Maundy Thursday - Text: John 13:1-17, 31b-35 – Our dinner invitation

Maundy Thursday

Text: John 13:1-17, 31b-35 – Our dinner invitation

Every day in my emails I receive several offers for cheap meals.

They are often very restrictive on when you can use them and what you can order.

Often you can’t use them on Saturday evenings and you can only order certain things off the menu.

They’re great, as long as it fits in with your availability.

On a few occasions I have bought them and not used them because we just couldn’t find a date that suited us and the restaurant.

Tonight we have all received in invitation to a meal.

And there are no restrictions.

We put some on them ourselves – children have to have done First Communion or Confirmation.

Some congregations still insist on – Lutherans only for Lutheran altars.

Today we have a less strict instruction that’s referred to as Responsible Communion practice, still with some restrictions where the person is to be baptised, believe in the Trinity, confess their sins and believe in the Real Presence.

Maybe you can think of some others over the years.

But the reality is, this invitation is for all.

Sometimes churches might exclude those we believe are unworthy because of a lack of repentance:

We call that “excommunication”.

And yet Jesus did not example this at the Last Supper as Judas, whom Jesus knew would betray him, participates in that Holy Meal.

This is a meal for all people – it is inclusive rather than exclusive.

We might participate in different ways:

We might gather around the altar or have continuous communion.

We might take a wafer or a piece of bread.

We might intinct or we might take the bread and wine separately.

We might drink from the common cup or from an individual cup.

We might kneel before the altar, or stand, or receive it where we are seated.

We might receive it at church or in a private communion at home or in hospital.

It makes no difference.

What is significant is what we are receiving.

We are receiving Jesus’ body and blood that was shed for us on the cross as payment for our sins.

And that’s what is important.

This meal is Jesus gift to us as we journey through this life to our home in heaven.

It is a foretaste of the feast to come in heaven where we will gather together with God and all his family to celebrate our new eternal life in heaven.

That’s not to say that some of the teachings we have aren’t important as long as they don’t take away from the Sacrament.

And they take away from the Sacrament when we give the impression that somehow the Sacrament is a reward for our faith or that a person must be a certain standard before they can present themselves at the altar.

I have experienced that in the past when a person hasn’t come to the altar because they felt that they weren’t worthy enough to receive Holy Communion.

We get a hint of that from Peter today when he refused to have Jesus wash his feet because he felt that he should be washing Jesus feet.

You will never wash my feet."

But Jesus answered, "Unless I wash you, you have no share with me

John the Baptist had similar reservations:

"I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?" (Matthew 3:14)

We can understand Peter and John.

This is totally different to anyone’s understanding of God.

But this is a very different God.

This is a God who emptied himself and took the form of a servant.

This is a God who serves us.

This is a relationship between a Father in Heaven with his children created in his image.

It’s no different to the relationship between earthly parents and their children.

Parents serve their children.

They feed them, they clothe them, they protect them, provide home and shelter.

They would sacrifice for their children.

We come to the table with the same understanding – that here God feeds us with Jesus body and blood, clothes us with Jesus righteousness, protects us from the world and the devil, provides us with a home in heaven where he has promised he will return and take us to.

God sacrifices the life of his own son for us – God made him who had no sin to be sin for us so that we might become the righteousness of God. (2 Cor 5:21)

So come to this table tonight and let God serve you.

There is nothing you bring except open hands to receive all that God has to give to you.

In Jesus is the fullness of God and in the Bread and Wine is the fullness of Jesus.

So here you receive all that God has to offer you – God holds nothing back.

Come as you are, children of God, love by God.