April 21, 2011

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ!

Imagine being one of God's people and living in Egypt at the time of the first Passover. Slaughtering the lamb of a goat or a sheep on the fourteenth day of that first month, taking some of the blood and putting it on the two doorposts and the lintel, that is the part of the frame that is on the top of the door. Then eating hurriedly, sandals on and staff in hand because it is the Passover of the Lord and God will pass through the land of Egypt striking down the firstborn of all who do not have the blood of the lamb upon their doorposts and lintels. The people were delivered from bondage in Egypt and this passage is read at the Passover as a reminder of how God delivered those hearing it from bondage. Among the Jewish people even now, the emphasis is not that God delivered their forefathers from bondage, but that God delivered them, the present-day people, from bondage.

The early Christians described the Lord's Supper in Passover terms, with Jesus as the lamb who brings us out of bondage to sin. You hear the familiar words of the Apostle Paul in our second reading from 1 Corinthians when we celebrate the Lord's Supper. Paul tells us that the bread and wine are a proclamation of the Lord's death until he comes again. Christ the Lamb of God gives us himself and delivers us from death and sin.

In our Gospel today, John is talking about another rite, that of foot washing. For me, washing another person's feet is a humbling act of service, humbling but not shaming. I feel the same way when another person washes my feet. It is an act that conveys to me that Jesus has washed my feet, indeed, he has washed all of me. He did so in the waters of my baptism, years ago, and it is a washing that takes place every single morning of my life since then. Knowing that God Incarnate washes my feet, washes all of me, conveys the grandeur of God's plan of salvation. What some might consider a shameful washing of another's feet, a shameful death on the cross, brings about a plan of salvation that Jesus sees through to fruition.

From all of this flows a new order of creation, and new reality, a new commandment. Jesus tells us to "Love one another as I have loved you."

We are transformed. We are not just remembering what happened two thousand years ago, we, like our Jewish brothers and sisters, are actually living through what happened then. We are connected with the Passover celebrated by observant Jews throughout the world. We are transformed to a depth that goes beyond our ability to express. We are with Jesus as he celebrated that first Lord's Supper, that Passover celebration that was a solemn, sacred part of his Jewish heritage. And tonight the altar will be stripped in preparation for what comes tomorrow, Good Friday. We leave silently and depart to our homes, we leave an intimate moment with our Lord and Savior, and God is absent.

We hear those words of Jesus ringing in our ears and resonating in our hearts. "Where I am going, you cannot come. 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."

And now it is time to live that new commandment, to perhaps see it in a new light, a different light. To see everything else in life by the light of that new commandment. To suddenly realize that our vision has expanded, that we see further and clearer now than we did before because the clouds and fog have been removed. There are no restrictions to what we see.

The love of God, the Incarnate Son, the Holy Spirit, is received in the washing of our baptism, and suddenly love is changed. Living and loving one another as Jesus loves us conveys more than just glimpses of what love looks like. Loving and living as Jesus loves us, as Jesus lives for us and in us, means that we as a community, as part of Christ's body here in Nisswa, means that we continue to work on setting aside our own agendas, to love others, to live for others. As I told our confirmation class a couple weeks ago, we are set free, set free in love to live lives of service to one another.

By grace through faith we are a new community, not a community that just remembers what Christ did for us, but one that actually lives what he did, what he does for us. Tomorrow we will see Christ crucified. Then comes the day of resurrection and we will see the risen Christ. Tomorrow it may feel like God is absent and we may feel forsaken, but we know that Christ gives himself on the cross in love and service, and so we will live his sacrifice, his gift to us, as we let ourselves be transformed in a way that we have never been transformed before.

As we leave this service we leave behind our fears, our distrust, our unwillingness to step out in faith, we embrace and truly live what we have been given, what we are given. We are set free and we have a new strength, a strength that is from God, and we stand upheld by him. We are transformed, and we are called to live and love in such a way that other lives will be transformed as well. Any risks we might feel we are taking will be used by God to transform others by his love.

AMEN