Maundy Thursday – With desire have I desired

1 Corinthians 11:17-end       St Luke 23:1-49

With desire have I desired to eat this passover with you
before I suffer.

“A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another:
just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another.
By this all people will know that you are my disciples,
if you have love for one another.”

Tonight we gather for the celebration of the institution of the Lord’s Supper on that final night that our Lord spent with his disciples – and to partake of that feast anew in the kingdom of heaven. It is an evening filled with mixed emotions for us, as it was for our Lord.

The Son of God had longed for that Passover meal, – With desire have I desired to have this meal with you before I suffer.

Let’s think about this:

As a man, Jesus grew in wisdom and stature, it is only over time that he began to see Himself as the Messiah, and he began to desire, in his earthly life, for the fulfilment of his Father’s purpose for Him, through His self-offering.  We can imagine that he began to see all the connections in the Old Covenant with what he was called to.

And as God, the Son of God knew, and was responsible for, all these shadows and figures planted from the beginning of time, and in Israel’s history, that would finally find their fulfillment in the institution of this sacred meal.

Here are some shadows and figures that are less prominent:

• Remember the sudden appearance out of nowhere of Melchizedek, priest of God most high, to Abraham? All it says of him is that he met Abraham and brought out bread and wine to celebrate victory after Abraham’s return from war.  Why did this priest bring out bread and wine? [Gen 14:18-20]
• Remember the holy “bread of the presence” that was to be placed in the Tabernacle and later in the Temple. [Ex 25:30; Lev. 24:5-91 Kings 7:48] Twelve loaves covered with frankincense – a fragrant offering.  Does that sound like Christ?  Fresh bread was brought every Sabbath day, it was set apart as holy, because it was offered to the Lord.  It was only to be eaten by the priests, and only in the holy place.  Called the Bread of the Presence – the Presence of whom?  Does that not sound like a precursor of Holy Communion?  We being a royal priesthood, receive the bread of the Presence of Christ and we consume it in the holy place, in the sanctuary, of churches around the world? [It could be that the loaves represent before God the twelve tribes of Israel, their presence - but Christ also comes to represent them.]
• Remember the sacrifices of bulls and goats, on the Day of Atonement. The blood was shed as an atonement for the priest and the people so Aaron could approach the holy God.  The blood was sprinkled on the inside of the holy place and the holy of holies, on the mercy seat, and on the altar.  [Lev 16, last night’s second lesson]  Does that sound like what we do in Holy Communion as we sip the cup and cleanse our souls and bodies, which is now His Temple, with Christ’s Blood? [Hebrews 9:13-14]
• Remember Lady Wisdom calling from the highest places in the city to “come, eat of my bread and drink of the wine I have mixed that we might leave simpleness and live, and walk in the way of insight.” [Prov 9:5-6] Jesus gives us the confidence by His Sacraments to know ourselves, have insight.  St Paul says examine yourselves before you partake.  We are to come to know ourselves fully, even as we are fully known by Him. [1 Cor 13:12]
• God spoke through the prophet Malachi [1:11], saying: from the rising of the sun to its setting my name will be great among the nations, and in every place incense will be offered to my name, and a pure offering.  For my name will be great among the nations, says the Lord of hosts.  Is this not what we do Sunday by Sunday in churches around the world?

But here are the most prominent shadows in the Old Testament prefiguring Holy Communion:

• Remember the tree of life in the Garden of Eden? Pre-fallen man could “put forth his hand and eat and live forever”. [Gen 2:9]  The disciples would soon all partake of that fruit  Jesus, who was hung on the tree, the Cross, says, Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life.  [St John 6:54]  Jesus describes Himself as the “True Vine” [St John 15:1].  Elsewhere [St Matthew 26:29], Jesus says of the Sacrament of His Blood, that it is the “Fruit of the Vine”. [see also Rev 22:2] [Blunt's Commentary on the BCP]
• Remember the people of God in their wilderness wandering to the Promised Land were given manna, bread from Jesus says of Himself, that he is “the Bread of God which comes down from Heaven and gives life to the world…that a man eat thereof and not die…the Bread which I will give is my flesh.” [St John 6:31,51]  Remember those same people of God in their wilderness wandering were given water that sprang forth from the Rock to sustain them. [Ex 17:1-7; Num 20:2-13]  St Paul says, they drank from the spiritual Rock that followed them, and the Rock was Christ. [1 Cor 10:4]
• And of course, we remember tonight the Passover lamb sacrificed in Egypt, whose blood was sprinkled on the doorposts and lintel of the homes of the faithful, that the angel of death might pass over them, and that they might be led out of slavery and into freedom. It is the occasion of the Jewish Passover meal that Jesus explicitly uses to institute the Lord’s Supper.

Holy Communion is the reality to which all of these types before it pointed.

With desire have I desired to eat this passover with you…before I suffer.

Jesus’ desire is the desire of the perfect man, it is the desire of his life, and the desire of God Himself from the fall of Man to the present.

That final Passover celebration of Jesus was filled with awe and great power – the sort of power that every word has, when you are with a loved one, who knows he or she will soon die.  All other distractions fall away and everyone becomes sharply focused.  But it is  much more so, filled with awe, because of who it is who speaks, and because Jesus’ coming death is not of a frail person whose health is shattered and we expect it, but he is in the height of health and power, and he is voluntary laying down His life for our sake. And because of this, the celebration filled the disciples and fills us with sadness – the sadness we know mingled with our joy this week, as we heard once again the Passion Gospel, as we prepare to show forth his death once more in the Holy Communion, and as we ready ourselves for tomorrow’s solemn remembrance.

There is no mirth in this meal with our Lord, but the sober and deep joy that comes from tasting of the meal that reveals the depths of God’s mercy, the meal made effective for our salvation, at the cost of His perfect life.

------------

That first Thursday night, Jesus beheld his friends.  He said, I have called you friends; for all that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you. [John 15:5]

His friends were so full of possibility, yet they were such a mixture of pure and impure motives. Jesus saw their childish vain ambition revealed again that very night at supper as they talked amongst themselves about who would be greatest in the new kingdom. Jesus had to bare with their proud insubstantial words that very night, when, with bravado, they boasted about how they were ready die with him.  Yet he knew that a couple of hours later Judas would betray him, Peter would deny him three times, very publicly, and that all of them would scatter from him when he was arrested.

Jesus had to bare with their blindness to, or refusal to hear, the significance of these last moments despite his repeatedly telling them how it would end for him.  And in a few hours, Jesus would have to bare with their weakness as his three closest disciples slept in the garden after, perhaps the only time ever, he had asked them to stay awake with him…for just one hour.

Yet Jesus beholds them in love – these are his friends – and he is ready to die for them, and not only for them but for those in the hours to come who would abuse him, and cruelly taunt him, and even nail him to the cross, and for broken humanity ever since.

Jesus beholds them in love – he sees what remains of their humanity, and he has come to restore what has been lost, and to raise them to the heights of heaven – “Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever believes in me will also do the works that I do; and greater works than these will he do, because I am going to the Father.” [St John 14:12]

That first Maundy Thursday, Jesus says to his disciples,

A new commandment [mandatum] I give to you, that you love one another :… just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. [St John 13:34]

Greater love has no one than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends. [St John 15:13]

 We behold one another here tonight, we see such possibilities in each other as we see the new man in Christ rising in us, and at the same time we are continually disappointed with one another as we see the old Adam not quite dead in us.

And yet, we are to give up our lives for one another, if we would be friends of God – seeing in one another, what Christ sees in each one of us.

You are my friends, if you do what I command you… [St John 15:13]

A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another :… just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another.

We are to lay down our lives for one another.

Let us close tonight with a quotation from a sermon by Fr. Crouse…

Soon we shall remove the trappings of the feast, and leave the altar bare and cold, for tonight is the night of betrayal, and tomorrow is the day of despair.  But he has called us his friends, and we must watch with him, and “not fear, though the earth be moved, and the mountains shake.” (Psalm 46.2)  We must watch and pray that the bond of charity may hold us firm as his friends, and friends of one another. The fruit of the vine is crushed in the press, but we shall drink the wine new with him in the joy of his risen kingdom.

Amen +