Tonight we recall the Passover Meal
our Lord Jesus shared with his disciples during which he
instituted the sacrament of Holy Communion. The term
‘Maundy’ comes from the Latin: “Mandatum novum,” or “New
Commandment.” On the night before his sacrificial death,
his passion and crucifixion, Jesus said: “A new
commandment I give unto you, that ye love one another,
as I have loved you.”
Our Lord’s ministry was one in
which he led by example; a good shepherd leading his
sheep by walking ahead of them and going before them.
And by the way, the sheep do not decide for themselves
where they’re going to go each day; they don’t discuss
among themselves whether as a flock they should feed
that day in the North or the South pasture. Instead,
they follow the shepherd. They do not need to discover
the way; they just need to follow him. He is
the way. And so, when our Lord Jesus told his disciples
to love one another as he loved them he immediately
demonstrated this new mandate by showing them the way as
he girded himself as the lowliest household slave and
washed their feet. He went on from there to show us the
way even more fully.
In his letter to the Philippians,
St. Paul writes of our Lord Jesus Christ as the
suffering servant and says “Let this mind be in you
which was in Christ Jesus.” Our Lord himself told us
something similar when he said at that Last Supper, “Do
this in remembrance of me.”
What is the meaning of our Lord’s
words when he tells us to participate in this sacrament
in memory of him? Does he mean that we should
remember what he has done for us? Of course that is a
huge part of remembering him. He is, after all, our
Savior. We rightly recall the greatness of his passion,
the enormity of his sacrifice. In fact, this aspect of
our worship often is lost on people unfamiliar with our
liturgy, perhaps because it’s too obvious, like being
aware of awareness. What I’m talking about here is the
simple fact that for us the cross and resurrection of
Christ is so crucial to everything we do and of such
vital importance we regard it as the cornerstone of our
worship. First of all, you may have noticed that what we
have here isn’t exactly theater seating. Instead, the
place where the choir sits is separated from where the
congregation sits by the ‘transept’ because we construct
our churches in what is called a ‘cruciform’ pattern.
Moreover, we conduct our entire liturgy around the cross
and resurrection; we don’t just leave that up to the
preacher to remind us. Rather than simply hoping to hear
about it in the sermon, we make the cross and
resurrection the very focus of our worship as we
inwardly recall through outward signs the salvation in
which Christ has delivered us. We respond with an altar
call in which we believe we receive in faith the very
real presence of our Lord as God the Holy Spirit brings
us to realize the Holy Communion by which we dwell
together in him and he in us. So yes, we remember what
he has done for us; how our Savior saved us.
“Do this in remembrance of me,”
said our Lord Jesus. And so, as well as recalling his
actions and his teachings, his words and his deeds, we
also remember him: perfect God and perfect man. In 1
Corinthians, St. Paul likens the heavenly vision to
seeing in a mirror. After all, we were created in God’s
“own image and likeness” and so being raised to our true
nature is to be like Christ. In Romans 8, Paul
writes that God has predestined us “to be conformed to
the likeness of his Son.” St. John writes that “when
Christ appears we shall be like him for we shall see him
as he is.” (1 John 3:2-3)
“Do this in remembrance of me,” is
a charge to remember him, and in him, recall our own
true likeness. Growing in communion in Christ is never a
matter of becoming something we are not but always about
being what we really and truly are. In our fallen
condition we experience ourselves as fearful and anxious
and we compensate by trying to control the world around
us. But here in this place we learn that our true nature
is to be in eternal, loving, communion. Do you recall
how Adam and Eve were afraid and hid themselves after
they had sinned? Fallen minds are fearful minds and in
fear we try to dominate. But here in this place on this
night of all nights we are told not to be as “the
gentiles” who lord it over each other, but learn instead
that our real nature is perfect love which casts out
fear; a perfect love which may well wear the garb and
bear the trappings of authority but which lays them down
as quickly as Jesus divested himself of his attire in
order to serve us and wash our feet.
“Let this mind be in you which was
in Christ Jesus,” says St. Paul. “Do this,” says Jesus,
“in remembrance of me.”
