Thursday, March 20, 2008

He rose from the table ...

Homily for Holy Thursday, Mass of the Lord's Supper, Year A
Imagine for a moment what the Last Supper might have looked like – picture it in your mind, if you can, with Jesus, and the disciples, gathered around a table; with the bread and the wine and all that made that first Eucharist holy and special. Hold that image in your mind on this night when we remember that final meal that Jesus ate with his chosen twelve. I would guess that many of us picture something not unlike Leonardo da Vinci’s Last Supper when we think of this night – a scene with Jesus seated in the middle of a table, surrounded on each side by his disciples, with the bread and the wine nearby. It’s a beautiful picture, one of the most familiar of all Christian images. But it’s static – framed, set up, posed. And that is far from what this evening’s mass commemorates.

Tonight is about action, not a posed picture. Tonight is about movement, service, giving and receiving. For, on this night, Jesus rose from the table. The Son of God, the one who “wraps the heavens in clouds, wrapped round himself a towel; he who pours the water into the rivers and pools tipped some water into a basin. And he before whom every knee bends in heaven and on earth and under the earth, knelt to wash the feet of his disciples” (Severian of Gabala, Homily on the Washing of the Feet, in A. Wenger, Revue des Etudes Byzantines, 227-229). Jesus, the Son of God, the one who was about to willingly accept death, only to come forth from the tomb, Jesus rose from the table to wash his disciples feet. But that’s not all.

When he had sat back down, the Lord of all, the foot-washer, gave his disciples a command: go and do likewise. Go forth, nourished by the Body and Blood broken and poured out for you, go forth and serve one another. Because this man you have been following, this teacher and miracle worker, this God-made-flesh is calling you to follow in his footsteps of humility and service. We can’t do this on our own – we need the strength of the Eucharist to feed us and fill us with Christ himself. But we must do it – we cannot let our faith become static, a posed picture where we sit around a table and never move. The faith we are called to live this night, and all our lives, is one that must follow Christ’s example – to rise from the table, refreshed and renewed, and to serve one another. For the one we worship is a risen savior, a living savior, whose love for us compelled him to live among us in all the glory and the squalor of human existence. Tonight, Christ tells us clearly: Rise up, you children of God, to “give heart and soul and mind and strength to serve the king of kings!” (“Rise up, ye saints of God,” William Pierson Merrill). Rise up from the table where you are nourished, and serve one another.

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