REMEMBERING DINNER

MAUNDAY THURSDAY LENT 2015

It is the morning of Maundy Thursday and I want to ask you if there is a special Easter dinner or meal or food you remember? Can you close your eyes right now and picture it, even smell it. Today we read Mark 14:12—26. Tonight at our service we will wash feet, hear God’s Word, receive God’s Sacrament, and the strip bare the Altar. It is a dramatic service as we start with a meal and end having scattered after a confrontation in the Garden. We “lost our breath” in the Garden yesterday. This morning I want to focus on one item—dinner.

Have you thought about my question? Can you remember an Easter meal, or a special food? Can you smell it? I’m serious. Pause right now, close your eyes and try. Why do this? Because tonight Jesus gives us Holy Communion…or the Lord’s Supper if you prefer that title. Regardless of what it is called, here is what Jesus said, “Do this in remembrance of me.

The specific Greek word written in English so we can pronounce it is anamnesis. It is used a whapping four times in the New Testament—the times Jesus gives us the sacred meal. So what does it mean? It means to deeply remember? Do you have moments in your life you can deeply remember? Moments that you ponder and wonder about? Maybe it is a moment that you remember and enjoy. One of the deep purposes of the Communion service is to invite us to close our eyes and remember Jesus being at the Table with us…the Table hours before his Passion. Don't miss that point: at dinner with us! Meals are about more than the food, they are about being together.

This is not a new process. If you have ever been to a Jewish Seder there are children who ask questions about the meal and an adult answers. The answers always begin with a phrase like, “Because when we were slaves in Egypt…” Now this Seder could be taking place anywhere in the world and at any time in history…but the person answering says, “when we were…” They, at their meal, are entering the meal, as if they are travelling through time and are in the huts and houses of Egypt.

When we attend a Communion service we are not spectators, but participants. When you next go to a Communion service I invite to close your eyes and imagine you are there, in the Upper Room at the Last Supper. (Whenever I do I seem to get the Da Vinci picture in my mind…) Imagine you see Jesus, you see Peter, you see Judas leave…you see Jesus lift the bread and the cup. But here is the “deal” as it were. You unlike the disciples know what is coming…they do not. You know all that awaits Jesus—and so does he. He knows. And he is still there giving—giving us this meal not only so that we may forever be nourished by him, but that we may also at the meal be in His Presence.