“HOLY THURSDAY 2024”
Saint John 13: 1-15
Maundy Thursday: 28 March Anno Domini 2024
Fr Jay Watson, SSP
As you have often been instructed-exhorted- to read/pray/Chant the Psalter daily, during this Lententide you have encountered in many, many Psalms the twin urging to both ask for Mercy and to give thanks (Eucharista) for the Mercy which The Lord has given you by Grace. These are the twin themes of our Holy Thursday reality—the very text of Saint John’s 13th chapter—the Upper Room discourse and activities!
Yes, you know your theology. You believe, teach, and confess, that “IS” means “IS!” You do not just noetically (with your brain) believe in justification by Grace through faith, but you live it; you exemplify it; your sanctified (Holy) life LIVES IT!
But, your old man rejects supernatural and supra-natural miracles. Your sinful self wants natural proofs and demonstrations. Your fallen nature is the Jew, demanding signs, is the Greek expecting wisdom (Science, m’uh Science). For this you are called by The Savior to repentance. He speaks to you to have faith (as He speaks to Saint Thomas on the evening of the Sunday after Easter). Jesus then gives you freely as a pure gift that which He requires. He had Thomas touch His flesh. He feeds you His flesh.
So, on every Sunday at the Mass, at this Holy Communion rail—which is Christ’s Altar & Banquet Table, you believe you are actually and truly receiving His real Body and real Blood for: the strengthening of your faith-Yes; for a bond of closer union with Him-Yes; for an increase in holiness-Yes; for the basis of a glad resurrection-Yes; for a pledge of everlasting life-Yes; for a sure defense against temptations-Yes; and many more manifold gifts by way of the chief purpose of The Sacrament: The forgiveness of sins/sin! You know Luther’s famous statement and you live it: “for where there is the forgiveness of sins (Holy + Absolution) there IS LIFE and Salvation!” Good. Gospel! Thus, your whole life echoes the Psalter verse: “Oh give thanks unto The Lord for He is Good; and His Mercy endures forever.” This, Jesus in you, is what gives you what you need to get up every morning and to face a day possibly filled with trials, pain, and sorrow. And because He is good, and because He does show you mercy, it is fitting that The Sacrament of The Altar—your meal in just a few minutes—is beneficently called The Eucharist, colloquially translated the Thanksgiving.
So, give thanks to Jesus for this foretaste of the feast to come. Give thanks to Jesus for everything He lays upon you. His burden is His gift—His cross is joyously your cross: “for My yoke is easy, and My burden is light” [Mt. 11.30]. “But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellency of the power may be of God, and not of us. We are troubled on every side, yet not distressed; we are perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; cast down, but not destroyed; always bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our body” [2 Cor. 4. 7-10].
Maundy Thursday is every Thursday, every Sunday, and indeed every day of your life: “Give Eucharista, give thanks unto The Lord for He is good and His mercy endureth forever!” And when you fail, when you grouse, grump, whine, backbite, and complain; when you act temporarily as if you do not believe, and comport yourself as an ungrateful unbeliever, know and trust that Jesus gives thanks on your behalf. He thanks His Father and your Father, for giving all of you to Him. He has such thanks for you that He suffered and died to make you His. He places you in His side and calls you dear brethren; beloved children.
That is the first major theme of this evening—gratefulness and thanking God.
The other theme stems from Christ’s action of foot-washing. A casual observer—the baby Christian who has only ever imbibed the milk of the word and not the meat—would wonder where is The Lord’s Supper in John’s Gospel? It is there. Go back and read the great “Bread of Life” discourse in chapter 6. If indeed Saint John penned his Evangel years after Matthew, Mark, Luke, and Saint Paul’s 13th chapter to the Corinthians, then John, himself, may have felt no direct need to repeat the “institution narrative”—The Verba. But you mature Christians are content to simply say, The Holy Spirit knew what He was doing!
What Saint John’s eye-witness account recollects is not the WHAT of The Sacrament of The Altar, but the WHY and the NOW WHAT.
The “12” had been Baptized. They had been already “washed” clean of sin, of sins, and had been incorporated into their dear Lord and Rabbi. Peter did not need to have a regenerative and life-creating flood of Christ poured over his head or hands. You too have been + Baptized. You need not be re-baptized…ever! That is why you confess in The Creed “one Baptism for the remission of sins.”
Though the servant of the household, the slave, always washed the feet of the honored guests and welcomed visitors—and thus what Christ was doing was at least culturally appropriate, had He been the servant. He was The Master. He was instructing/teaching/showing what The Office of The Holy Ministry, as well as the royal priesthood, would do, and does! The Disciples did not need to have their feet washed from dirt. Again, this was a performative, constitutive, “life-lesson” for their ministry to come, and for you and all Christians to emulate in your daily dealings with friends, family, and all men; “who is my neighbor?” Yes.
To wash the feet of the future Apostles was to forgive them their daily trespasses, their actual sins in thought, word, and deed. It was to both teach and empower these under-shepherds to go out and forgive all men who repent. To forgive in Christ’s Name, by Christ’s appointment, and in Christ’s stead. How many times Peter once asked…seven? Not seven but seventy times seven God responded, i.e., as many times as the sinner is penitent. The same God/Man commands you in the 5th petition of The Our Father “forgive those who sin against you as you have been forgiven your sins by God.” Your feet have been washed and you are to wash the feet of those who sin against you. Period. This is the mandate—Maundy Thursday. This is the new command which is the old, and ancient, and ever command: “Love your neighbor as yourself.”
This is the life and reality and constrained “doings” of all of you who have already been + Baptized, and who are continually foot-washed when you receive The Holy Eucharist. I will be washing your feet here shortly; Jesus will be washing your feet. And you will follow and obey His mandate to wash the feet of those you come into conflict with. Do this. DO THIS!
And you can “Do this” because of His Word of forgiveness, and because of His Verba: “this do in remembrance of Me.”
Do this. It is done!
In the Name of the Father and + of the Son and of The Holy Ghost
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