So when I became a Presbyterian and Karen asked me to attend Maundy Thursday with her I didn’t know what to expect. We attend every year now and over the years it’s become one of my favorite services of the church year. It could be the simplicity I enjoy so much. Or maybe the solemnity. Perhaps that’s part of it. But tonight, our pastor, Andy Odom, captured the essence of what I’ve been trying to articulate for years now. Maundy Thursday is special because of the brutal honesty of it. The story told on Maundy Thursday is not a feel good tale. It’s one of betrayal, denial, pain, and sacrifice.
Keeping with tradition Andy and his fellow ministers read the verses in Mark that describe the events that we all know so well. But then he did something different, something that drove home the point of Maundy Thursday. After each reading he asked a simple question, where were you?
During the last supper in the upper room, “where were you at the table”.
During Jesus’ arrest at Gethsemane, “where were you in the crowd”.
And finally, during Jesus’ crucifixion, “where were you at the cross.”
It was people just like us who broke bread with Jesus. It was people like us who betrayed Jesus. And it was people like us who stood by while Jesus was brutalized and crucified.
And in our own way we continue to brutalize and crucify Jesus in the form of “the least of these” who walk among us. I believe that Jesus has walked among us many times since his death almost 2000 years ago.
Jesus was among those murdered in the WWII death camps.
Jesus was a black men lynched in the Jim Crow south.
Jesus was a prisoner executed for a crime he did not commit.
Jesus was among the men, women, and children slaughtered at Wounded Knee.
Jesus was a gay teenager beaten to death in Utah.
Jesus was in the crowd in Las Vegas when shots rang out from high above.
Jesus was the man who froze to death in a lonely bus stop in Dallas this winter.
And Jesus is amongst the young people speaking out against gun violence and pleading with adults to ensure their safety. Jesus walks with these children that you mock and spit on, just as he was mocked and spat upon 2000 years ago.
Jesus walks among us to see if we truly understand the meaning of his life and death and to see if we live our lives accordingly.
And Jesus will not return to Earth in power and glory to restore the Kingdom until we have done our part to bring about the Kingdom in the hear and now.
How many times will we reject Jesus when he comes to us as the weak, the oppressed, and the marginalized living as our neighbors?
