Hope From Ashes

Read: Exodus 12:1-14; Psalm 116:1-2, 12-19; 1 Corinthians 11:23-26; John 13:1-17, 31b-35

At the Last Supper Jesus celebrates a sacrificial meal with his closest disciples.  As his last meal with his friends, it is a powerful and intimate setting.  The Passover meal is already a sacrificial meal that marks the deliverance of God’s people out of slavery (Ex. 12), and now Jesus gives his followers a sacrificial meal that celebrates his self-offering to the Father, a sacrifice for all of humanity that delivers us from “slavery to sin and death” (UMC Great Thanksgiving).  Yes, Jesus gives himself to his followers: take and eat; drink of this, but first he offers himself to the Father in sacrificial love: this is my body that is for you; the new covenant in my blood.

Have you ever reflected on the idea that our Communion liturgy is a reflection—indeed a repetition!—of the Last Supper?  At the Supper, Christ took bread, gave thanks, broke it, and gave it to the disciples.  Our eucharist (thanksgiving) is modeled after Jesus’ four-fold action of taking, thanking, breaking, and giving.  When we celebrate Communion, we find ourselves in the same place as the disciples at the Last Supper, receiving God’s grace and forgiveness through the bread and cup.

The Lord’s Supper has a past, present, and future dimension to it.  We remember Christ’s once-for-all saving work; he is truly present with us here and now; and we pray for unity “until Christ comes in final victory and we feast at his heavenly banquet.”  St. Paul speaks of the present, past, and future when he says, “For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes” (1 Cor. 11:26).  Likewise, at each Communion we proclaim: “Christ has died, Christ is risen, Christ will come again.”

As Wesley says poetically:

O might the sacred word set forth our dying Lord,

Point us to thy suffering past, present grace and impart,

Give our ravished souls a taste, pledge of glory in our heart

When we join in the Lord’s Supper, the Holy Spirit joins us to Christ’s saving work on the cross.  “The cup of blessing that we bless, is it not a sharing in the blood of Christ?  The bread that we break, is it not a sharing in the body of Christ” (1 Cor. 10:16)?  Sharing in the body and blood of Christ means sharing in his sacrificial love to the Father: “we offer ourselves in praise and thanksgiving as a holy and living sacrifice, in union with Christ’s offering for us.”  When we respond to God’s offer of forgiveness and grace in this holy mystery, we are also committing to imitate the one we love through a life of sacrificial discipleship.

We know what sacrificial discipleship looks like even as we find it challenging to live out.  In John’s Gospel at Passover, Jesus demonstrates his love for us: “Then he poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples’ feet and to wipe them with the towel that was tied around him” (13:5).  The Lenten season is the time, once again, when we confess our sins and cleanse our hearts and commit to loving God and neighbor: “For I have set you an example, that you also should do as I have done to you” (13:15).

Prayer:

Let us pray with Psalm 116:

            I love the Lord because he has heard my voice and my supplications.

            Because he inclined his ear to me, therefore I will call on him as long as I live…

            I will lift up the cup of salvation and call on the name of the Lord…

            I will offer to you a thanksgiving sacrifice and call on the name of the Lord.  Amen.