Sermon Maundy Thursday 2016

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Exodus 12: 1-4 [5-10] 11-14

1 Corinthians 11:23-26

John 13:1-17, 31b-35

The police were after them. The national security forces had been mobilised to try and find them. They were a danger to the nation. A sense of tension, even panic, was building as the news spread. Subversives, dangerous revolutionaries, were at large. Their purpose was nothing less than the overthrow of the whole world order, and its replacement with something radically different. They must be stopped!

The small group met behind closed doors. It was a dark night, the darkest night. They knew they were hunted. They looked to their leader. What strategy and project would he give them, to continue the revolution? With what weapons would he arm them, to carry on the struggle?

He took – a towel. And dressing himself as a slave, he washed their feet, as slaves did. Love one another, he said, like this. Then he took – bread and wine, and gave it to them. “Take, eat, this is my body which is given for you; drink this, this is my blood which is shed for you and for many for the forgiveness of sins”. Here: this is what you are to do, this is how the revolution is to be carried on. Do these things, and carry on doing them, until the end of the world.

Not, perhaps, what all of his followers were expecting. But, as they would come to realise, this was in fact the most revolutionary and subversive moment in the history of the world.

What does the world do? It makes victims. It casts out, oppresses, exploits, crushes, extinguishes. Life is limited, hang on to it, and while you are at it take it from others, if you can, to make sure you’ve got enough. If you’re in power make sure you stay in power, make sure the outsiders stay outside.

So when the Lord and Master takes the role of a slave, that is indeed a great threat to the established order. This great reversal undermines the whole way the world runs itself, lowers the mighty, brings the outsiders in, washes the unclean and gives them a place at the feast.

And then he gives his life, in a world that only knows how to take it. Sacrifice ends here, or, rather, becomes something completely different. On the Passover table there would be the lamb, sacrificed in the temple that evening in memory of the death of the firstborn in Egypt, a little dose of violence to defuse the uncontrolled violence that otherwise might overturn society.

But for the everlasting memorial of his death Jesus takes, not that symbol of sacrifice, but bread and wine. Vegan stuff, no violence involved at all in its production. And under the outward signs of that bread and wine he gives himself, his flesh for the life of the world, his blood shed for forgiveness. In the place of life taken in sacrifice, there is life freely given that the world might live. In place of the lives of the first born taken in Egypt, the alone-born of the Father gives himself.

But, as we know, there was a police spy in the group in that upper room, and he quickly went off to inform the authorities. Only just in time. And they came to arrest him, and take him away to die. That should put an end to this dangerous revolutionary movement. Because, after all, death ends everything, doesn’t it?

But they had forgotten something. You cannot take away what has already been given. And Jesus had already given his life, freely, in the bread and wine of the first Mass. “Take, eat, this is my body which is given for you; drink this all of you, this is my blood which is shed for you for the forgiveness of sins.”

This revolution is founded not on life taken but on life freely given. When Jesus took the bread and wine and said those words, the light of God broke in on the darkest night, and it has not gone out since.

And so the revolution goes on. In the darkest night God’s light is continually breaking in, overturning the old order of sin and death, establishing the new order of love, life given that the world might live. What are we to do? What strategy and project shall we take up, to continue the revolution? With what weapons should we arm ourselves, to carry on the struggle?

Eat this bread, says Jesus. Drink this cup. My flesh for the life of the world, my blood freely given so that you can be forgiven. Love one another. Wash one another’s feet, in all the many ways that takes shape in our service to the communities in which we are set.

This is how you are to carry on the revolution. Do these things, and carry on doing them, until the end of the world.