Maundy 2010

shadow of doubt--shadow of death again. (This time the Destroyer would enter the abode of the Incarnate Message of God (Good Friday note)

Passover-zakar-remember-brings to present life-makes the past come alive. Passover is usually celebrated as a family meal in Jewish circles. Every family follows a liturgy, and the family becomes a little church that evening. We have a taste of its question and answer format again this evening.

 

No fast food sacrament this-sacraments as examples of God's hospitality-old ways reinterpreted This was a goodbye family meal that anticipated family meals of the future. The elements encapsulate the life of Jesus, and in consuming them, we claim that life in our own. We see others as part of the family. We stand within the family prayer of Jesus Christ. We are adopted into the family history of Jesus. Matzoh, the quick Passover bread on the run. We ingest that collective memory. this is a sacrament of connections, horizontally to each other and vertically to heaven. In the free nation, wed live in chains to drugs, to ambition, to an image of ourselves. Communion offers a way out, a path toward freedom. It is a prescription for a passover of the cold hold of death, a sit offers a way into the eternal memory and life of God. (Kaddish prayer from Pennington's Eucharist).Afikomen, some think that toward the end of the meal, when the last piece of unleavened bread, the matzoh, is eaten Jesus reinterpreted the Passover bread as he did with the one of the blessings of wine, perhaps it was when the people say dayenu, it is enough.. Maybe at the Urchatz, the ritual washing of hands, Jesus took on the role of washing feet as well. the bread and wine unite us with the elements of creation but also in our role of transforming the elements of creation, wheat and grape juice into bread and wine by our techniques.

 

How and why do we forget? We repress painful memory. Memories do fade in time.
We dismiss what we see as unimportant. How much of a sense did the disciples have that this was a very special Passover meal?  We get occupied with other events. Did Jesus wonder if he would be forgotten, just another number on the list of executions? Would his work be erased like footprints in the sand? At Passover the destroyer passed over the houses of the Israelites. Was Jesus fasting? At the Last Supper, Jesus realized that the Destroyer was aiming straight for him. Somehow his death would be a gateway to new life in this world and the world to come.