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Sermon, Maundy Thursday, March 28, 2024
Exodus 12:1-4, 11-14; 1 Corinthians 11:23-26, John 13:1-17
Have you ever had a favorite song or piece of music get stuck in your head? You find yourself humming it or singing it, and you realize in odd moments that the melody and the words are running along in the background of your mind, accompanying you through the day, an unexpected gift.
At least for me, this music is not something I’ve heard only once, or even a few times, but music I’ve heard over and over. To hear the music singing in my soul is the result of my having listened to and even having sung that song many times.
The fact that I’ve heard the music and the words frequently causes that music to come to me when I want and need it, or to just start playing in my mind when I least expect it.
Those of you who play musical instruments know the importance of repetition and practice to make the music on the page a melody in your mind that you can remember, even under pressure.
In tonight’s Old Testament reading, God composes the background music of freedom for the Israelites when God tells Moses and Aaron to prepare for their escape from Egypt. God gives them specific directions about preparing a lamb for the last meal that they would share as slaves.
And then God tells Moses and Aaron that this day, these directions to Moses and Aaron are to become familiar music to the Israelites, the music of freedom that they are to remember, the music that they will practice over and over as a festival to the Lord, a perpetual ordinance throughout the generations.
And so, to this day, our Jewish brothers and sisters celebrate the Passover. They sing their freedom song every year. They observe the day as a perpetual ordinance. When they remember the Passover, they remember that God loves them and takes care of them and frees them.
In the New Testament, the Corinthians have gotten their music all mixed up. They are no longer singing together in harmony. In their arguing about how they should eat together, they’ve forgotten the reason that they are eating together. They’ve forgotten Jesus. Paul writes his first letter to them to help them remember Jesus.
Paul reminds them that Jesus took a loaf of bread, and when he had given thanks, he said, “This is my body that is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.” Jesus took the cup also, after supper, saying “This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.”
And so, to this day, we Christians celebrate the Holy Eucharist, which is our freedom song. We remember that Jesus, through his death, resurrection, and ascension, brought us out the bondage of sin into righteousness, and out of prison of death into life.
We observe this meal around God’s table as a perpetual ordinance.
We practice, over and over, how to eat together at God’s table so that whenever we gather around our tables here in this world, we will find Jesus there with us too.
We practice, so that when we share our food, we remember that we share with others because Jesus shared himself with us. Without practice, we find ourselves clutching to ourselves what we have, instead of stretching out our hands in love.
“Do this in remembrance of me,” Jesus said, not just coming to this table for ourselves alone, but for the benefit of the whole world.
Many of our Catholic brothers and sisters go to mass every day, to remember every day what Jesus asks us to remember, “This is my body that is for you…” and then to go out and do as Jesus did—to let God break us open so that God’s love can pour out through us into the world.
In John’s gospel, Jesus washes the feet of the disciples that night when they’ve gathered around the table for the last time.
Jesus wants them to understand that he is welcoming them into his home, the home of his own Father, God. They are so welcome that God will stoop and wash their feet to welcome them in, and then will invite them to God’s own table, where God will serve them, where they will share in the heavenly banquet with all nations and tribes and people and languages, where the music is a song of unending joy and praise and love.
Once a year, on this night, we physically remember at the foot washing that we stand on the threshold of God’s house, that we bring our whole selves, our dusty, dirty, confused mixed up lives to God’s door. God is waiting.
As the invitation to the Eucharist in our Celtic Eucharistic prayer puts it, “Those who wish to serve him must first be served by him, those who want to follow him must first be fed by him, those who would wash his feet must first let him make them clean.”
Jesus set an example for us when he washed the feet of his disciples.
So we practice how to love one another tonight, as we wash one another’s feet. We remember how to welcome in and to love one another graciously and generously. The practice of foot washing becomes our perpetual ordinance of welcoming one another in love, as Jesus welcomes us.
Bread, wine, water, welcome—God weaves these strands of melodies together into our resurrection song, our song of praise and thanksgiving for God’s love for us.
When we practice this song, God’s welcoming love song for us will become the music that plays forever in our hearts, the unforgettable music that calls us to remember, the music that sings us through our days and shapes us into love.
Tenebrae, 2024
Tenebrae is the opening of the Holy Week services for the church.
Links:
1. The bulletin is here.
2. The description of this day in Holy Week with the Bible readings and commentaries is here.
3. The background of the service is here.
4. Digging into Tenebrae
5. A photo gallery of the day from 2019 can be found here.
6. A photo gallery from 2024 can be found here.
7. The video stream of the service in 2024 is here
This was our introduction to the service in 2019:
The service requires both a good acolyte and reader. There are 15 candles to extinguish and creating a sense of drama as the service progress. The service is 100% scripture so the reader has a challenge.
Selective extinguishing the candles in 2024:
Unlike the other Easter services, Tenebrae doesn’t relate to a specific Holy Week event as Maundy Thursday, Good Friday and Easter.
“Tenebrae” is Latin for shadows. The purpose of the service is to recreate the emotional aspects of the passion story. This is an unusual service with its own Liturgy. There is no music – the readings carry the service. And it’s not from the traditional Gospel readings.
It sets a mood and brings you through the Holy Week story through a set of “shadows”. The shadows move through the agony of last week- Betrayal, Agony of the Spirit, Denial, Accusation, Crucifixion, Death and Burial – symbolized by the lighted candles.
Digging into Tenebrae, Holy Week
This article is based on St. Peter’s Tenebrae service which is here. It is taken from the Episcopal Book of Occasional Services. Tenebrae is an ancient service the goes back to the medieval service (9th century).
Tenebrae is divided into 3 nocturns or sections and 9 lessons within them. Antiphons are excerpts from psalms said before the lesson. Responsory are responses said after a lesson.
Holy Week Introduction
Holy Week between Palm Sunday and Easter is the most sacred time of year.. The purpose of Holy Week is to reenact, relive, and participate in the passion of Jesus Christ, his triumph, suffering and resurrection. Ultimately it’s about ours. From our Baptism liturgy- “We thank you, Father, for the water of Baptism. In it we are buried with Christ in his death. By it we share in his resurrection. Through it we are reborn by the Holy Spirit.” Every Sunday is an Easter.
From early times, Christians have observed the week before Easter as a time of special prayer and devotion. As the pilgrim Egeria recorded in the late fourth century, numerous pilgrims to the holy city of Jerusalem followed the path of Jesus in his last days. They formed processions, worshipped where Christ suffered and died, and venerated sacred sites and relics. The pilgrims took the customs home with them. Holy week observances spread to Spain by the fifth century, to Gaul and England by the early seventh century. They didn’t spread to Rome until the twelfth century. From this beginning evolved the practices we observe today on Palm Sunday, Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, and Holy Saturday.
Holy Week – summary of the days
- Jesus, at the Mount of Olives, sends two disciples to secure a donkey and a colt; makes his “triumphal entry” into Jerusalem; weeps over Jerusalem.
- Jesus enters the temple area, then returns to Bethany.
Monday –
- On Monday morning Jesus and the Twelve leave Bethany to return to Jerusalem, and along the way Jesus curses the fig tree.
- Jesus enters Jerusalem and clears the temple.
- In the evening Jesus and the Twelve leave Jerusalem (returning to Bethany).
Tuesday –
- Jesus’ disciples see the withered fig tree on their return to Jerusalem from Bethany.
- Jesus engages in conflict with the Jewish leaders in Jerusalem.
- The Disciples marvel at the Temple.
- Jesus delivers the Olivet Discourse (in which he predicts the future) on their return to Bethany from Jerusalem.
Holy Week Services, 2024
Services online
Sunday, March 24, Palm Sunday, 10:50AM, Liturgy of the Palms, 11AM Eucharist
The St Peter’s congregation commemorates this triumphal entry into Jerusalem by gathering behind the church for the blessing of the palms and then processing to the front of the church, all the while shouting, ”Hosanna, Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord” and making a celebratory racket with various noise makers.
The service that follows carries the congregation on a whirlwind trip through the events of Holy Week, a summary of Jesus’ last days before being crucified. The gospel ends with Jesus having been crucified and placed in a tomb which Pilate’s soldiers seal with a stone.