Unto The Very End

The Rev. Amy Morehous

Maundy Thursday

Church of the Ascension

March 28, 2013

Ubi caritas et amor, Deus ibi est.

Congregavit nos in unum Christi amor.

Exsultemus et in opso jucundemur.

Timeamus et amemus Deum vivum.

Et ex corde diligamus nos sincero.

Ubi caritas et amor, Deus ibi est. Amen.

Where charity and love are, God is there.

Christ's love has gathered us into one.

Let us rejoice and be pleased in Him.

Let us fear, and let us love the living God.

And may we love each other with a sincere heart.

Where charity and love are, God is there.  Amen

This Palm Sunday, I hope it will surprise to know I was in a foul mood. In fact, it has been pointed out to me that I am characteristically cranky most Palm Sundays. This I do not dispute.

In the past I’ve attributed it to being tired from Lent, or anxious about the many details of Holy Week. But this year, none of those have been true. Yet I was still quite evil.

I was cranky. I was annoyed. I was any number of things. I didn’t want to do what was expected of me. I would honestly rather not. Only this week did I realize why I am usually so out of sorts.

You'll notice that I used two words quite a lot -  "I" and "me". Fourteen times, if you were counting. That was one problem.

But the most complete reason is summed up in one word: denial. Denial and I had been cooexisting quite happily for some time.  

On Palm Sunday we hear the reenactment of Christ’s Passion and death, and we say, “Crucify! Crucify him!” along with the crowd. All our best efforts at denial come crashing down around our ears, just as they did for the disciples. And like the disciples, we can react to that realization by channelling our grief into anger. While none of us have struck off a slave’s ear with our swords, or denied Jesus three times, in our anger, in our discomfort with all the dark parts of Holy Week, it is easy to deny Jesus' death.

I was angry that Christ would die. I am angry that He will be beaten, and mocked, and die an excruciating death reserved for the lowest common criminal. I remain angry that 2000 years later, we human beings still do unspeakable things to one another, that our common humanity includes deep, dark parts of desperate inhumanity. We abuse one another, call each other names. We persecute, we hate, we divide ourselves from each other and from God. We fear one another, and that fear becomes anger, and that anger becomes hate. Too frequently, we feel powerless in the face of that destructive circle of emotion.

We are here tonight with our human hearts, hearts that deny and grieve, hearts that are angry and desolate. We gather tonight to commemorate this Last Supper with our friends, to serve and console one another. Tonight, we affirm with one another that Jesus offers us not only the ultimate consolation, but salvation. Jesus doesn't call us to anger, even righteous anger - He calls us to love.

Christ would remind us that even though He knows each of us individually, loves each of us individually, life in Christ is not only about each of us, individually. We are not only here for me, me, me and I, I, I. With Christians all around the world, we gather tonight as the very body of Christ on this earth. We will break bread, we will wash each other’s feet, we will celebrate the Eucharist together. We will sit vigil with Christ together through this long night.

Christ calls us tonight into relationship with one another, just as we are. Whether we are angry, whether we are grieving, whether we are broken - Jesus calls us, each of us, into loving relationship, to live in service with and to one another.

And why do we do that? We do it because Christ commanded us. In His last commandment to us, He asks us to do a hard thing - to love. Where there is anger and betrayal and denial He brings healing and peace and love. Hard love, the kind of love that walks through death and destruction, through pain and suffering, and comes out on the other side.

Why do we companion one another through the hard events of our lives? Why do we sit by the bedside of loved ones as they are dying? Why do we have lunch with a friend who is suffering? Why do we feed those who are hungry, wipe the tears of those who cry? Why do we break bread and share the wine together?

We do it for love, following His example. “Having loved His own who were in the world, He loved them to the end.”

To the end of His life?

To the very end of time?

To the end that we will, in response, love one another?

Christ commands us to love because it is love that defeats death. Love defeats denial, and anger, and division, and injustice, and all the many desperate circumstances in which we find ourselves.

In love, we walk together with Christ through His death. Before new life happens, something has to die to make room for it. Tonight Christ goes to do just that, to be betrayed and denied by those He loved. Tonight, He goes to die, so that the Resurrection may be a possibility. Tomorrow He will stretch out His arms upon the cross, and offer himself, a perfect sacrifice for the whole world.

Together we are loosed and set free from our anger, and our hate, and our sin by the death and resurrection of Jesus. Together, tonight, we break the bread and drink the wine of communion. “For as often as (we) eat this bread and drink the cup, (we) proclaim the Lord’s death until He comes.” (I Corinthians 11:26)

Tonight, may we proclaim the Lord’s death, so that we may anticipate His resurrection.

Tonight, may we shed the chains of our anger, and put on unbounded love, the love that Christ has so generously given us. Tonight, may we receive the boundless love of God in Christ into our lives, and may we have the strength to let that love overflow into all parts of a world in need of it.

In the very name of Christ, who sees us, knows us, and loves us, even unto the very end.

Amen.