SPECIAL DAYS: Maundy Thursday

April 20, 2000

LESSONS: Exodus 12:1-4, 11-14; 1 Corinthians 11:23-26 John 13:1-17, 31b-35, NRSV

SERMON TITLE: Running to the Resurrection

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  1. Ken Gire, in Windows of the Soul (1) relates that C. S. Lewis once told a story of an artist who was thrown into a dungeon whose only light came from a barred window high above.
    1. In the dungeon, the woman gave birth to a son.
    2. As he grew, she told him about the outside world.
      1. It was a world of wheat fields and mountain streams
      2. It was a world of cresting emerald waves crashing on golden shores.
      3. But the boy couldn't understand her words.
    3. So with the drawing pad and pencils she had brought with her into the dungeon, she drew him pictures.
      1. At first she thought he understood.
      2. But one day while talking with him, she realized he didn't.
      3. He thought the outside world was made up of charcoal-gray pencil lines on faded-white backgrounds, and concluded that the world outside the dungeon was less than the world inside.
    4. The story is a parable, showing us in much the same way the artist tried to show her son, that all we see before us are merely pencil sketches of the world beyond us.
    5. Every person is a stick-figured image of God; every place of natural beauty, a charcoal rendering of Paradise; every pleasure, a flat and faded version of the joy that awaits us.
    6. But we need to be boosted to a window before we can see beyond the lines of our own experience.
    7. Only then will we see how big the trees are, how bright the flowers, how breathtaking the view."

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  1. We, on this evening are given the opportunity and privilege of looking into a window, into the technicolor reality of life.
    1. Did Moses and his people understand what was taking place on a Passover morning?
      1. The movie the Ten Commandments.
        1. In the dark shadows of the night Joshua, played by John Derrek is slipping towards the home of Moses, played by Charlton Heston.
        2. He opens the door.
        3. Moses says to him, "Close the door and let the Angel of Death pass by."
      2. The people rejoice in life, know their freedom, but do not yet know their God.
      3. God will be revealed in a very dramatic way
        1. Crossing the Sea of Reeds
        2. In the thunder, lightening and sound of a trumpet at Sinai
      4. They will not many days later proposition Aaron to build them a god like the one they worshiped in Egypt.
    2. Imagine the confusion of the disciples as they gathered in that upper room.
      1. There was nothing in their experience to prepare them for what was to come.
        1. A washing of feet.
        2. The changes in the Passover.
        3. A broken body.
        4. Spilt blood.
        5. Statements of betrayal.
        6. Questions as to whom it might be.

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      1. They must have been puzzled and a little embarrassed.
  1. In 1 Corinthians 11:17-27, Paul writes to the early Christians reminding them of the purpose of the Eucharist.
    1. Now in the following instructions I do not commend you, because when you come together it is not for the better but for the worse.
    2. [18] For, to begin with, when you come together as a church, I hear that there are divisions among you; and to some extent I believe it.
    3. [19] Indeed, there have to be factions among you, for only so will it become clear who among you are genuine.
    4. [20] When you come together, it is not really to eat the Lord's supper.
      1. [21] For when the time comes to eat, each of you goes ahead with your own supper, and one goes hungry and another becomes drunk.
      2. [22] What! Do you not have homes to eat and drink in? Or do you show contempt for the church of God and humiliate those who have nothing?
    5. What should I say to you? Should I commend you? In this matter I do not commend you!
    6. [23] For I received from the Lord what I also handed on to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took a loaf of bread, [24] and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, "This is my body that is for you. Do this in remembrance of me." [25] In the same way he took the cup also, after supper, saying, "This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me." [26] For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes.
    7. [27] Whoever, therefore, eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be answerable for the body and blood of the Lord.
  2. But then, the resurrection.
    1. Afterwards the slow dawning of comprehension.
    2. The fulfillment of the joy which surpasses all human understanding.
  3. Here we are on this evening.
    1. We have shared a meal.
    2. Now we share once again in the Eucharist.
    3. What do we really comprehend.
      1. Jesus tries to help us see by drawing pictures.
      2. Charcoal on white paper.
    4. But then he opens for us the window and sheds light so that we might see, and comprehend.
  4. Does the world then become a different place.
    1. Amidst the grayness and the confusion of the world about us do we comprehend the light, beauty and power of our God?
    2. This is what God wants us to see and understand.
      1. We can remain like the small boy and see the world only through the drawings that he had before him.
      2. Or we can see the life through the eyes of God.
    3. God help us to see beyond.

1. Ken Gire, Windows of the Soul (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Zondervan Publishing House, 1996), 84.

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