Maundy Thursday -- Gathering at the Table


In a matter of hours, I will gather with my congregation around the Table of the Lord. We will share in Luke's telling of the Last Supper and sing hymns that speak to this time of great trial for Jesus and his disciples. We will share in the Supper together as the Synoptics tell the story and we'll wash hands as a way of symbolizing John's story of Jesus washing his disciples feet. Finally we'll anoint with oil as an endowment of hope -- hope for resurrection.

As we contemplate this time of sharing together at the table I hear echoes of Jesus' own table fellowship. His calls for inclusion (we don't know who he shared this final Passover meal with) are part of the ongoing story. But what does this meal call us to?

Marcus Borg and Dom Crossan share their insights on Jesus' final journey in their book of last year, The Last Week, and in that interpretation of Mark's story I found this paragraph appropriate for today:


Finally, Jesus does not merely speak of bread and wine as symbols of his body and blood. Rather, he has all the Twelve (including Judas!) actually partake of the food and drink -- they all participate in the bread-as-body and blood-as-wine. It is, as it were, a final attempt to bring all of them with him through execution to resurrection, through death to new life. It is, once again, about participation in Christ and not substitution by Christ. And we, like they, are invited to travel with Jesus through execution to resurrection. The Last Supper is about bread for the world, God's justice against human injustice, a New Passover from bondage to liberation, and participation in the path that leads through death to new life. (Borg and Crossan, The Last Week, HarperSanFrancisco, 2006, p. 120.)


Indeed, Jesus' death isn't just a substitution for us, it is a call to share in his sufferings, in his death, his burial, his resurrection, that we might be transformed and empowered to serve as his children.

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