The Parish Church of St John-at-Hampstead

Our service this evening is in some ways, the most profound of the Christian year. For tonight we celebrate perhaps the most significant and important  of God’s gifts to us as his creation: freedom and friendship. As ever in the Hebrew tradition, we do so through story. Stories which as we hear them, we enter into as active participants. Stories which both:  encourage us in revealing God’s loving purposes  and all the possibilities of fulfilled living – and, the reality that these things, these gifts,  are not achieved, cannot be arrived at, without determination and struggle. Fortitude and perseverence, those lively virtues we’ve been thinking about through Lent.
On Tuesday evening two nights ago some of us had a wonderful time  with Jewish friends at the Liberal Synagogue in St John’s Wood, guests at their joyful celebration of the Passover festival! As well as delicious food, it was an evening full of fun:  singing and games for the children – everyone rejoicing in freedom! And alongside all the festivity celebrating our own freedom, the Haggadah, the liturgy for the Seder,  lays great emphasis on a deep committment to freedom for all peoples, reminding everyone of the supreme importance and indeed the duty of the struggle for the attainment of freedom, never forgetting that they, the people of Israel,  were once slaves and strangers in a foreign land – as we have just heard in our reading from Exodus. 
Passover, the first of three pilgrimage festivals, is held each year  on the first night of the full moon after the vernal equinox.   You may have noticed the incredible moon and it’s light on the last couple of evenings! Passover is a spring festival celebrating the reawakening of nature,  and, more importantly, celebrating of the birth of the Jewish nation, remembering God’s deliverance of his people.  Our freedom is precious to God. We need to value our freedom, respect and work for the freedom of others. And the Seder liturgy looks forward to the ultimate triumph of good over evil in the Messianic Age to come,  a new freedom that enables the fulness of life which God has promised  and is working to bring us.    An age which for Christians  has indeed begun in the coming of Jesus of Nazareth.
In Luke’s account of the Last Supper Jesus says to his disciples: ‘I have eagerly desired to eat this Passover with you’. A phrase which I have always found in some ways, strange in the light of what we – and Jesus – know will happen next. It speaks of that other priority in life:  friendship. In Jesus’ day eating together   was not only an enjoyable pastime, it was also, a significant declaration to all around, that this particular person, these particular people, were your friends. They would always be associated with you,  their fate would impact on how people perceived you, and your fate on their reputation. This, Jesus’ Passover party with his friends was an important symbolic gesture to them – and to the outside world, of the importance to Jesus of their friendship. The more so because of the significance of Passover, traditionally, a family meal.
Jesus throws a celebration of family, friendship and freedom. And we know how important this supper is for Jesus in the elaborate plans he made for it. How honoured the disciples would have felt at this special Passover meal! But Jesus has something else to demonstrate for them. As Jesus celebrates their friendship, he reveals the pattern of life to which God calls us:  a pattern of profound loving service to one another; a pattern of humbly seeking the honour of the other above our own.
At Jewish religious festivals the ritual washing of hands is very important, and in the Passover Seder, participants wash each other’s hands twice over. If you think about it, it is not only symbolic of purity, it is an act of courtesy towards God – as well as each other! Jesus, at this the last Passover meal he was to celebrate with his friends goes one step further.     He takes on the role of the slave to wash, not their hands, but the feet of his disciples, dusty and dirty from their journey.
Let us sit with the disciples for a moment.  Watch as Jesus washes your neighbour’s feet.  Will he wash your feet?  Do you want him to?   Peter did not. What emotions are racing through your body as you,  a guest of the most sought after man of the moment,  see this man take the role of the lowest servant?  Often a woman or a child.  Very occasionally a disciple might perform such ritual for his master,  certainly not master washing disciple. But this is Jesus’ witness to us.  Think deeply about what it means. Are we willing to receive this witness?   Act on it ourselves? In a few minutes we will have opportunity  to ponder these matters again as we enact the washing of feet.
But let us move on for a moment!  Jesus is throwing a party!  And he does intend us to celebrate!  As we did on Tuesday evening, when everyone, young and old, had a turn to contribute! Jesus will not leave anyone out, and to the most diffident – Judas,   Jesus gave the sop, token of honour for the host’s most favoured guest. God does intend us to have a wild time – well, in season that is!
That Last Supper so famously portrayed for us by Leonardo da Vinici, became the first Eucharist,  a new Passover Seder, where we remember not only liberation from slavery in Egypt,  liberation from oppression, still as important today as 2 thousand years ago  – we also remember and take hold of our liberation from internal fear  and personal failure, whatever they may be;  liberation to know and become the people God has made us. This is the Supper to which we, all of us, right now, are invited. In your mind’s eye (forgive the mixed metaphor!) hear Jesus’ invitation to you.   How do you feel?  What do you want to do?  How will you respond to him?
The title of this day Maundy Thursday comes of course  from the Latin word ‘Mandatum’, command. Jesus’ new command which is the defining feature of the Christian: Love one another as I have loved you. Jesus will shortly go to the Garden of Gethsemane.  Freedom is costly.  Friendship is demanding.