Maundy Thursday

This evening, we commemorate the Lord Jesus’s last supper with his disciples before embarking on the path that would lead him to Golgotha. As usual, Saint John has a unique perspective on this night. He presents us with his mystical interpretation of what transpired. He does this first and foremost by moving the dates. For Matthew, Mark, and Luke, the synoptic gospels, the Lord’s Last Supper was the Passover Seder meal – the Passover we heard about in today’s first reading. John moves the date so that the Passover would be celebrated two days later – the day after the crucifixion. That way, as Jesus hung on the cross on that preparation day, the Passover lambs were being slaughtered in the temple, a short distance away. He shows us Jesus as the lamb of God being offered in sacrifice once and for all.

So, for John, the Last Supper is not a Passover Seder. In fact, John does not show us anything about the meal at all. He does not tell us about the institution of the Eucharist. We heard about it in tonight’s second reading where Paul recounts the story of the first Eucharist to the faithful in the Church at Corinth. Yet, John is silent about it. Why?

The word eucharist means “thanksgiving.” The essence of gratitude is the recognition that we are indebted to someone for a gift given out of loving kindness. In his Passover from death to life, Jesus offered himself as eucharist: an offering of himself in thanksgiving for the immeasurable gifts the Father has bestowed on humankind. The eucharist in John’s gospel is Jesus’s gift of service to his disciples and to us all. Remember that the gospels are never exclusively about Jesus. The involve us. We show our eucharist – our thanksgiving – to the Father by doing what Jesus did. He lived and died and rose again in service to humankind. “I have given you a model to follow,” says the Lord, “so that as I have done for you, you should also do.”

It’s a very strange experience for those of us who have been privileged to offer this eucharist to say the words of consecration. It’s not really possible to stand before you and say, “This is my body,” and “This is the cup of my blood” without making it personal. When we offer service to one another out of gratitude – out of eucharist – we say to one another, “This is my body” and “This is my blood.” If we were to become deeply enough aware of this fact, then perhaps we could begin to fathom who it is we are serving. Since we are all one and members of Christ’s body, we may even come to realize, as we serve one another, that this person before us whose feet we are washing: this is my body; this is my blood.