass over you, and no plague shall destroy you when I strike the land of Egypt. (Notice that it is the gods of Egypt that are targeted here. The first born of Pharaoh is god-in waiting, as the Pharaoh is worshiped as a god. The story is that not only the firstborn of Pharaoh, but the first born of every Egyptian family, will die – There can be no succession. But this is also a joke. Even the first born cow or bird or mosquito will also die. No gods can ever exist again!) As for the lamb – We recognize Jesus as “the lamb who was slain”, as Revelation sings, and you will see this theme again and again in the liturgy and especially in the Easter hymns. We confess it every week. We repeat it. We do not just think about it. “Christ our Passover has been sacrificed for us, therefore let us keep the feast.”  The Meal1 Corinthians 11:23-26 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 the bread 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 this cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes. Remember that Paul’s letters predate any of the gospels. He is reporting what he had been told by those who were present, by those who were already remembering the death of the Lord, and his resurrection. And every week we do this. We take the bread and bless it, and break it, and give it. We eat and drink, remembering in our bodies the death of the Lord. It is not an intellectual remembering, but an embodied one.  The Maundy/ the Commandment John 13:1-17, 31-35 Before the festival of the Passover, Jesus knew that his hour had come to depart from this world and go to the Father. Having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end… And during supper Jesus…got up for the table, took off his outer robe, and tied a towel around himself. Then he poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples’ feet and to wipe them with the towel that was tied around him…. After he had washed their feet, had put on his robe, and had returned to the table, he said to them, “Do you know what I have done to you? You call me teacher and Lord – and you are right, for that is what I am. 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 should do as I have done to you. Very truly I tell you, the servants are not greater than their master, nor are messengers greater than the one who sent them. If you know these things, you are blessed if you do them…” It is from this reading that the name of the day, “Maundy” comes. It is derived from the Latin, “mandatum” – commandent. We are commanded to “wash one another’s feet” to serve one another as Jesus served, and to love one another as he loved us. We “remember” by acting this out in ritual which is intended to help us understand that we are commanded to serve and to love in this way   The after-word Jesus and his friends went out across the Kidron valley to a garden – There he prayed. There the disciples found it impossible to stay awake. There Judas came with a detachment of soldier to arrest Jesus, betraying him with a kiss. Remembering this, we do something: We strip the altar of all decoration. We darken the church. And everyone leaves in silence. Good Friday has begun. Christ in the Garden With supper done they went into the night, the Christ, his chosen; awed with mystery and words they walked while still they had the Lighttoward fallen shadows of Gethsemani. Within the olive gloom their wonder grew: the Master sorrowful to the brink of death. In dread of the long desired Pasch he drewaside to pray, fell prostrate on the earth. Rejection, unbelief all evil foundits mark: in the heart of the eternal Son, time’s gathered guilt. Blood shuddered to the ground. Not his, but God his Father’s will be done. Christ rose with all creation in his power, went freely to arrest; it was his hour. Sister Mary Agnes,pcc |
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