Wednesday, April 1, 2015

4/2/2015 – Holy Thursday – Exodus 12:1-8, 11-14, John 13:1-15


       Since Ash Wednesday, we have been journeying through the Holy Season of Lent.  Today, we enter into a new movement and rhythm of our Church’s liturgical year: the Triduum.  Each liturgy within the three days of the Triduum helps us to enter more deeply into the Lord’s Paschal mystery of Christ’s death and resurrection.
        As we commemorate the evening when Jesus celebrated the Passover meal with his disciples, we hear how the Lord establishes the Passover tradition with the Israelites whom he set the free from slavery in Egypt.   God announces to the Israelites - “This day shall be a memorial feast for you, which all your generations shall celebrate.”  And indeed, modern Jews today remember and recreate that event in the Passover meals they commemorate to this day.  Like the Israelites who were enslaved in Egypt, we were called at the beginning of our Lenten journey to look at those things that enslaved us and that kept us from living in the true freedom as children of the light.  We made promises and commitments to God as we wore an wristband during Lent that announced “sacrificium” – “sacrifice”.  Sometimes we kept those promises and commitments – other times we struggled and broke them.  As our Lenten liturgies come to a close, we come today to the Holy Thursday memorial of the Last Supper.  Hopefully, the desires and the hunger and the thirst that we have held in our hearts all during our Lenten journey brings us hope and anticipate this evening as we get ever closer to our celebration of the Easter mysteries.
        At the original Passover, the Israelites were to sacrifice an unblemished lamb, to dip a branch of hyssop in the blood of the lamb, to put a smudge of the blood on the lintels and doorpost of the house, and to eat the lamb in a ritual meal.   The Passover sacrifice was not completed with the killing of the lamb, but rather when its flesh was consumed in their commemorative meal.  In the new covenant that Jesus established with his disciples at his Last Supper, with his death and resurrection, Jesus becomes the eternal sacrifice that we make each time we celebrate mass together.  The Israelites consumed the flesh of the lamb – we receive the Body and Blood of Christ in our Eucharistic meal.
        The ritual in which Jesus washes our feet today accompanies our Eucharistic meal.  Jesus today not only washes the feet of the 12 representatives of our community tonight – he symbolically washes all of our feet.  Perhaps it is difficult to have him wash our feet, to allow him to serve us, to enter our lives, and to change our hearts.  Perhaps there is resistance, independence, whims, and complacency that keep us apart from Jesus, that keeps us from allowing him to wash our feet and wash away our sins.  Jesus’ role as a servant to us today does not keep him from challenging us: “Love one another as I have loved you.”   Loving others doesn’t mean just when it is convenient and when it feels warm and fuzzy.  Loving others means bursting out of our comfort zone and our preconceived notions.   We are called to be servants and foot washers ourselves as we live out our discipleship each day.  Today we are called to feel the power of the gift that Christ gives us, to feel the mission mandate he gives us with trust and hope.   With washed feet and hearts and souls fed by his Body and Blood, we ready ourselves to celebrate the mystery of his passion and resurrection in the days to come. 

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