MAUNDY THURSDAY MEDITATION

Most of us already know that the Christian faith has its roots in the Jewish faith. One example of how the Christian faith is rooted in Judaism is clearly seen in the relationship of the Lord's Supper and the Jewish Passover.

This relationship is seen most vividly in the institution of the Lord's Supper as described in our gospel lesson for tonight. As the scripture says, Jesus and his disciples were gathered together on the Thursday night before Passover, a Thursday night very much like this one. And, as they were gathered together they shared a Passover meal, a meal which commemorated the liberation of the Hebrew people from Egypt by the angel of death who passed over the homes of the Hebrews because of the lamb's blood which they had put on their doors. During that night of horror, the Egyptians lost their first born sons and were, thus, forced to let God's people go.

Ever since that first Passover night, about 1,100 years before Christ, the Jewish people have celebrated God's acts of liberation by having a meal of wine and bread and other special foods. As these foods were eaten special prayers were prayed and things were said which reminded the people of God's love.

When Jesus ate this Passover meal with his disciples on that Thursday night so long ago, the disciples were expecting nothing other than the usual Passover celebration that they had had every year, all of their lives. But, Jesus had something else in mind. Instead of the wine symbolizing the blood of lambs put upon doors to avert the angel of death, Jesus said that it now symbolized his own blood which would wash the people from the power of sin. The bread which the Hebrews ate in haste would no longer symbolize the haste by which the people were saved from the powers of death, but would now symbolize the Body of Christ.

Up until Jesus' day the Jewish people had believed that salvation came from a strict adherence to the Law of Moses. The problem with this is that the Laws of the Moses were hard enough to keep in the people's heads, let alone in their hearts. There were just too many of them.

The wonderful thing about the Lord's Supper, instituted by Jesus, is that here Jesus was ushering in a whole new order wherein the Law of God would be written upon the heart. No longer would a person have to be concerned so much with the limits of the Law. Now, with Jesus' new covenant, the people would be liberated, once again. But, in this case, they would be liberated to love without any limits, and without any boundaries. And this new covenant was something that was not only accepted by the disciples and the early believers, but it was also something that was passed down through the ages and applies to us, today.

So, the question we may ask ourselves tonight is this: "How are we freed, how are we liberated to love one another?" Indeed, what boundaries does Christ ask us to cross over, boundaries which hinder us from caring for others? What self-imposed or society-imposed limitations does Christ ask us to overcome in order that we may love more fully in the way God wants us to love?

How we love one another today in many ways tells the world what impact the Lord's Supper and the crucifixion have on our lives.

Amen.