Maundy Thursday. The evening when we are reminded of the “Great Mandate” the “Great Commandment,” the “New Commandment.”
“I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”
Jesus knew that his time was growing short. He knew that he would soon have to face the high priest, Pontius Pilate, the angry crowds, the long walk to Golgotha and his painful death on the cross. He knew that his followers still didn’t really understand what he had been trying to teach them during their past three years together. He loved this motley crew of men and women as parents love their children. He knew that they were all searching for meaning, purpose and the peace of God which passes all understanding. He knew that that peace was right there in front of them for the taking, but he also knew how hard it is for human beings to embrace this peace. This Passover meal was Jesus’ last chance to help his followers understand what his ministry had been all about. All the preaching, teaching, healing, walking, feeding, betrayal, arrest, and death on the cross–all of this was about one very simple thing–love.
“I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”
Jesus’ ministry was not about establishing a new religion or creating a new set of rules for people to follow or condemning people to hell–it was all about love—the love of God, and the love humans are to show one another. But love is an abstract idea. It is difficult to define love. It is difficult to describe love. It is simply something you have to practice and experience in order to understand. So, Jesus does just that. In these last hours with his friends, he doesn’t preach, he doesn’t lecture, he shows them what love is by loving them.
“I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”
He breaks bread with them, and he washes their feet. He shows them that love is about relationship. Love is about being fully present with your fellow human beings. Love is about being in community with others. Love is about service. It is about doing for others. Love is about equality. In truly loving relationships, one person is not above the other. Love is action—it is how we treat one another.
“I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”
This is why we come together every Sunday for the Eucharist, for the bread and the wine, for the body and blood of Christ. We don’t receive communion because it is some kind of magical substance that will make us holy. We don’t receive communion because if we don’t, we won’t go to heaven after we die. We don’t break bread together each Sunday because it makes God happy. We break bread together because it is a way to show love for one another. It is called communion for a reason. I, as the celebrant, can’t celebrate communion all by myself. Christ is present in the bread and wine because we come together as the body of Christ. It is all of us coming together that make it the Eucharist. And we come together, even when we don’t agree. We come together, even when we are mad at each other. We come together, even if we don’t like every single person in the room. Love is not really a feeling, it is an action, it is how we treat each other. And it is in loving each other, that we find meaning, purpose and the peace of God that passes all understanding.
Communion brings together a bunch of people who might not all come together otherwise. Communion is a small glimpse of the kingdom of God—a kingdom in which love is the primary force, and all are welcome at God’s table—old and young, rich and poor, male and female, black, white, and Asian, gay and straight, conservative and liberal, republican and democrat. And this is how communion transforms us—in this way the bread and the wine truly are magical things. When we gather together at God’s table and set aside our differences so that we might share in the body and blood of Christ, we are transformed into a people who love one another, and it is by this that everyone will know that we are followers of Christ.
“I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”
Amen.
