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Rez is a community where Jesus welcomes, shapes, and sends disciples for the good of our neighborhood. No matter where you are in life, this is a place for you.
Life Together In The Goodness Of God
Good evening. Who is familiar with the term Triduum? Anybody? All right. There we go. Triduum is a Latin word that literally means three days. And today is the start of the Triduum. Today, we celebrate Maundy Thursday, and then we go on to Good Friday, and then into Easter. The three of those three services together are called the Triduum. And though they are technically three different services, they're really just one long, continuous service. That's why when we leave tonight, we will leave in silence instead of our usual recessional hymn. And then when we come back in tomorrow, we will come and go in silence. And then on Sunday, we come in in silence because it is one long, continuous service over three days, a Triduum. Now, how many of you have heard of Maundy Thursday? All right. Maundy comes from the word, the Latin word rather, mandatum, mandate or command. And that is what we get from Jesus tonight. We get commands from Jesus. So first, we see Jesus wash the feet of the disciples. Peter, of course, doesn't like it. He's getting all squirrely by this time in the gospel. And Jesus insists on serving in this way. Now, usually at a meal like this, it would be a servant of the host who would wash the feet of the guests. But in this case, we see Jesus doing that. Jesus reminds us that he came to serve, not to be served. And so he insists and persists and goes on with washing the feet of the disciples. And that's the first command we get here. We are commanded to serve. Now, I'm going to jump around a little bit and get to love. And I want to get to love because that's how we end the story. Jesus says, I give you a new commandment that you love one another, just as I have loved you. You should also love one another. By this, everyone will know that you are my disciples if you have love for one another. Now, remember that Jesus is not just saying to the disciples, love the other 11 of you here, but to love one another means to love your neighbor. Remember, earlier in the Gospels, Jesus is asked, Lord, which is the first, which is the greatest commandment? And he says to love the Lord thy God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, with all your strength. And the second is like unto it, love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments, you hang all the law and all the prophets. And so Jesus is commanding us here to love one another. And when you love one another, you're going to go back to the first one. You're going to serve one another. And so you have love. We have service. And our third commandment, I think, is worship in the form of bread. And we are introduced to this by by how bread is used in the Bible. Now, here, Jesus takes this was probably a Passover meal. And so there's probably more than just bread there. There's probably some lamb that you heard about in the Exodus reading. There's some grapes, some other stuff there. And Jesus does not take the meat or something more substantial. He takes the bread and passes it around and institutes that as his body and calls the wine his blood. And just remember how bread is used in the Bible. I mean, again, first with the Exodus reading. And then when the Israelites leave Egypt and are wandering in the wilderness, they get this manna, this bread of angels, this manna from heaven. We also get the miracle of the feeding of the five thousand with just two fish and five loaves of bread. And Jesus teaches us to pray. He says, Give us this day our daily bread, not give us this day our portion to fill or give us this day my favorite cheeseburger or give us this day that chicken that I have sitting at home that I'm going to devour when I get home tonight. No, give us this day our daily bread. It is that bread that he gives to the disciples to institute the Eucharist. It is that bread that we use that lets us know that Christ is in us and we are in him. And when Christ is in us and we are in him, we are worshiping him. We are worshiping God. And so our commandments tonight to love God, to love, to serve and to worship. That is how Jesus. That is what Jesus is telling us to do tonight. And God pours all of that into us. And we are commanded to go out and pour it all out into the world. Now, I know things are bad right now. Things are crazy. Things are hectic. And yet and still, and yet and still, we are called to pour out our love, to pour out our service, to pour out our worship unto God and into the world. And in doing so, they will know that we love Jesus and we are his disciples. Amen.