What Kind of Witnesses? Sermon for Holy Maundy Thursday - Holy Week, 2023

Holy Maundy Thursday – Lent 2023
What Kind of Witnesses: Holy, or Maundy?

   It’s Maundy Thursday.  Which we also call Holy Thursday.  Do you remember what Maundy means?  Do you remember what Holy means? 

   Tonight we remember and celebrate our Savior’s institution of the Lord’s Supper, when Jesus established this mysterious meal of bread and body, wine and blood.  We are also drawing toward the conclusion of our consideration of our Lenten theme for 2023, which has been the Every One His Witness Lutheran Evangelism approach.  And, as the Holy Spirit will have it, the distinctions and connections between the two different names we use for this day can take us deeper into the nature of the mission work God works through us. 

   It’s common when discussing the Mission of Christ that we refer to Holy Baptism as the missionary sacrament.  I would like to suggest that we can also think of Holy Communion, the Lord’s Supper, as a missionary sacrament, equally as Baptism. 

   Certainly we can understand why Baptism is associated with missions.  When the Lord blesses mission efforts, there are often lots of Baptisms, especially when the Church is expanding into new territory where the Gospel has not been heard.  Increasingly in our own land today, Baptism is celebrated as the result of a congregation’s witness.  This is because more and more people in America grow up entirely outside the Church, and so have not been given this wonderful gift. 

   But where do we find the will, the energy, the spirit to do what we have been called to do?  What empowers the mission and witness of the Christian Church, which the Holy Spirit uses to draw more people to Christ? 

   Mission draws its power from the Gospel of course.  It is the Good News of free forgiveness that creates and sustains our faith in Christ and His forgiving love.  The Gospel in Word and Sacrament, the Gospel read, preached, sung, … and the Gospel that we eat and drink.  Likewise, the desire, zeal and content of mission outreach is created in us by the Holy Spirit, through the Gospel.  The joy, the intestinal fortitude and the wisdom needed to speak of Christ to our friends and neighbors flow from the lectern, the pulpit, and the altar.  By the Gospel, you have Christ in you, which is both the mystery of God, the hope of glory, and the motor of witness and mission.  As the Apostle Paul writes in the 1^st chapter of his letter to the Colossians: God willed to make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Nations, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory. ²⁸ We proclaim Him, admonishing and teaching every man with all wisdom, so that we may present every man complete in Christ. ²⁹ For this purpose also I labor, striving according to His power, which mightily works within me.  (Col. 1:28-29) 

   Can there be a better preparation for testifying about Christ in your daily life than to eat and drink His Body and Blood for your forgiveness, life and salvation?  So it is all the more important to understand the significance of this special night’s two names:  Maundy Thursday, and Holy Thursday, so that we can understand what kind of witnesses God wants us to be. 

   Maundy Thursday: what does this name mean?  While Matthew, Mark and Luke record the event of Jesus instituting the Lord’s Supper, on the night when He was betrayed, John’s Gospel omits this detail.  John instead gives us a lengthy section of Jesus teaching the 12, on that same night.  Among many things, Jesus washes the disciples’ feet, and gives them a new commandment, that they are to love one another, as He has loved them.  Commandment in Latin is Mandatum, and from this word Mandatum we get Maundy.  Maundy Thursday, then, accentuates this new commandment which Jesus gave.  Which is a little weird, calling it a new commandment, since loving your neighbor, especially loving fellow believers in the One True God, has been part of God’s commandments since the beginning. 

   A bit more on this new commandment later, but for purposes of understanding what
Maundy Thursday means, we can say it focuses on the shape of the Christian life that Jesus commands His disciples, and by extension all of us who follow the doctrine of the Apostles.  We are to love one another.  It is common on Maundy Thursday for the celebrant to wash the feet of  twelve people during the liturgy.  Also common are giving special offerings to the poor, and also celebrating the Lord’s Supper. 

   What about the name Holy Thursday?  You might say this name is a little bland.  Holiday is simply a word that developed overtime from Holy Day, which historically refers to any special day of celebration in the Church.  And there are lots of those.  But what does holy actually mean, Biblically?  Is a holy day one in which Christians are to be especially careful and good?  A day that should be without sin?  I think many people’s understanding of holy leans in this direction.   But, while holy does carry with it the expectation of sinlessness, its core meaning is quite different. 

   Holy most basically means set apart, for God’s purposes.  Now, to be sure, anyone who has been called to be holy, set aside for God’s purposes, should certainly also not sin.  But Biblically the emphasis is on God choosing and setting aside something or someone, for special purposes.  So one drinking vessel is stored in the kitchen cupboard and is used for drinking water or milk or whatever, in our daily diet.  But another drinking vessel, perhaps very similar in construction, is set aside for use in the Lord’s Supper.   We don’t take the Chalice down to the kitchen and use it for coffee.  It is holy, set aside for a specific use given by God. 

    This special, “set-aside-ness” is how we want to understand Holy Thursday.  For Jesus took what was already a special, holy meal, the Passover of the Jews, and transformed it into the holiest of earthly meals, His Supper.  From the beginning, repeating the meal Jesus commanded the disciples to do, in remembrance of Him, has been central to the life of the Church.  The many names that this meal has been given through the centuries attests to this centrality:  The Breaking of the Bread.  The Eucharist, (which means thanksgiving).  The Lord’s Supper, Holy Communion, the Sacrament of the Altar.  Holy things for God’s Holy people, a meal set aside for the faithful and repentant baptized, given and shed to bind them ever closer to Jesus, and energize them for loving and serving and speaking of Christ to their neighbor, in their daily lives.       

   So which is it?  Should we call this day Maundy, or Holy? 

  I’m going to say both. What we remember and celebrate tonight and Sunday after Sunday is totally other, totally unique, totally Jesus.  What could be holier than the Lord coming to us to feed us with the Gospel of free forgiveness?  The Holy One comes to us to declare us holy, and make us a little more holy, word by word, day by day, Supper by Supper, as He conforms us to Himself. 

   And thus, as God’s Holy Ones, His kingdom of priests, we are prepared to effectively proclaim the excellencies of Him who has called us out of darkness into His marvelous light.  We are taught again the reason for the hope that we have, which with gentleness and respect we stand ready to explain to anyone who asks.

    And this of course fufills in the best way possible our new commandment, to love one another as Christ has loved us.  God’s people, as we have noted, have always been called to love one another.  But now there is a new revelation of love that we are empowered to share. 

   How could we sinners possibly love anyone like Christ, unless first He comes to us and pours His love into our thirsty souls?  We love, because He first loves us.  And while love can and should take a million forms, from a kind word, to a hand up, to a meal shared, to a listening ear, Christ is always leading us toward His ultimate goal, that we share with others the Good News of the greatest love of all, the love that changes lives, here and now, and for eternity.  We have no greater love to share than to tell of the One who laid down His life for us, so that in Him we would become children of God, forgiven sinners, destined for eternal peace and joy. 

   So, draw near to the Holy of Holies of the New Covenant, the New Testament in the Blood of Jesus, which is your holiness, and your access to God, both today, and for eternity.  And, through this same mystery, the Lord will shape you to be the witness that He desires to work through, today, and tomorrow, until that blessed day when He will draw you to Himself.   For you are loved by God, and God desires to love others through you. 

A blessed Holy Maundy Thursday to you all, in Jesus’ Name, Amen.