Maundy Thursday
Homily by Rev Timothy A Leitzke
We’re here
to eat; that’s why I address you tonight from the table. This meal is something
mystical yet real, divine yet simple, powerful beyond imagination yet bread and
wine. We eat and drink this meal because of these things and because Jesus told
us to do it. The words with which Jesus instituted this meal are in the Bible,
four times over—so they were very
important to the first of our brothers and sisters in Christ, and they are very
important to us. On that night long ago Christ was not so much betrayed as
handed over for God’s purpose. The Romans arrested Jesus and killed him, but in
the cross God vividly reveals atonement and forgiveness. This meal makes the
cross tangible to us. That same atonement and forgiveness are mixed up thickly
in this meal. Christ is not sacrificed tonight. He died once and that’s enough
times for anyone to die. All the wonderful things that are Christ are in this
meal, tonight and whenever it is offered.
So, Friends
of Christ we give thanks to God the Father, our creator, who has made the whole
cosmos, saved us from Sin and made us holy and precious, and we thank God in
advance for the fulfillment of all of God’s promises.
We remember
Christ and what he means for us. When we met for my Grandma Leitzke’s memorial
service it was for memory. We shared
our memories over lunch, in the chapel, at the headstone, hanging around the
house, eating dinner, driving home; we talked, we relived, we remembered
Grandma. Several times over the course of the day I half expected to see her
sitting with us; it was as if, in her memorial, she was alive. This meal is
Christ’s memorial and in this meal Christ is alive. Christ is alive and not
only as a memory but as a living, resurrected person, the firstborn of the
dead, and the locus of our faith. Christ is in, with, and under the bread and
wine. They are his body and blood.
The Holy
Spirit, the immeasurable strength of God’s love, makes this meal possible and
effective. The same spirit which is God and which lives in Christ sweeps into
the bread and wine and into us. As we dine together we are forged
together—that’s what makes it Holy Communion.
God unites our community. We eat this meal together so we can go out into the
world together and serve God. We don’t just remember Christ; Christ nourishes
us so that we can serve God and our neighbors. The memories of Christ remind us
of our mission; the mission is ongoing.
God is at
work. We receive forgiveness every day. We see redemption every day. We see
lives changed by God’s amazing grace. The resurrection is being accomplished
now in the world and in this meal, a foretaste of the feast to come. In this
meal our future is collapsed into our present. We remember Christ, but Christ
is here now. We get a taste of that day when all of us will gather to worship
God in eternal joy.
Friends of
Christ we are here to eat. This is not your ordinary meal. Just as Jesus was
handed over to God’s purpose Christ handed over this institution. He handed it
over to his disciples, who handed it over to those who followed them.
Friends of Christ, in this Lenten
season we have heard our Lord’s call to intensify our struggle against Sin,
death, and the devil—all that keeps us from loving God and each other. This is
the struggle to which we were committed at Baptism; God’s forgiveness and the
power of his Spirit to amend our lives continue with us because of his love for
us in Jesus, our Savior.
Within the
community of his Church, God never wearies of giving peace and new life. In the
words of absolution we receive forgiveness as from God himself. This absolution
we should not doubt, but firmly believe that thereby our sins are forgiven
before God in heaven, for it comes to us in the name and by the command of our
Lord.
We who
receive God’s love in Jesus Christ are called to love one another, to be
servants to each other as Jesus became our servant. Our commitment to this
loving service is signified in the washing of feet, following the example the
Lord gave us on the night before his death.
It is,
however, in the Holy Communion that the members of Christ’s body participate
most intimately in his love. Remembering our Lord’s last supper with his
disciples, we eat the bread and share the cup of this meal. Together we receive
the Lord’s gift of himself and participate in that new covenant which makes us
one in him. The Eucharist is the promise of the great banquet we will share
with all the faithful when our Lord returns, the culmination of our reconciliation
with God and each other. Amen