What's So Special?

PROPERS:          MAUNDY THURSDAY, YEAR A   

TEXT:                EXODUS 12:1-4, (5-10), 11-14; JOHN 13:1-17, 31b-35

PREACHED AT HOLY TRINITY, PENSACOLA, ON THURSDAY, APRIL 6, 2023.

 

ONE SENTENCE:        On this Holy Night, we receive a renewed sacrament of deliverance and a call to selfless service.         

 

            Ma nishtanah.

 

            These are the first two words of four questions the youngest child asks his Jewish elders in the family Passover meal.  The Passover meal was last night.

 

            Ma nishtanah. “Why is this night different from all other nights?” Indeed.

 

            We hear the reason in the first lesson, from the Book of Exodus, tonight.  The Hebrews, held in slavery in Egypt hundreds of years since Joseph, were being delivered from the bitter yoke of Pharoah.  It was the hand of God moving in their midst.

 

            They would observe this Holy Night with a sacred meal – gathered ‘round a family table to recall the salvific acts.

 

            Which is precisely what we do, with an updated Christian narrative – a different pascal lamb, but an account of deliverance all the same.

 

            It is lost on many that the sacrament we share at this table is a renewed and reshaped Passover meal. Two thousand years of Jewish testimony have morphed into two thousand years of Christian witness.  All about deliverance.

 

            Unlike being led out of bondage, we are freed from our sins. And we are assured that God is at our side.

 

            But there is more.

 

            The message of this night is indeed deliverance, but so much more. It is also a call – a mandatum – to service.  As our Lord, our deliverer, stooped to wash his disciples’ feet – a humble act of service – we are called to replicate that service both inside and outside these walls.

 

            In a few moments, we will humble ourselves to wash one another’s feet. But the mandate of this Maundy Thursday is to move beyond these walls and to, literally and figuratively, wash the feet of others. Not just those “like us” or of our “class”, but the despised and scorned of society.

 

            The message of this evening is that we are delivered – and that we are delivered for a purpose. We are not delivered to be the frozen chosen, but to be the disciples of today, and to act in the manner Jesus has established.