It is Maundy Thursday. During the season of Lent, we have walked with Jesus from his temptation in the wilderness, through healings, teaching, preaching, and many challenges to the established order. He has consistently and continuously challenged the power of the world—power over, violence, exclusion, hoarding of resources, dominance, and the like, and shown that God’s power is the opposite of worldly power. God’s power is love, a power more powerful than any form of worldly power. Jesus has shown us God’s love knowing that in revealing and living God’s love, those that hold power in the world would become first afraid and then angry. He has revealed God’s love to us and asked us to follow him in living out this love, even though he knows that in doing so the world will put him to death. And now we arrive at Jesus’ last supper with his closest friends.
While many around him are living with blinders on, Jesus is not. He knows that his death, his painful death on a cross, is fast approaching. His time is short. I can only imagine the panoply of emotions that must have been flowing through him. John portrays Jesus as calm, in control and with full understanding of what awaits him. I am sure that there is truth in John’s depiction of Jesus. Jesus did understand that when he made the choice to follow the will of God, live in love and challenge the powerful systems of his world (the religious authorities and Roman overlords), that this way of living would lead to his death. But it feels somehow incomplete, especially if we do really believe that Jesus was fully human.
I wonder if Jesus is gathered at this last supper with his closest friends, because he also needed to gain strength from them to walk the path to the cross. It is not a natural or normal human instinct to walk willingly to our own deaths. Our brains and bodies are designed to keep us alive. Jesus’ human brain and body were designed to keep him alive. This man we are called to follow and emulate, must also have known despair and fear as he contemplated his approaching death. He must also have needed to be reminded of why he was walking this path. And as he gives his friends one last lesson, he gives it to himself as well. He reminds himself that there are things in this life worse than death—a life lacking in love being at the top of the list. He reminds himself that there are things worth dying for, and in loving and dying, true life, true power, the power of God is found.
My elementary-aged children have discovered Harry Potter. You may have read it with your children or grandchildren. I first read these books when I was in my mid-20’s, as they were being written and published. I find, as I re-read them to my children, that they are just as compelling now as they were when I read them 25 years ago. They are remarkably theological and there are many parallels between Harry Potter’s story and Jesus’, particularly at the end.
To put it as succinctly as possible for those of you who haven’t read the books or don’t remember the story. Harry, a young wizard, is in a battle with a dangerous and all-powerful dark wizard named Voldemort. As we progress through the books, we learn along with Harry that love is the most ancient and powerful magic of all, something that Voldemort does not and cannot understand. In the great battle at the end of the final book, Harry discovers that in order to defeat Voldemort once and for all, he must be willing to sacrifice himself for the good of his people. Harry must be willing to allow Voldemort to kill him without trying to kill Voldemort in return. In the final chapters of Book 7, we are given a view into what Harry is experiencing as he walks to his death:
He felt his heart pounding fiercely in his chest. How strange that in his dread of death, it pumped all the harder, valiantly keeping him alive. But it would have to stop, and soon. Its beats were numbered. How many would there be time for, as he rose and walked through the castle for the last time, out into the grounds and into the forest? Terror washed over him as he lay on the floor, with that funeral drum pounding inside him. Would it hurt to die? All those times he had thought that it was about to happen and escaped, he had never really thought of the thing itself: His will to live had always been so much stronger than his fear of death. Yet it did not occur to him now to try to escape, to outrun Voldemort. It was over, he knew it, and all that was left was the thing itself: dying. . . .
Slowly, very slowly, he sat up, and as he did so he felt more alive and more aware of his own living body than ever before. Why had he never appreciated what a miracle he was, brain and nerve and bounding heart? It would all be gone . . . or at least, he would be gone from it. His breath came slow and deep, and his mouth and throat were completely dry, but so were his eyes. . . . Ripples of cold undulated over Harry’s skin. He wanted to shout out to the night. . . . He wanted to be stopped, to be dragged back, to be sent back home. . . . He could no longer control his own trembling. It was not, after all, so easy to die. Every second he breathed, the smell of the grass, the cool air on his face, was so precious: To think that people had years and years, time to waste, so much time it dragged, and he was clinging to each second. At the same time he thought that he would not be able to go on, and knew that he must. . . .[1]
As I read this during this Holy Week, my mind went to Jesus. Harry walked to his death in spite of his terror because of love. Jesus walked to his death in spite of terror and because of love. His love for his friends, his love for his community, and his love for God were greater than any fears he might have had. And in this last supper, Jesus is telling his closest followers that they will need this love too. He is telling them that there are worse things in this life than death. He is telling them that when they love God, their neighbor, and each other, they will unleash a force more powerful than any other, they will unleash the power of God.
We are living in challenging times. The powers of this world seem to have the upper hand. Every time we move as a people to a place that is more loving, more inclusive, more embracing of those the powers of this world would push to the edges or crush, the powers of this world seem to rise up and work even harder to crush those without worldly power. The rich get richer. The planet gets sicker. Racism, sexism, hetero-sexism, ageism, ableism, and all the many other ways that we exclude and harm those not in the mainstream of power rear their ugly heads. It is easy to get discouraged, as Peter does after Jesus is arrested. It is easy to give up and run away as Jesus’ other followers do. But we can’t because we are followers of Jesus, and we are called to love. We can’t because it is through us limited, fragile and frail, human beings that God’s love is enacted. It is through us that God’s dream for the world is made real. We are called to love God. We are called to love our neighbor. We are called to love each other. And in loving we will unleash a power that is more powerful than any worldly power we could imagine, we will unleash the power of God.
“For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 8:38-39). Amen
[1] Rowling, J.K.. Harry Potter: The Complete Collection (1-7) (pp. 3063-3070). Pottermore Publishing. Kindle Edition.
