MAUNDY THURSDAY 2020 - Sermon for All Saints, Blackheath

‘So, after receiving the piece of bread,

(Judas) went out.  And it was night’. (Jn.13:30)

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INTRODUCTION

St. John records those words immediately before Jesus exclaimed, in our gospel reading, “Now the Son of man has been glorified, and God has been glorified in him!”  On this night we’re accustomed to reflect on Jesus’ example of loving service as he washed the feet of his disciples and instituted the Eucharist; how, taking bread and wine, he says, ‘This is my body, given for you … my blood, shed for you.’  But those moving yet foreboding words are omitted by John.   Instead, he, and he alone, records that Jesus washed the feet of his disciples, after which Judas departs to meet with the Chief Priests: ‘And it was night’. 

There’s a finality to those words that’s in marked contrast to what’s gone before.  It’s almost as if Jesus’ glory, the glory of God, is enabled through that simple act: “Now the Son of man has been glorified.”  It’s as if a curtain has come down and we wait for a new act to begin; we’re about to experience a primal, paradigm shift.  Yet John lets us in on a secret: whatever the night portends, there is, in the end, a glory to be revealed.  But darkness must come first.

This year the Triduum occurs when there’s darkness over the land caused by a pandemic, a time when many are anxious, many sick and many living in fear.  Lent has been a strange time when we entered an unexpected wilderness, wondering how long it will last – when ‘forty days’ stands for an awfully long time. Tonight, Jesus enters a deeper wilderness, a brief but intense period when all that he’d lived for these past thirty-odd years, all he’d preached about and declared over three, are put to the final test.  In his humanity, Jesus could not have known the outcome; we, with the benefit of hindsight, know that this Son of Man will be glorified, and God glorified in him.  And it all hangs on Judas.

JUDAS AND THE HANDING OVER OF JESUS

Judas, of course, gets a bad press.  His exit into the night after sharing communion was in order to betray Jesus.  That’s what all the gospels tell us, yet why would Judas do such a thing?  There are many arguments about his role and actions which stretch back to dawn of our Faith.  We shall never know exactly why he acted as he did: was he a thief?  Driven by envy?  Hungry for power – or simply given over to evil?  All this, and more, has been said of his motives.  What emerges is that, on this night, Jesus is to be handed over to those who sought his life. 

Or, might we need to view that in a different way?  Might it be more correct to say that Jesus handed himself over?  “This is my body, my blood, given over for you.”  Some have seen in this a profound shift.  Up to this point, Jesus has been in control, has eluded his enemies, been free to exercise his ministry and proclaim his gospel.  Now all that changes as he allows himself to be abandoned to those who seek his death.  

In his book, The Stature of Waiting, the Anglican priest, William Vanstone, argues that behind this act lies a constant theme in Jesus’ life: his self-abandonment to God.  An abandonment now fully realised in this final act of giving himself into the hands of others.  ‘The ‘day’, wrote Vanstone, ‘which gives freedom and opportunity to work is succeeded be the ‘night’ when there can be no more work and by the ‘binding’ (of Jesus) which takes away freedom and places (him) in the hitherto ineffective hands of others. Now he who previously exercised (power) passes into the (power) and judgement of others ... ‘

ABANDONMENT TO JUDGEMENT

And it is the power of judgement to which he becomes subject.  Jesus will be arrested, tried and found guilty.   He will be condemned, abused and tortured – physically and psychologically – and he will be killed.  All of that is a consequence of this moment when Jesus allows Judas to betray him, to hand him over to the religious and political authorities. 

Who can know the mind of Christ, the mind of God?  Yet this we know, as St. Paul wrote to the Philippians, that Jesus:

though he was in the form of God,
   did not regard equality with God
   as something to be exploited,
⁷but emptied himself,
   taking the form of a slave,
   being born in human likeness.
And being found in human form,
⁸   he humbled himself
   and became obedient to the point of death –
   even death on a cross. (2: 6-8)

Jesus – God – becomes the subject of confusion, hatred and violence.  Our hatred and violence. 

My hatred. 

Christians have long thought of Jesus as the ‘scapegoat’, the one who carries the sin of others, who must be sacrificed to remove that burden.  But what if this scapegoat has given himself over to allow us to express our worst excesses on him?  Allowed himself to become the willing victim of our hatred … of God? 

So often anger is present in times of suffering.  God is blamed for the world’s ills.  Yet, without God to take the blame, whom would we accuse?  Without suffering, how would we know the depths of our humanity?  We only understand what it means to be fully human in the context of suffering, and it’s as if there are times, maybe times like this, when our blind fury at suffering and loss needs a god at whom to rail.  What, then, if tonight, is God beginning to show that he takes ultimate responsibility for the suffering which is part of his Creation?  Handing himself over to the consequences of evil?  Letting himself become our victim and then, through the Resurrection, revealing meaning through it all? 

EUCHRISTIC SACRIFICE

Alone of the four gospels, John does not tell of the institution of the Eucharist.  Instead, he recounts the act of servanthood and humility which has come to symbolise this night, when one of his disciples will be the instrument of his final abandonment.  His self-sacrifice:  This is me given for you to use as you will.  To be broken that life might emerge from death.  Only God could make that shocking gift.

Twice Jesus predicts his own betrayal and, according to John, takes a morsel of bread (the word is one that will later be used to define a Eucharistic 'host'), dips it into the dish and gives it specially, and first, to Judas.  And then Jesus quietly instructs him: 'Do what you have to do, quickly'.  What the gospel of John is telling us is that it is Jesus who gives Judas permission, even orders him, to do the job that he has to do; the Passion cannot happen without him.  On him everything hinges; here life and death, love and betrayal intermingle and contend.  This is indeed Judas's night, for his action becomes the cause of our salvation. 

THE SERVANTHOOD OF CHRIST

Tomorrow we shall recall the life-giving death of Christ on the Cross.  Yet it is on this most holy night Jesus ‘showed (the) full extent of his love’ or, as one reading expresses it: ‘Having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end.’  (John 13:1)

This is the night of foot-washing and self-giving, of offering a body to be used as a slave.  This is our God.  The uniqueness of our God who, in human form, humbles himself even to undergoing death.   Gives himself over to be the victim of our passions and, in so doing, shows that beyond all the hatred and violence there is new life.  Jesus will take our anger and rage to the Cross and set us free from its burden. 

We are taught that he came among us as a servant – tonight we see him washing our feet, kneeling before us to cleanse and refresh us and saying those words: This is me, my body and blood, given in love for you.’  Can we – can I – let Jesus love me in this way?  Can I allow myself to be loved by him, open the depth of my being to being loved ‘to the end’?  Letting even the ‘Judas’ in me be loved?  For Judas, too had his feet washed. 

‘So, after receiving the piece of bread,

(Judas) went out.  And it was night’.

Could we love like that?  That is the Love behind our faith.

Whatever occurred between Jesus and Judas, whatever lay in the heart and mind of that man, whatever his intentions and actions, Jesus ‘loved him to the end’.  And we are loved to the end, not just of our lives, but through all our moods and actions, our confusion, hopes, anxieties and fears.  Even those who would betray us are held in that Love, for this Love desires to draw the sting of pain from us that we might know something of the glory of resurrection life. 

And, if all that is too much to take in, then we also remember that he took his friends aside and asked them to spend time with him as he prepared for the final act of abandonment into the hands of men.   Normally we process the Blessed Sacrament to the Altar of Repose, walk with Jesus to that Garden where he spent the night before his Crucifixion. This year, we cannot do that – but might you be able to spend time between now and midday tomorrow in meditating with the Lord?  If you have access to the internet, why not tune in to a church where the Watch is taking place.  If you can, ask him into your heart and, when you have done that, don’t be afraid to open yourself to him.  Never be afraid of that, for God in Christ would transform your body and blood into his own glorious body.  For in all this the Son of Man is glorified and in him God is glorified.  And we are glorified in Him. 

(This homily is available via YouTube: