MAUNDY THURSDAY 2013

Text:  Luke 22:1-53

Theme:  "The Large, Furnished Room"

MAUNDY THURSDAY

March 28, 2013

First Presbyterian Church

Denton, Texas

Rev. Paul R. Dunklau

Thank you all for coming out tonight.  Thank you to all, in good Maundy Thursday tradition, who made preparations:  those who prepared Erwin Hall,  who prepared music, who prepared dinner and chicken soup, and to all who made this night happen. 

 

If you really dig in to the story of Maundy Thursday, it just blows you away.  "Maundy" comes from the Latin, mandatum, which means "mandate."  It refers to a statement Jesus made on the first Maundy Thursday all those years ago:  "A new command I give you:  love one another even as I have loved you."  Did He love them?  Yes, He did -- all the way to a cross.  He loved even His enemies.  So that sort of love is a tall order -- certainly for the likes of me who finds it far easier to love the ones who love me, and who spends the rest of the time wishing there weren't any enemies in the world.

 

But there are.  Who are we kidding?

Maundy Thursday is a mind-boggling study in contrasts; you see the best and worst of human nature.  There is joy and togetherness.  There is sadness and isolation. There is strong faith and resolve that almost instantly reverts to shriveling fear.   There is the brightest light and the deepest darkness.  There is the interplay of good and evil.  There is acceptance and there is betrayal. 

 

Of all the significant days in Holy Week and Easter -- Palm Sunday, Good Friday, Holy Saturday, and Easter Sunday, Maundy Thursday is most like life as we know it.  It's the life that we, at times, embrace, and, at other times, seek to avoid or run away from. 

 

It's the life where, if you've lived any period of time, you've been betrayed by someone -- perhaps even someone in your family, or close circle of friends, or, dare I say it, even church members. 

 

Jesus knew all about that.  In fact, this longish, Maundy Thursday account from Luke, begins and ends with betrayal.  It starts with the plan to betray Jesus, and it ends with the plan carried out.  Jesus is betrayed by a sum of money and a kiss on the cheek by someone from His own inner circle. 

 

But right in the middle of the reading, for a few precious moments, we find ourselves in a large, well-furnished, upstairs room.  (I wish there was an "upstairs" to Erwin Hall; we could be closer to the "feel" of the evening.)

 

You know, a large, well-furnished, upstairs room -- away from the crowded streets and everyday hubbub of life -- sounds pretty nice.  Think of the place -- and I hope you all have one -- where you can get away from it all, and let your hair down, be yourself, and spend time alone or with friends or family.  It's a fine dispensation of life to have such a place.  It's especially nice at Christmas, isn't it?  There at home we gather with our loved ones for the familiar rituals of the gifts and the food.

 

Passover was such a time for folks when Jesus walked the earth.  It was the biggie, the whopper, the main holiday.  The Hebrews would gather as family for the annual Passover meal; they would remember -- as God commanded them to do -- that great salvation event so long ago when the angel of death passed over their blood-spattered homes, and they were on their way to being set free from four hundred years of slavery.

 

Jesus and His little band of disciples were not at home for this Passover, and there is a tinge of sadness to that.  Nevertheless, as Luke points out, Jesus had all the details covered.  There were a handful of preparatory jobs for the disciples to do, but mostly they just tagged along with Jesus. 

 

When it was all done, they reclined at the table with Jesus.  They kicked back and relaxed.  Everything went according to plan.  But then it happened -- something that had never been done before.  Our Lord took bread and said:  "This is my body given for you.  Do this in remembrance of me."  Then, after supper, he took the cup, and He said:  "This cup is the new covenant in my blood which is poured out for you." 

 

Scripture declares that the life of the creature is in the blood (Leviticus 17:14).  Take the blood away from the creature, and the creature is dead.  Jesus speaks of body and blood separately, and this denotes sacrifice.  No longer was it a lamb -- sacrificed over and over and again and again from one Passover to the next.  He, Christ, the spotless lamb of God's choosing, was about to be sacrificed on the altar of the cross.  And what are His gift to us on this Maundy Thursday?  The same that His tag-a-long disciples received all those years ago:  His body broken and His blood shed for the forgiveness of sin.

 

"Do this in remembrance of Me," he said. 

 

But then, from the warmth and light of that large and well-furnished room, it plunged into darkness again.  Our Lord went out into the night and was betrayed.  As Jesus said, "darkness" had "it's hour." 

 

Betrayal concocted and betrayal accomplished.  And, in the middle of it all, there is Jesus giving all of Himself away to His tag-a-long disciples who eventually would run away in the darkness. 

 

Of course, we would rather stay in the comfortable confines of the large, well-furnished, upper room. 

 

But life goes on, and we, too, shall leave this place -- back into life as we know it where the boxing match (if you will) and  interplay betwixt light and darkness, good and evil, acceptance and betrayal is only too real. 

 

The singer Shawn Colvin sings a piece that was featured in the movie As Good As It Gets.  It's entitled "Climb On (a back that's strong)".   I want to share portions of it with you in closing.  It's a love song, actually, that captured the budding romance of the two characters in the movie.  But I think it also, lyrically, touches on what our Lord might be saying to us on this Maundy Thursday and what our response could be.

 

In the words of the song, I can hear Jesus saying:

 

Oh, my soul

Sometimes we don't know what to do

We work so hard

Being tough on our own

But now it's me and you.

 

Let's give it up, sad bones

'Cause we all fall on hard times

But you don't have to stand up all alone

Just put your hand in mine.

 

Climb on a back that's strong

Hey, hey you can get what you want

Climb on a back that's strong.

 

Then, in the words of the same song, our soul might reply thus:

 

If you could save me

A place in heaven

With a clean, well-lighted room

I'll muscle up to Armageddon

And I'll wave to you

Be home soon

 

And if you could show me

The story of love

I would write it again and again.

 

Holy Week and Easter IS the story of God's never-ending love, self-sacrificing for everyone.  Lord Jesus, give us grace to write it with our lives again and again.  Amen.