When our kids were teenagers, I would sometimes tell them, right before they left to go out with friends, “Remember who you are.” I meant for them to keep in mind that wherever they were, they were always a part of our family, that certain standards of behavior were expected whether their mother and father were watching or not. I meant a whole lot more than that, though; that they are members of the Body of Christ, the Church, and members of this particular parish family. There was always a bit of warning in that exhortation, that wherever they were, someone was always watching! But I also wanted them to know that they were never alone, that God was always with them, watching over them and guiding them. I wanted them to know that because of that tremendous background, they could be a force for good wherever they went. When I said, “Remember who you are,” that’s what I meant. I don’t know if they really got the meaning when I said it, but I knew what I meant!
When Jesus met with the disciples for that Last Supper, that was a big part of what he was doing for them and for the members of his Body for all time. The terrible events of Good Friday were about to be upon them, when their whole world would be torn apart. Yet, that was the whole purpose for why he had come to this earth. He wanted to put that death in context for them, so that eventually they would understand, and its meaning for them and for all of us would never be lost.
The occasion itself was perfect for Jesus’ purposes. It was the Passover, and the Passover was packed with meaning for every Jew. It is the single most important event in the Hebrew Scriptures. To celebrate Passover was and is to remember what it is to be a Jew. When the disciples gathered for the Passover with Jesus, they were reminded of God’s covenant with Abraham, in which God promised to give him the land that we know today as Israel. He led Abraham and his descendants to that land where they stayed until the time of Joseph, when they had to leave the land because of the famine and take up residence in Egypt. Every Jew knew and knows that they were in Egypt for four hundred years. And then there arose a pharaoh who was threatened by the large number of Hebrew people and their success, and so he enslaved them and put them to work on building the pyramids. They viewed their slavery as a living death.
That’s when Moses enters the picture. He becomes God’s instrument for freeing the Hebrews, leading them out of Egypt, and eventually back to the Promised Land.
God sends a series of plagues on the land of Egypt in order to persuade pharaoh to let his people go. The last of the plagues was the plague of the death of the firstborn of Egypt. The Hebrews were to slaughter a lamb, and put the blood of the lamb on the doorposts and lintels of their dwellings. Then they were to roast the lamb and eat it in haste, to be fortified for the journey out of Egypt. The Lord would pass over every dwelling which had the blood of the lamb on it, sparing that household of this last plague of death. From then on, every year at Passover, the Jews were to reenact that saving event, roasting a lamb and eating it in haste just as if they were participating in the event itself.
The plague of death caused the pharaoh to let the Hebrew people go. They left Egypt in haste and began their journey back to the Promised Land. The Passover was their journey from slavery to freedom, from death to life.
So it is in this context, celebrating the Passover, that our Lord Jesus takes bread, gives thanks, breaks the bread, and gives it to his disciples, saying, “Take, eat, this is my body which is given for you. Do this for the remembrance of me.”
Likewise, after supper he takes the cup, gives thanks, and gives it to them, saying, “Drink this, all of you. This is my blood which is shed for you. Do this for the remembrance of me.”
It wasn’t just an accident that the Last Supper occurred on Passover. It was part of the divine plan. The event of Passover and Jesus’ death on the cross would be forever linked, so that the eating of this bread and drinking of this wine would be done in the same spirit in which Passover was celebrated. In other words, it would be done as if one were participating in the event itself, and it is through that death of Christ on the cross that we are freed from sin and given eternal life. Through Christ we have passed from slavery to freedom, from death to life.
But Jesus goes a step further in saying that in eating this bread and drinking this wine we are eating his body and drinking his blood. He does not say, “This is a symbol of my body,” or “This should remind you of my blood.” He says, “This is my body.… This is my blood. “From that time on the Church took his words literally, at least until the time of the Reformation, when great confusion entered the picture.
That was the Jewish context for the Last Supper. The concept was reinforced when Jesus’ Aramaic words were put into Greek in the New Testament. Matthew, Mark, and Luke, who all report this event, wrote in Greek. The Greek word they use for what we translate in English as remembrance is anamnesis. “Do this for the anamnesis of me. “What is meant by that word is, “Do this in order to bring the event remembered to the present, so that you are now in that event itself.”
Thus, when we receive communion, we are participating in the death and resurrection of Christ. Time is transcended and we are there at the cross and the empty tomb with Jesus, and we are taking into our bodies his Body and Blood.
These concepts of Passover and anamnesis are taken for granted in all of our Eucharistic prayers. They provide the context for what is done at every Holy Eucharist. When you are given the Body of Christ at communion, the Church says what it means: “The Body of Christ, the bread of heaven. The Blood of Christ, the cup of salvation.” Or, in Rite I, “The Body of our Lord Jesus Christ which was given for thee, preserve thy body and soul unto everlasting life…. The Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ which was shed for thee, preserve thy body and soul unto everlasting life.”
Today we celebrate that commandment our Lord gave to his disciples, that Maundy: “Do this for the remembrance of me.” And we remember that as Jesus comes into our lives and gradually transforms us into his Body, our hope is that more and more that servant love, exemplified in his washing of his disciples’ feet, will characterize our lives, that we will indeed obey that other Maundy, the Maundy for which this day is named, that we may truly love one another as he has loved us.
Remember who you are.
Sermon preached by the Rev. Fredrick A. Robinson
Church of the Redeemer
Sarasota Floria
Maundy Thursday
29 March 2018