It’s All About Love

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footsteps, Holy Thursday, Jesus, John, love, love one another, suffering, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, triduum

Today we move to the most sacred of ritual days in the Christian calendar. We call it the Triduum – Latin for three days: Holy Thursday (or Maundy Thursday in Protestant denominations), Good Friday and Holy Saturday – all leading up to the the great celebration of Easter, feast of Christ’s Resurrection. All of it portrays the events leading from the trial to the death and burial of Jesus so why do we call Friday “Good” when his suffering was so intense?

After reading the lectionary texts for today what remains in me is the refrain from a song based on chapter 13 of John’s gospel and the gospel acclamation from the same text. I think that, taken together, those two examples provide the best answer to the above question.

1. Do you know what I have done to you, you who call me your teacher and your Lord? If I have washed your feet so you must do as I have done for you. (Song of the Lord’s Command by David Haas)
2. I give you a new commandment, says the Lord: love one another as I have loved you. (JN 13:34)

Let us consider the lengths to which Jesus went to show us the depth of his love. How far are we willing to follow in his footsteps?

High Holy Days

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breaking bread, christians, crucifixion, God, Holy Thursday, Jews, love, mercy, Passover, Peace, Seder, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, unity

This morning I’m feeling a sense of expectancy. The trees are silent outside – unmoving – as if they also know the call to stand up and be ready. It is the time of “High Holy Days” for Jews and Christians alike, an opportunity to bring the past into the present by remembering and recounting our religious heritage. For Christians the Scriptures of this week have moved from the triumphant entry of Jesus into Jerusalem this past Sunday, soon to be followed by ignominy of the crucifixion and burial of Jesus, commemorated tomorrow in a stark ritual. The history of the Jews, stretching back so much further, recalls the exodus of Israelite slaves from Egypt, saved by God’s “passing over” of the houses of Israelites during the tenth plague that killed all of the first-born children of the Egyptians. Passover also stretches over a week, this year from tomorrow evening, March 30, to April 7.

Tonight, we Christians will listen to the story of Jesus sharing the Seder meal with his friends. At that meal, Jesus was celebrating his lineage, hearing the same stories that our Jewish friends will hear tomorrow night at their Seder and that we will hear at our Easter Vigil service on Saturday night. The significance of this confluence of celebrations is powerful, I think, for those of us who long for peace and unity in the world. Our root belief in a God who is faithful to the covenant made first with Abraham should be the bedrock of relationship. We Christians, the younger branch of the Judeo-Christian family, hold Jesus, a faithful Jew throughout his life, as our Messiah – the one who teaches us about the nature of God – the same God worshipped by our ancestors, the Hebrews.

Let us join our hearts and minds in celebration of what joins us and pray together for the peace that the world cannot give but which we find in the love and mercy of God.

 

 

 

 

 

Heritage

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Corinthians, Eucharist, Exodus, Hebrews, Holy Thursday, Jesus, John, Last Supper, love, love one another, memorial feast, Passover, Paul, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, washing feet

This morning’s readings remind us that Eucharistic services only happen in the evening of this day as we read in the Hebrew Scriptures the story of the Passover from slavery in Egypt to freedom (EX 12) and in the Christian Scriptures the institution of the Eucharist during what we term the Last Supper. This year’s eight day celebration of Passover for our Jewish brothers and sisters begins tomorrow, coinciding with our remembrance of  the events of the Paschal Mystery as Jesus passes through death to new life.

Today’s first reading, the detailed instruction of how the Hebrews are to celebrate Passover, ends saying: “This day shall be a memorial feast for you, which all your generations shall celebrate…as a perpetual institution.” I will always be grateful for the understanding I received about the way that happens in the Jewish Seder. When the stories of liberation are read, rather than seeing those chronicled events as past history, the Jewish people experience them as present. The stories are entered into as if they are happening as they are being read. After that realization came to me, I viewed the words of the institution of the Eucharist (which we hear from Paul tonight in 1COR 11) in a different and more vibrant way. And it is now when I hear those words that I can see myself in that upper room listening to the conversation about the new covenant that Jesus is instituting at the supper. Even more visual as the example of what that means for us is the action of Jesus in tonight’s gospel (JN 13:1-15) when he rises from the table and begins to wash the feet of his disciples. Having had just such an experience at a supper table on retreat in 2010, washing the feet of a friend and having my own feet washed in turn, I understand that these events are not past history or only meaningful stories, but are commands of Jesus for now as we live into our faith and come to understand ever more deeply what Jesus meant when he said, “Love one another as I have loved you.”