Sermon for Maundy Thursday
Thursday 13th April 2017
1 Corinthians 11.23-26
John 13.1-17,31b-35
Revd Preb Maureen Hobbs
One of the things that I like about Christianity is that as faiths go, it is very practical and grounded in physical things; it has real body if you like… Bread and wine ; oil and water; they are all substances that you can touch, taste, smell and consume.
Of course I like that it demands a level of thought and questioning too – don’t get me wrong, but it can never be all in the head… it involves the whole physical body and some things cannot be explained – you just have to feel it, to experience it.
And nothing demonstrates this more clearly than the rite we gather here tonight to celebrate – Holy Communion, The Mass, Eucharist, the Lord’s Supper. It doesn’t matter what you call it – there is something about the act of taking communion that defies intellectual explanation. In the end, you just need to experience it in order to ‘get it’.
(That is one of the reasons I am in favour of preparing children to receive communion before confirmation by the way… I usually find that children – who are much more in touch with their emotions than are the majority of adults, are much more open to the significance and symbolism of Communion. They don’t try to explain and understand it with their minds. They taste and see that it is good – and that’s enough. Plenty of time for them to grapple with the intellectual understanding of what it all means when they are ready to confirm for themselves their faith in Father, Son and Holy Spirit!)
And on Maundy Thursday we are very much focused on bodies and the reality of bodies.
To begin with there are those hot and dusty feet that need to be washed and dried. An action that is intimate, caring, basic and physical.
And once the guests have been properly welcomed and made comfortable, they must then be fed and watered. We don’t have the recipes for everything that was served on that final shared meal. It may or may not have been a full Passover meal – the authorities are divided on that one, but we know without doubt that it involved Bread and Wine – two basic physical commodities, without which no meal would have been been complete.
“This is my body; given for you. This is my blood; poured out for you.”
These words of our Lord – the very words of institution we will hear again this night and on most Sundays in this place. These words root us firmly in the physical world – not just the metaphysical. We reach out and take God to us in the form of bread and wine. His body is real and available to us.
Do you ever stop to think about how incredible that must have seemed to ancient people accustomed to unapproachable Gods who dwelt in distant Olympus or some other Heaven?
And the whole events of Holy Week culminate in a body that disappears from the tomb and then re-appears. Changed and glorified by resurrection – but real and physical at the same time. A body that will share bread and fish and wine.
When the women first reach the empty tomb they will think the body has been taken away. “Where’s the body?” will have been the first thought of Mary of Magdala and the others.
“Where’s the body?” – the soldiers placed on guard at the tomb can come up with no satisfactory answer to their superiors and to the Governor, Pilate.
“Where’s the body?” – the disciples will face interrogation later when they are arrested. They all denied taking it – even though for some it would cost them their lives. It makes no logical sense – but in the end the only explanation is a miracle, especially when the risen Christ begins to appear to groups of people, entering through locked doors, vanishing from sight in the very instance of breaking and blessing bread, inviting Thomas to put out his hand and touch the wounds of the nails and the spear.
Later still, Jesus’ body will leave the disciples finally at the Ascension. But what is left are those haunting words from the Last Supper.
“Whenever you gather together to share bread and wine, and you remember me, I will be with you…. For this is my body and this is my blood.
And in our action of taking and eating bread and drinking wine, we too enter into the physicality of Christ. Such that We are his body.
Through us the presence of Jesus is recognized; through us he speaks to the world; and through us he wants to make the world a better place for people to live in. The bread – although symbolic – is not his physical body; but is here to remind us that we are. So the answer to the question posed by Pilate and so many others, “Where’s the body?” is here. Maundy Thursday gives the true answer to that question. Christ’s body is here, in you and in me.
Amen.