For I received from the Lord what I also handed on to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took a loaf of bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, ‘This is my body that is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.’ In the same way he took the cup also, after supper, saying, ‘This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.’ For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.
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What better way to begin a
Presbyterian Maundy Thursday service than by talking about the new pope of the
Roman Catholic church?
I’ve been particularly impressed by
the new Pope Francis. It would be easy
to get caught up in the pomposity of being the pope and the lavish lifestyle
that is available to him. Instead, he
has chosen another path, just as he did when he was Cardinal of Buenos
Aires. There, he donated the mansion of
the Cardinal to a missionary society and chose to live in an apartment. In Rome, he has opted not to live in the
papal apartments, choosing instead to live in community in a nearby
guesthouse. He sneaks out to attend mass
with others, and he even called the man who delivers his papers to let him know
he wouldn’t be returning, just in case the man hadn’t heard that he was elected
pope. He’s a man of simplicity, and he
lives it out, rather than merely talking about it.
In other words, his actions
proclaim a truth that is within him. His
actions serve a purpose—through them he is enacting something. I haven’t heard a single word the pope has
said, but I have learned a lot about the man and what he believes by watching
him live. Every decision he makes
reflects the man’s inner truth.
So we gather tonight and hear these
words from 1 Corinthians: For as often as you eat this bread and drink
this cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.
Did you catch that? Every time you take communion, by your
actions, you are proclaiming the death of Jesus Christ. Our actions are embodying our proclamation of
Christ’s death. By gathering tonight for
worship, by repeating what we have done so many times before, we are
proclaiming Christ’s death.
And when we proclaim Christ’s
death, we are doing more than just looking to the cross, because Christ’s death
means far more than just one thing.
To proclaim Christ’s death is to
proclaim the eternal love of God, a love so deep that the sin of humanity was
not a big enough obstacle to prevent God from reaching down and saving us.
To proclaim Christ’s death is to
proclaim the awesome power of God, power so complete that even the bonds of
death could not hold him, for his death is never the end of the story, because
Christ shatters the power of death so that we might have life.
To proclaim Christ’s death is to
proclaim that our God is not content to remain in the heavens and save us from
afar, keeping his hands clean, but rather that our God loves so deeply and
desires relationship so badly that he is willing to descend from heaven and
walk among us, set an example for us, and be raised up on the cross, taking
death and sin and shame upon himself so that we might not suffer the eternal
punishment that we deserve.
To proclaim Christ’s death is to
proclaim an eternal, powerful God who wants to be in relationship with us so
deeply that no price was too high to pay.
To celebrate communion is to
proclaim Christ’s death.
That is what we do tonight. We gather to witness to the awesome love of
God. We gather to proclaim something
bigger than ourselves. We gather to
remember what God has done.
And every time we gather at church,
the intent is that what we celebrate here, what we do here, becomes a part of
us. Jesus was teaching the disciples at
the Supper just as he is teaching us, for we are being formed as
disciples. If we are paying attention,
what we are doing here goes with us when we leave. The church is to be a sending place, like an
airport, where we gather from disparate places and are sent back out into the
world.
So we gather and learn new ways of
being. We enact and embody the faithful
life. We proclaim his death here, and
then we go back into the world, ready to continue our proclamation, ready to live
for him.
Friends, what we are doing tonight
matters. Our actions matter, because
they form us as disciples and they proclaim a greater truth to the outside
world. So let us take seriously the task
before us, and let us carry this proclamation outward, so that they way we live
continues to proclaim the awesome power of God.
Let us pray
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