Homily for Maundy Thursday April 6 2023

saintphilipsnorwood ♦ April 7, 2023 ♦ Leave a comment

Jesus and his disciples were Jews, and so they gathered on this night as they did every year, as they had done since they were little children, to eat the Passover Seder. With all Jews everywhere, they gathered to remember their long years of oppression and slavery in Egypt.

They told the story of how God sent Moses, his servant, to Pharaoh, to demand that Pharaoh let God’s people go free.

They told the story of how Pharaoh’s heart remained hard until God had worked all of his signs through Moses: he turned the water of the Nile to blood, he sent swarms of frogs and lice and flies, he sent a plague on all the livestock and painful boils on the people, he sent hail and devouring locusts and an enveloping darkness over the whole land, and, finally, God sent an angel of death to strike every firstborn creature, from livestock and slaves to the firstborn son of Pharaoh himself.

They told the story of how God commanded them to slaughter a lamb at twilight that night, and to paint the doorposts and lintels of their homes with the blood, so the destroying angel would pass over their homes, and not bring death into their households.

And they told the story of how Moses led them out, leading them on dry ground through the Red Sea, walls of water towering over them on the right hand and on the left hand, and how the waters closed over Pharaoh’s army as it tried to follow them, and was utterly destroyed.

This was their defining story; it is the defining story of the Jewish people, the story they have been re-telling for more than 3500 years now, as the chosen and beloved people of God. It belongs to us as well – that’s why we always read about the Passover on this night.

But on this Passover night, as he shared this traditional meal with his friends, Jesus was revealing the fulfillment of that story.

As the Jews were held in slavery in Egypt for hundreds of years, so all of mankind has been held in slavery to sin since the fall of Adam and Eve.

As God sent Moses to stand up to Pharoah and demand that he set God’s people free, so God in his great love for mankind had now sent his own Son, to stand up to the powers of evil and death to set not only one nation, but all people, free forever.

“In this world you will have trouble,” Jesus said, “but take heart; I have overcome the world.”

As once the blood of the slaughtered lambs was painted on the doorposts of the houses, so that the angel of death would pass over them, so now the blood of the Lamb of God would be shed on the hard wood of the cross, to claim the victory, once for all time, over the power of sin and evil and death.

“Now is the judgment of this world;” Jesus said, “now will the ruler of this world be cast out. And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.”

And just as Moses led the people out of Egypt and safely through the waters of the Red Sea, so now Jesus calls us to follow him, out of our bondage to fear and pride and competition and envy and bigotry, and into the freedom of humility and service, which is true love. Tonight we practice the washing of feet, which our Lord modeled for us at this last supper with his friends, as a sign and sacrament of the humble service we are all called to offer to one another.

“A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another;” Jesus said, “in the same way that 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.”

The Passover is the defining story of the Jewish people, but this new story, the story of the Cross, is our defining story. And every time his church gathers around his table to share the bread and the wine of our Lord’s sacrifice we re-tell that story, recalling how we have been set free, remind each other about the great love our God has for us and for the whole world.