This sermon was delivered at the First Presbyterian Church in Berryville, Arkansas on the 6th Sunday of Easter, May 13, 2007.
Acts 16:9-15
Psalm 67
Revelation 21:10, 21:22-22:5
John 5:1-9
May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable to you, O Lord, or rock and our redeemer. Amen.
Last year, I made a donation to KSMU radio, the National Public Radio station at Missouri State University in Springfield. This isn’t unusual for me. I have enjoyed listening to NPR for over twenty years. I started listening to KCUR (Kansas City University Radio) after graduating from college. I still listen sometimes while in the office or on the road; though I don’t listen as much since KTHS has begun playing our radio spots.[1]
Anyway, when I made the donation to KSMU, I received a couple of premiums, gifts for donating. One of them was a spa day at the Basin Park Hotel in Eureka Springs. I knew that Marie would love that little bonus. She loves that sort of pampering. And who wouldn’t? I have never had a spa day, but she tells me being pampered for a couple of hours is great. Getting a massage, a facial, maybe a steam, I am told you come out of these spa days feeling refreshed. Just the other day one of Marie’s coworkers mentioned that for Mother’s Day one of her kids got her a haircut, manicure and pedicure at a local salon. She said it made her feel special, wonderful, like a movie star.
So her daughter and I have something in common, we figured it would be wonderful to give someone we love same special treatment, make them feel good. After all, who doesn’t like special treatment?
Today’s gospel passage is about receiving special treatment. And it is not as if the recipient is asking any. He’s dropping hints, but he’s not actually asking for it. Yet he receives special treatment, treatment he hasn’t earned and doesn’t deserve.
We begin during one of the Jewish festivals and Jesus is walking by the Sheep Gate by a pool called Beth-zatha. In some translations this pool is called Bethesda. The Sheep Gate separated the North Eastern part of Jerusalem from the Temple Mount. The pools at the Sheep Gate were used to wash the sheep prior to their sacrifice in the Temple. This use of the pools gave the water a halo of sanctity.[2]
Many invalids came to the pools to be healed I wonder the waters curative properties have anything to do with the lanolin from the sheep’s coats left in the waters after they are bathed. Local legend said that when the pool was stirred, its healing power was activated, and the first person in the waters would be made well. Legends from the third century said the ripples in the pool were caused by angels bathing in the waters. Since the pool was surrounded on all sides by the city walls or the surrounding slope of the hills, breezes in the pool would be infrequent, so the invalid waiting game had to be played with great patience.
The name of this spot means “House of Grace.” It is an appropriate name for a place where the sheep would receive their final bath and inspection before being certified free of blemish and suitable for sacrifice. The name of this spot would also be appropriate for a group of invalids who seek the unmerited favor of healing by the restorative, nearly mystical powers of the waters. Is it any wonder that a Presbyterian Church was founded near the sight of a bubbling spring in rural Maryland in 1820 and then one hundred and twenty years later a Naval Medical Center built nearby would both come to be called Bethesda?[3] A place named for the House of Grace would be the place to receive special treatment, both medical and spiritual.
So Jesus arrives at the pool seeing the sick: the blind, lame, and withered. There, Jesus spotted a man he wanted to know more about. He was probably one of the oldest men at the pool. He learned that this man had been lying there for a long time, thirty eight years to be exact. So Jesus asks him, “Do you want to be made well?”
Oh what a wonderful question! “Do you want to be made well?” Imagine how you would answer this question. “Oh my Lord, yes, I do want to be made well!” I can imagine people being asked this question all over the world and just as easily imagine people crying from the roof tops, “Oh my Lord, yes, I do want to be made well!” But you know, this isn’t the answer Jesus gets from the man.
The man tells Jesus, “Sir, I have no one to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up; and while I am making my way, someone else steps down ahead of me.”
So, is that a yes or a no?
No, I really mean it.
Is this a yes or a no?
It really isn’t an answer at all. It is an explanation. The man explains to Jesus that he is unable to reach the waters. He tries. He really tries to make it on his own, even though there is no one at the pool to help him. But alas, woe is he; he is unable to make it to the waters first.
Anyway, whether it is a yes or a no or an answer to Jesus’ question at all, Jesus tells the man, “Stand up, take your mat, and walk.” At once, he took up his mat and began to walk.
So, what do you think was going through his mind? “Thank you Jesus, thank you Lord?” If it is, scripture doesn’t say so. He is obedient, he does as he is told, but that’s all. After thirty eight years at the pool he doesn’t seem to be a “go-the-extra-mile” kind of guy. Looking at the whole story, we can’t be sure the man even knew he was talking to Jesus. He may have known he was taking to someone named Jesus, but then again that’s like us saying we were talking to Bob. Back in the day, guys named Jesus were a dime a dozen. He may have known he was talking to “a” Jesus, but if he knew he was talking to “the” Jesus, we don’t know it from our reading.
So he doesn’t know it was “the” Jesus of Nazareth. He doesn’t give thanks to him for the healing. There is not even any indication that this sick man believed this Jesus was the Messiah. The man does nothing to deserve the healing; he makes no motion to Jesus at all. Even when he is asked if he wants to be made well; he doesn’t give Jesus a straight answer. Instead he tells Jesus how hard it is for him to get healed.
Yeah, how hard is it? Jesus of Nazareth makes it so and it is done. What the man can’t do in thirty eight years, Jesus accomplishes without a word. He doesn’t even say “You are healed.” No speech, no proclamation about faith, his or anyone else’s. Jesus just tells the guy stand up, take your mat and walk; and it is done.
If grace is the unmerited, undeserved favor of the Lord, this House of Grace is the place and this guy is its recipient. Jesus moves to him, not the other way around. Jesus responds to the man even when the man doesn’t even know to respond to Jesus.
Again, I ask if he is thankful. No, he isn’t.
You know, it seems to me that in thirty eight years he would have been able to hit the pool first once. If he had been at the pool for thirty eight years, surely the gang would have let him in first once so he could be healed. I know it’s a dog eat dog world out there, but at the House of Grace surely one time he would have been able to make it to the waters first.
Logically, if he couldn’t get into the pool, he wouldn’t have been able to get to the pool. Someone had to get him there daily; couldn’t they stay one day to help him get healed?
Let us ask, what if he didn’t want to be healed? After thirty eight years he would have been the pool boy with the most seniority. His thirty eight years at the pool would have accorded him some power or prestige with the poolside crew. While I have no evidence to back this up, this was probably a popular place for the invalids to beg, and as the sorriest most senior of the group, the begging was probably pretty good for him. He may have even been the Michael Corleone of the pool, assigning spots, taking kickbacks on everyone else’s begging.
If he was healed, if he was able to walk, he would have lost a lucrative income and a lot of prestige. He had standing in the community. Admittedly it was an unhealthy status in an unhealthy community, but he had what he had and he was comfortable enough to live in this unhealthy community for thirty eight years. What was in it for him to be cured?
Thankful? As this story continues, the man squeals on Jesus as soon as the Scribes and Pharisees press him on the matter of his Sabbath day stroll with his mat. That’s thanks for you.
This man is unhealthy in more ways than one and has made a life out of it. It may not be a good life, but it was his life. After thirty eight years, it was all he knew. By cultural standards he has lived a long life and is probably the most senior of the sick. It’s not much of a life, but it’s his. Losing all that he knew, losing his place in the poolside community, a community he had status in, would have been frightening.
Maybe it’s not so difficult to see that he might not have been thankful for receiving the healing grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, after all, he had a life, a life he could have no longer, a life that changed dramatically.
We think of grace as a wonderful and glorious gift, which it is. Yet receiving grace can be frightening. We want to be made well, but are we willing to pay the price, the price of losing our old sick identity for a new identity in Christ? Of course we do, but receiving the grace of God through our Lord Jesus Christ requires making changes. It required the sick man to get up and walk on his own two feet literally and figuratively. He was no longer able to benefit from others carrying him. He would not be able to benefit from his status in the community of the blind, lame, and withered. He was no longer a member of that group. He was now a part of a new community, a community called by Jesus of Nazareth, Jesus the Christ. What changes do we make to gratefully receive God’s special treatment of grace, unmerited favor we have neither earned nor deserved? Are we willing to make hard changes?
We receive this wonderful and free gift, but we are required to do something with it. Being a part of the House of Grace requires us to change. Like the man at the pool, being made well requires us to change. Like the man at the pool, we need God’s grace because we can’t make it on our own. We need God’s grace to survive. It requires us to change how we respond to others. Jesus makes us the recipients of special treatment. We receive gifts we do not deserve, treatment we haven’t earned. That’s what grace is, unmerited favor. We have a choice, we can be unthankful like the man at the pool or we can be thankful for the new life we receive in Jesus Christ, sharing it with the world around us, in God’s good creation, a world made on in Jesus Christ.
[1] KTHS is the local 24 Hour Stereo Country station in Berryville, Arkansas. The church has begun putting promotional/devotional spots on the station.
[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pool_of_Bethesda, accessed May 12, 2007
[3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bethesda%2C_Maryland and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Naval_Medical_Center accessed on May 12, 2007
Sunday, May 13, 2007
Sunday, May 06, 2007
What Happens In Between
Acts 11:1-18
Psalm 148
Revelation 21:1-6
John 13:31-35
May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable to you, O Lord, our rock and our redeemer. Amen.
In the liturgical year, we are in the Easter Season, the time between the end of Holy Week and Pentecost. In our reading, the Lord is still with his apostles. By our calendar, the Ascension of the Lord is still about ten days away. So it seems a little odd that our reading comes from between Palm Sunday and Good Friday. In fact, by the liturgical calendar, it takes place on Maundy Thursday. Narrowing the time down even further, this is what is happening in between the Last Supper and Jesus’ arrest. This moment is between when Jesus prophesies Judas will betray him and when he will prophesy Peter will deny him.
This is a transitional moment in the life of the Lord and the apostles. Jesus has just told Judas “Do quickly what you are going to do.”[1] The apostles didn’t know what that meant, but Jesus did. He knows the apostles are expecting to celebrate the Passover with the man who has ridden triumphantly into Jerusalem on the back of a young donkey. The people went out to meet him waving palm branches and crying “Hosanna.” This is the greeting reserved for a king, not a carpenter and itinerant preacher. There was joy in this celebration, yes, Jesus had prophesied his own death, but at the moment this was lost on the apostles. Well, it was lost on all who had remained in the upper room.
In the verse preceding our reading the narrator tells us it was night. The sky and the time were dark. Jesus knew that this darkness would extend well beyond the dawn of the new day. At this moment, at this very moment, Jesus knows that his time with the apostles is limited. He knew that the dawn would be difficult for them, so he had to tell them what they needed to be able to survive the next few days without him. This is the end of the first part of Jesus’ ministry on earth and whatever he needs to say to them he has to say now.
So as we go on, we mustn’t lose the irony of their situation,[2] the apostles are basking in the glow of their Passover feast, yet one of them had just left with a cryptic command from their Messiah, so they are a little confused. It’s dark outside, there are a few oil lamps burning around the room. Jesus begins to give his final instructions in this darkness set against a backdrop of betrayal and denial. There is great light in the room, the person of Jesus Christ and the word he speaks, the word of truth and life burns like a fire in the night. All of this happening in the darkest night humanity has ever known; the night the shepherd would be betrayed by one of his sheep.
In our reading, Jesus has two words for the apostles. One deals with his glory and the glory of the Father. The other is a new commandment.
Jesus begins by saying “now the Son of Man has been glorified, and God has been glorified in him.” Now, while it is dark, while Judas is on his way to betray Jesus and the prophecy of Peter’s denial is imminent, now while this tempest is brewing, the Son of Man has been glorified, and God has been glorified in him. In a wonderful motion, God the Father and God the Son lift one another in mutual glorification. They initiate this motion together, simultaneously. This motion has been made from the beginning and exists even now. It has always been this way and it will always be this way, even in this darkest of nights.
On this night, nothing has been left undone, nothing is incomplete.[3] When Jesus says “It is finished” from the cross in just a few hours, he will mean it. Now is the time when Jesus knows he will go to a place no one can follow. He knows his sojourn will be agonizing, but he knows that as his life brings glory to the Father, so too will his death. He knows glory abounds regardless of Judas’ betrayal or Peter’s denial. There is nothing anyone can say or do, there is nothing any group of people can say or do which will separate Jesus from the Father, and in this, glory abounds.
The next thing Jesus gives the apostles is a new commandment, that they love one another. They should love one another just as He loved them. So what does it mean for them to love one another as Jesus loved them?
First, we need to get something clear about this command. They are to love one another. This must come first. At this moment they aren’t being told to go out and evangelize the world. They aren’t being told they have to put more in the plate when it comes by. They aren’t even told to save the world. (It’s Jesus who takes care of that.) They are told to love, and they are told to love one another.
Their love for one another is what is going to get them through the next few days. They are going to feel great loss when Jesus is taken from them. They will feel like their world will never be the same without their Lord. This is when they will need love the most. This love is going to get Peter past his denial of Jesus. This love is going to get all of them past the ugly scene with Judas and the private guard of the chief priests and Pharisees. This love is going to get them past the crucifixion. This love is going to get them through from this dark moment until his glorious resurrection.
Now don’t get me wrong, I am not saying that some ordinary human love is a suitable replacement for the love of Jesus; on the contrary. Jesus told them to love one another as he loved them. They are to love one another sacrificially. They must be willing to give up everything for one another. This sort of love has only one source, this is the love of God, modeled for the apostles by Jesus the Christ. Their love will not sustain them through the dark night coming, but His love will.
This love must begin with them, with the community. This love must begin with the apostles and the disciples and all who know the love of Jesus. This love isn’t for the lost of the world outside the communion of the church; it is for the lost of the world inside the communion of the church. Often in the history of the church, there have been disagreements. I could regale you with the latest salvos in the fight for peace, unity, and purity in the Presbyterian Church (USA), but why should I when the first major fight for peace, unity, and purity is found in our reading from Acts?
Our reading in Acts shows Peter in a sticky situation. He has just returned from a glorious time with the Gentiles in Cornelius’s home at Caesarea. Peter had received a word from the Lord to go and take and eat with the Gentiles, so he did. The Gentiles heard the word of God, received the Holy Spirit, and were baptized. Peter shared their hospitality, but with their hospitality he shared their unclean food. Returning to Jerusalem, Peter’s breaking of the table purity with the Gentiles was controversial, even scandalous. Peter explained, step by step, that he was directed by the word of the Spirit. He was told to go, take, and eat. He was also told “What God has made clean, you must not call profane.” Peter explained to the church in Jerusalem that the Spirit told him not to make distinction between them and us, between the Jews and the Gentiles.
This is the root of the love we are to share with one another. This is the communion we are share with one another. We are one with the Spirit; we are one with the Lord.[4] This is the love of God, modeled by Jesus, which we are to share with one another. This is the new commandment the apostles received. This is the new commandment we receive still today. And it is through this love for one another that everyone will know that we are disciples of Jesus Christ.
John Lennon once said “Life is what happens while you are making other plans.”[5] Judas had his plans. He was on his way to execute them, and by them he would forge the first link of a chain that would bind Jesus to the cross. Peter had his own gung-ho plans. He was ready to take on the Jews and the world. He was ready to lay down his life for his Lord, but instead he will deny Jesus three times before cockcrow. There are great plans in the works. Conspiracies abound. Toil, torment, torture, suffering and death are on the horizon for Jesus (and Judas for that matter). Plans will come, plots will go, and in the meantime, life goes on.
We are in a great dark time, just like the apostles were some two thousand years ago. In the meantime, like sands through the hourglass, life happens while we make plans. Here’s a challenge, find some time this week and put aside your plans. Take time to look at life and God’s love around us. Take time to feel the sun on your face, or hear the rain on the roof. Let this be a time to put aside our plans, and seek the life happening around us. Let us be with those who are here with us today, and with those who are absent. Be a part of this communion, a communion begun by Jesus on a dark night long ago, a communion of people who are like we are and a communion of people who are not like us at all. And let us love one another as Christ loved us.
The events of our gospel reading happen during the Last Supper. We celebrate the inauguration of this sacrament on Maundy Thursday. Maundy means mandate, commandment.[6] Jesus has given his apostles a new commandment; he has given us a new commandment; to love one another; a love which reflects the glory of God and the glory of Jesus; the glory they give to one another. This is the glory that finds in us another pair of eyes when we take time to be attentive to the glorious life of the Lord surrounding us. This is the glory that finds in us another pair of hands when we take time to participate the glorious life of the Lord surrounding us.
In the liturgical year, we are in the Easter Season, the time between the end of Holy Week and Pentecost. It seems a little odd that our reading comes from between Palm Sunday and Good Friday. But the darkness of this time is not so different from our own. In this dark time, we are to seek the one light that shined brightly on that dark night, the love of Jesus for his apostles and for the world. There is light in the word of God, the word that calls us to see the mutual glory of the Father and the Son, the word that calls us to take this love so graciously given and share it with one another. A love by which all unity may one day be restored, a love by which we'll guard each one's dignity and save each one’s pride, a love which makes us one.[7]
[1] John 13:27b
[2] Cousar, Charles B., Gaventa, Beverly R., McCann, Jr., J. Clinton, Newsome, James D., Texts for Preaching, A Lectionary Commentary Based on the NRSV, YEAR C. Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 1994, page 310.
[3] Ibid.
[4] Peter Scholtes, “They’ll Know We Are Christians By Our Love,” 1966 F.E.L. Publications. Assigned 1991 Lorenz Publishing Company (a div. of the Lorenz Corporation)
[5] The Columbia World of Quotations. New York: Columbia University Press, 1996. www.bartleby.com/66/. May 5, 2007. Columbia notes that others may have been responsible for this quotation.
[6] McKim, Donald. Westminster Dictionary of Theological Terms. Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 1996, “Maundy” entry.
[7] Ibid. Peter Scholtes
Psalm 148
Revelation 21:1-6
John 13:31-35
May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable to you, O Lord, our rock and our redeemer. Amen.
In the liturgical year, we are in the Easter Season, the time between the end of Holy Week and Pentecost. In our reading, the Lord is still with his apostles. By our calendar, the Ascension of the Lord is still about ten days away. So it seems a little odd that our reading comes from between Palm Sunday and Good Friday. In fact, by the liturgical calendar, it takes place on Maundy Thursday. Narrowing the time down even further, this is what is happening in between the Last Supper and Jesus’ arrest. This moment is between when Jesus prophesies Judas will betray him and when he will prophesy Peter will deny him.
This is a transitional moment in the life of the Lord and the apostles. Jesus has just told Judas “Do quickly what you are going to do.”[1] The apostles didn’t know what that meant, but Jesus did. He knows the apostles are expecting to celebrate the Passover with the man who has ridden triumphantly into Jerusalem on the back of a young donkey. The people went out to meet him waving palm branches and crying “Hosanna.” This is the greeting reserved for a king, not a carpenter and itinerant preacher. There was joy in this celebration, yes, Jesus had prophesied his own death, but at the moment this was lost on the apostles. Well, it was lost on all who had remained in the upper room.
In the verse preceding our reading the narrator tells us it was night. The sky and the time were dark. Jesus knew that this darkness would extend well beyond the dawn of the new day. At this moment, at this very moment, Jesus knows that his time with the apostles is limited. He knew that the dawn would be difficult for them, so he had to tell them what they needed to be able to survive the next few days without him. This is the end of the first part of Jesus’ ministry on earth and whatever he needs to say to them he has to say now.
So as we go on, we mustn’t lose the irony of their situation,[2] the apostles are basking in the glow of their Passover feast, yet one of them had just left with a cryptic command from their Messiah, so they are a little confused. It’s dark outside, there are a few oil lamps burning around the room. Jesus begins to give his final instructions in this darkness set against a backdrop of betrayal and denial. There is great light in the room, the person of Jesus Christ and the word he speaks, the word of truth and life burns like a fire in the night. All of this happening in the darkest night humanity has ever known; the night the shepherd would be betrayed by one of his sheep.
In our reading, Jesus has two words for the apostles. One deals with his glory and the glory of the Father. The other is a new commandment.
Jesus begins by saying “now the Son of Man has been glorified, and God has been glorified in him.” Now, while it is dark, while Judas is on his way to betray Jesus and the prophecy of Peter’s denial is imminent, now while this tempest is brewing, the Son of Man has been glorified, and God has been glorified in him. In a wonderful motion, God the Father and God the Son lift one another in mutual glorification. They initiate this motion together, simultaneously. This motion has been made from the beginning and exists even now. It has always been this way and it will always be this way, even in this darkest of nights.
On this night, nothing has been left undone, nothing is incomplete.[3] When Jesus says “It is finished” from the cross in just a few hours, he will mean it. Now is the time when Jesus knows he will go to a place no one can follow. He knows his sojourn will be agonizing, but he knows that as his life brings glory to the Father, so too will his death. He knows glory abounds regardless of Judas’ betrayal or Peter’s denial. There is nothing anyone can say or do, there is nothing any group of people can say or do which will separate Jesus from the Father, and in this, glory abounds.
The next thing Jesus gives the apostles is a new commandment, that they love one another. They should love one another just as He loved them. So what does it mean for them to love one another as Jesus loved them?
First, we need to get something clear about this command. They are to love one another. This must come first. At this moment they aren’t being told to go out and evangelize the world. They aren’t being told they have to put more in the plate when it comes by. They aren’t even told to save the world. (It’s Jesus who takes care of that.) They are told to love, and they are told to love one another.
Their love for one another is what is going to get them through the next few days. They are going to feel great loss when Jesus is taken from them. They will feel like their world will never be the same without their Lord. This is when they will need love the most. This love is going to get Peter past his denial of Jesus. This love is going to get all of them past the ugly scene with Judas and the private guard of the chief priests and Pharisees. This love is going to get them past the crucifixion. This love is going to get them through from this dark moment until his glorious resurrection.
Now don’t get me wrong, I am not saying that some ordinary human love is a suitable replacement for the love of Jesus; on the contrary. Jesus told them to love one another as he loved them. They are to love one another sacrificially. They must be willing to give up everything for one another. This sort of love has only one source, this is the love of God, modeled for the apostles by Jesus the Christ. Their love will not sustain them through the dark night coming, but His love will.
This love must begin with them, with the community. This love must begin with the apostles and the disciples and all who know the love of Jesus. This love isn’t for the lost of the world outside the communion of the church; it is for the lost of the world inside the communion of the church. Often in the history of the church, there have been disagreements. I could regale you with the latest salvos in the fight for peace, unity, and purity in the Presbyterian Church (USA), but why should I when the first major fight for peace, unity, and purity is found in our reading from Acts?
Our reading in Acts shows Peter in a sticky situation. He has just returned from a glorious time with the Gentiles in Cornelius’s home at Caesarea. Peter had received a word from the Lord to go and take and eat with the Gentiles, so he did. The Gentiles heard the word of God, received the Holy Spirit, and were baptized. Peter shared their hospitality, but with their hospitality he shared their unclean food. Returning to Jerusalem, Peter’s breaking of the table purity with the Gentiles was controversial, even scandalous. Peter explained, step by step, that he was directed by the word of the Spirit. He was told to go, take, and eat. He was also told “What God has made clean, you must not call profane.” Peter explained to the church in Jerusalem that the Spirit told him not to make distinction between them and us, between the Jews and the Gentiles.
This is the root of the love we are to share with one another. This is the communion we are share with one another. We are one with the Spirit; we are one with the Lord.[4] This is the love of God, modeled by Jesus, which we are to share with one another. This is the new commandment the apostles received. This is the new commandment we receive still today. And it is through this love for one another that everyone will know that we are disciples of Jesus Christ.
John Lennon once said “Life is what happens while you are making other plans.”[5] Judas had his plans. He was on his way to execute them, and by them he would forge the first link of a chain that would bind Jesus to the cross. Peter had his own gung-ho plans. He was ready to take on the Jews and the world. He was ready to lay down his life for his Lord, but instead he will deny Jesus three times before cockcrow. There are great plans in the works. Conspiracies abound. Toil, torment, torture, suffering and death are on the horizon for Jesus (and Judas for that matter). Plans will come, plots will go, and in the meantime, life goes on.
We are in a great dark time, just like the apostles were some two thousand years ago. In the meantime, like sands through the hourglass, life happens while we make plans. Here’s a challenge, find some time this week and put aside your plans. Take time to look at life and God’s love around us. Take time to feel the sun on your face, or hear the rain on the roof. Let this be a time to put aside our plans, and seek the life happening around us. Let us be with those who are here with us today, and with those who are absent. Be a part of this communion, a communion begun by Jesus on a dark night long ago, a communion of people who are like we are and a communion of people who are not like us at all. And let us love one another as Christ loved us.
The events of our gospel reading happen during the Last Supper. We celebrate the inauguration of this sacrament on Maundy Thursday. Maundy means mandate, commandment.[6] Jesus has given his apostles a new commandment; he has given us a new commandment; to love one another; a love which reflects the glory of God and the glory of Jesus; the glory they give to one another. This is the glory that finds in us another pair of eyes when we take time to be attentive to the glorious life of the Lord surrounding us. This is the glory that finds in us another pair of hands when we take time to participate the glorious life of the Lord surrounding us.
In the liturgical year, we are in the Easter Season, the time between the end of Holy Week and Pentecost. It seems a little odd that our reading comes from between Palm Sunday and Good Friday. But the darkness of this time is not so different from our own. In this dark time, we are to seek the one light that shined brightly on that dark night, the love of Jesus for his apostles and for the world. There is light in the word of God, the word that calls us to see the mutual glory of the Father and the Son, the word that calls us to take this love so graciously given and share it with one another. A love by which all unity may one day be restored, a love by which we'll guard each one's dignity and save each one’s pride, a love which makes us one.[7]
[1] John 13:27b
[2] Cousar, Charles B., Gaventa, Beverly R., McCann, Jr., J. Clinton, Newsome, James D., Texts for Preaching, A Lectionary Commentary Based on the NRSV, YEAR C. Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 1994, page 310.
[3] Ibid.
[4] Peter Scholtes, “They’ll Know We Are Christians By Our Love,” 1966 F.E.L. Publications. Assigned 1991 Lorenz Publishing Company (a div. of the Lorenz Corporation)
[5] The Columbia World of Quotations. New York: Columbia University Press, 1996. www.bartleby.com/66/. May 5, 2007. Columbia notes that others may have been responsible for this quotation.
[6] McKim, Donald. Westminster Dictionary of Theological Terms. Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 1996, “Maundy” entry.
[7] Ibid. Peter Scholtes
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