So I did sit and eat.
A reflection for Maundy Thursday
Sharing a significant experience can turn strangers almost instantly into, what feels like, intimate friends. Many of us will have had such an experience in some way or other. A very trivial example, but imagine yourself in a train carriage that is stopped and searched. You may not quite know the reason, but it’s an unsettling experience. Almost certainly, the passengers in the carriage will start talking to each other in a way they wouldn’t have done if the train had kept moving. Suddenly there seems to be something in common that wasn’t there before.
Or think of wedding receptions and funeral wakes, where often you find yourself sharing your thoughts with people who were strangers to you the day before. And then there are the events that for some of us have shaped our lives: a tragic accident or the painful experience of losing a loved one. They often bring people closer together. However, as we all know too well too, these experiences can also drive people apart. Good friendships or relationships may be formed, but also be lost, in the wake of trauma.
It’s Palm Sunday today, the beginning of Holy Week when we remember Jesus’ last week of earthly ministry and prepare to celebrate the Easter mysteries. And so it is the most important week in the Christian year. I’m wondering what this week will hold for you? Is it a week in which life almost seems to come to a stand-still, where the day-to-day routine fades to the background and in which all becomes focussed on your spiritual life? Or is it a week more or less like any other, possibly punctuated by one or more services before next Sunday, and hot-cross buns on Friday?
John’s purpose is to articulate the belief that Jesus was the Son of God, who was born in human form, died and rose again. He is trying to understand and to help us understand what it means for the Scriptures to be fulfilled as the Word became flesh. In contrast to some other parts of Scripture, I would like to suggest therefore that the theological background of this particular passage is more important than its historical context, and so that is what I would like to focus on this morning, hoping that it will give us a better appreciation of what Jesus may have meant by that last – easily misinterpreted phrase – ‘You always have the poor with you, but you do not always have me.’
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For some of us, Lent seems to have turned into an opportunity to prove ourselves. Consciously or not, we can find ourselves competing against others – how many food groups can you give up? Or, maybe more commonly, we realise that we are competing against ourselves – how much time can I spend praying, reading and studying? How much good can I do in one day?
On this last Sunday before Lent, we traditionally hear the account of Jesus’ transfiguration before his disciples. It has strong resonances with the account of Moses receiving the Ten Commandments on Mount Sinai, and it is a few of those I would like to explore this morning.
However, it will be very different to hear this passage when you are poor, when you have not got enough to eat, or when your life has consisted of more suffering than many of us can imagine. In those cases, this is not a threat, but a message of hope and consolation: a message that tells us that ultimately justice will prevail.
Discovering Life 