Last One At The Table — SACRED COMMONS

I remember hearing a well known preacher once say, “Whatever family table you sit at, one day you will be the last one at the table, if you're fortunate to live long enough”. I feel that way on Maundy Thursday.

Tonight Jesus is taken from us and brought before the principalities that were determined to systematically deny him justice. They were set on an execution. Like a Lamb led to slaughter, Christ is taken before those whose sin He will die for. He is reenacting the very thing that has just taken place at the Temple in Jerusalem, the blood of the sacrificed lambs is still running wet from the altar.

Before all this happened, however, Jesus once again shared a table with us, but this table is different. This is an apocalyptic (revelatory) table with a meal that Christ promises to never eat again until Kingdom comes. In the synoptic gospels this is Passover. Going back in time with our imaginations we can put ourselves in their context: in 1st century Judea we don't “celebrate” Passover, we eat it. The paschal lamb is to be consumed. Matthew, Mark and Luke, all locate the Last Supper on Passover. John, however, gives us a different account. For John, the Last Supper takes place twenty-four hours earlier. For John, this isn’t the evening of Passover, but instead this is the night when the lambs are sacrificed for Passover.

For this reason, in the Last Supper we see some distinct variances from the traditional Passover Seder. Mainly this; on the table we find the wine and the bread, but not the lamb (the Paschal offering). In a beautiful, intentional, pointed way - John wants us to see something: Jesus is the Lamb. He (John) wants you to remember how he began his gospel, by quoting John the Baptist, “Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world”.

John, the disciple, gives us every single Eucharistic symbol we need, preparing us for the Table of The Lord.

At the table we move beyond celebrating a tradition, we leave time and space and join the children of Israel as they travel from slavery to freedom. At the table we pass over from death into life. This meal was instituted by our Lord. Next to the resurrection, it's a binding cord of the New Testament. Jesus takes this Seder meal of remembrance, a meal that was designated to “keep the story going”…and totally gives us something new, something powerful. It's so important, that all 4 evangelists harmonize as to what took place: Jesus takes, Jesus gives thanks (Eucharist), Jesus breaks (for it can not reach all of us unless the host is broken), and then Jesus gives it to us, telling us that this is his body and blood. So important is this meal that Jesus appears to Paul, just to deliver this institution 1 Cor 11:23. The Table is so central, we have all 4 gospel writers AND Paul giving us the meal of the Lords Supper and “the words of institution; On the night he was handed over to suffering and death our Lord took bread…”

So here we are, this is that night. Jesus has washed our feet, and has begun a new meal of remembrance. But we now find ourselves being the last ones at the table. In a Maundy Thursday service the altar is stripped bare. All the ornate table settings are removed at the end of the liturgy. The table cloth, gone. The candles, extinguished. The cross, veiled in black. This all happens while we sit and read Psalm 22 together. Then silence. The weight, the gravity. They've taken Jesus from us. Our kids sit staring intently. They ask, “what's going to happen?” We offer no false rush to triumph. This savior will not kill his enemies like Judas Maccabeus, but instead He will die for them.

They have taken Him from us, and just as He has washed our traveled, dirty, and weary feet… He will now wash a traveled and weary humanity with His blood. In this, our grief, what do we say to the children? What do we say to each other?

We gather all the family, young and old, around His table. We remember His story. We eat His body, the Bread of Heaven, we drink His blood, the Cup of Salvation, and we sit…in silence.

Maybe the echo of a voice crying out in the wilderness from beyond time reaches our hearts, and we hear a whisper say…

“Behold.

The Lamb of God, that takes away the sin of the world.”

We close our eyes and respond, “have mercy upon us”.

Worthy is the Lamb.