Maundy Thursday
Sermon preached by The Reverend Dr Matt Bullimore, Chaplain, Corpus Christi College
Exodus 12.1–14; 1 Corinthians 11.23–26; John 13.1–17, 31b–35
I do not call you servants any longer…but I have called you friends (15.15).
I have called you friends. This verse has been accompanying me over the last weeks. Jesus says it as he is walking from the meal we are celebrating tonight, on his way to Gethsemane. At the end of the meal, at the time of their departure, the Gospel writer notes – chillingly – it was night. So Jesus says it as the darkness closes around them.
What has changed? That on this journey into the darkness, Jesus turns to his followers and suddenly declares, now, this new intimacy: the intimacy of friendship?
As I say, this verse has been impressing itself on me. It’s been insistent. And we cannot continue into these next days without confessing aloud that we gather as a community of friends who have lost a beloved friend. We are friends, walking in shadow, seeking light. Friends having to acknowledge, with grief and pain, the trial of our mortal life; the life which we called to mind on Ash Wednesday. Friends who were then together marked with the cross: sign of both fearful dread and yet also unimaginable triumph. We are gathered together tonight as friends, hearing the echo of words that tell us all that we can do to find that light: turn away from sin and be faithful to Christ.
So we turn to the one who himself once turned to us; and called us friends; and we must follow him through the coming days.
And the days will be hard, and the way still steep. This night Jesus is handed over. He is betrayed with the intimacy of a friend’s kiss. He is denied. He is abandoned. Some friends will remain, will watch with him, but do so powerless. Jesus is handed over: to authorities imperial, and royal, and priestly, and popular. Handed over into a conspiracy of pride and fear and jealousy that leads to the drama of his passion and to his death.
Jesus is handed over. He loses hold of his agency. The decisions about him will not be his. He can determine nothing. He is: Victim.
Yet… Yet, even as this whole economy of betrayal and treachery unfolds with unrelenting and swift efficiency, another economy of handing over is quietly and intimately underway.
We heard that God has a fondness – a passion – for handing on. The Passover, we read, is held as a day of remembrance, as a perpetual ordinance, so that a memory of slavery and salvation can be passed on from generation to generation, from parents to children.
St Paul tells us that he is handing on what he received from the Lord, passing on the meal that we still do in remembrance of this very night.
And the Gospel writer reminds us that during the supper, Jesus knows in himself that the Father has already given all things into his hands; and that is when he stands, and girds himself in the likeness of a servant. This man, into whose life has been poured all the fullness of divinity, stoops to wash his disciples’ feet.
So often he has touched us, this man who was God, touched us inside and out, in the depths of our selves and on the surface of our skin, touched the whole breadth of our ways of life, touched our bodies and our spirits. And tonight he bends down to wash our feet, to serve us, to minister to us.
This night, Jesus hands himself over to us in so many intimate ways: He puts bread in our hands and tells us that it is his body, given for us. Handed over into our hands, so that we can be re-membered as his body.
He stoops to wash us, so we can wash others’ feet and, in so doing, take our share in his life. He sets us his example, so we can do as he does; so then we can be an example to others.
He gives us a new commandment: to love one another as he has loved us.
Jesus, in the intimacy of this evening meal, serves us as our high priest. Gives us a set of actions, of things to do, that will mean we share in him. His life is handed over to us in bread blessed and broken and given and tasted. His whole way of life is given to us by the example of his servanthood. His very being is given over to us when we are able to love, just as he loved and loves. All this that his Father gives to him he has passed over to us.
So you see how Jesus – who will soon be handed over to be the victim – has already handed himself over to us. Remarkably, humblingly, in a devastating act of love he hands himself over to those who will betray him, and deny him, and abandon him. He hands himself over in faith and trust that what he hands on to us will nevertheless redeem us. He has given over to us the whole apparatus of his divinity: communion; servanthood; love. He puts into your hands the divine things: to do them and to share them.
As the world-unredeemed prepares to take hold of his body, handed over to them by a friend, Jesus has already given himself away – in body and blood, in service and in love. Already given himself away to those who, in the power of his Spirit, will become the world-redeemed.
And so, unbeknownst to the world, he has quietly betrayed betrayal, he has denied denial, he has left abandonment abandoned. For he is already given over by the time he is handed over.
And that is the change that has already taken place on that walk into the dark night, towards the garden. Twice over Jesus will now tell his friends not to be troubled (14.1, 27). To take courage (16.33). That his Spirit will abide with them (14.17). That they will see greater works in themselves (14.12). He lays out for them the promise, the hope. Now that he has given himself over to them – he declares them to be an enclave of love. As they receive him, as they receive all that he hands on, they will share the intimacy of his friendship.
He passes on to us his Father’s ways (15.15) and if we receive him, if we do what he does, if we love, we will always be friends (15.14). He has given us communion, servanthood and love. And now betrayal and denial and abandonment can have no final power.
But, friends, into this dark night we must follow him. For his friends have yet to betray him and deny him and abandon him, and they – we – are still waiting for our redemption and salvation.
Amen.