Sermon for Maundy Thursday
Love One Another
By The Rev. Eric Christopher Shafer -
This is the day we Christians call “Maundy Thursday.” The name “Maundy” comes from the Latin word “mandatum” or “command” and it is from the phrase in tonight’s Gospel lesson – “I give you a new “commandment,” that you love one another.” Jesus is speaking with his disciples and continues, “Just as I have loved you, you should love one another.” Jesus’ “mandate” is to love one another.
Jesus says these words during his final meal with his disciples, a meal celebrating the Jewish Passover holy day. In the Gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke, Jesus initiates Holy Communion during this meal. Often, preachers reflect on the importance of Holy Communion, the Lord’s Supper, on Maundy Thursday. Christians around the world are gathering this evening and you can just about guarantee that they are sharing the sacrament of the altar, as we call it, Holy Communion.
But in St. John’s Gospel there is no celebration of the first Holy Communion at Jesus’ Thursday night Passover dinner. Instead, Jesus washes the feet of his disciples in an unusual display of service, service that even borders on servitude which is, of course, probably why Peter does not like it. And then, Jesus commands, there’s that word again, Jesus commands, mandates, his disciples to do the same. Discipleship, following Jesus, in other words, is, at heart, service, about caring for others. And, having just set this example for his disciples, Jesus adds his new commandment, his new mandate, an 11th commandment if you will – love one another.
Makes me wonder – can you command someone to love another person? Is not love beyond command, discipline, human will and even logic?
Not according to Jesus. It is interesting that when Jesus commands his disciples to love one another Jesus does not use the Greek word eros, the word for passionate love from which the English word erotic comes. Jesus also does not use the Greek word phileo or familial love from which the city of Philadelphia, the city of brotherly love, gets it name. No, when Jesus commands his disciples to love one another, Jesus choses the Greek word agape, self-sacrificing love, like the love of a parent, the kind of love that is ongoing and permanent, always welcoming.
In other words, Jesus commands his disciples – then and now – to act in a loving way. To care for and serve each other as Jesus cared for and served them. This kind of love – a behavior rather than an emotion – this kind of love one can command.
On Maundy Thursday we remember Jesus sacrificial love for us all. We remember God’s sacrifice of his only Son to save all of the children of God. And, as we remember, we represent this love, this sacrifice, in the Lord’s Supper, Holy Communion, so that we might be encouraged by God’s promises and inspired and equipped to do as Jesus has commanded – to love one another.
And that is the theme for us on Maundy Thursday and every day – to remember, to know, that God continues to love and bless us so that we may in turn love and bless each other and love and bless this whole world, the world that God loves so much.
Jesus calls us to service to others. And, just as Christ has loved us, Christ gives us a new commandment, a new mandate, to love one another as Christ has loved us.
Amen.
(With thanks to the Rev. Dr. David Lose).
The Rev. Eric Christopher Shafer
Senior Pastor - Mt. Olive Lutheran Church
Santa Monica, California
Sunday, April 18, 2019
