What would you do if you knew you were going to die tomorrow? The stereotype is that people fall on their knees and pray in order to get right with God when they are at the moment of death. However, we heard many stories at September 11 which tell of a different response. Here were people who knew they were going to die, not tomorrow, but soon, within hours or even minutes. Yet what did they do? Not fall on their knees but get on their cell phones. The instinct of most of those trapped in burning buildings or on hi-jacked airplanes was to connect with those they loved. The transcripts of those last phone calls are heart-wrenching: reminders of affection, encouragement for the children, requests not to grieve overmuch. When confronting death, which is the moment of truth beyond all others, the victims found it most important to be with those they loved, even if it was only on the phone. Nor is the desire to be with those one loves at critical moments of life and death a recent phenomenon. We find Jesus doing the same thing two thousand years ago. “Jesus knew that his hour had come to pass from this world to the Father.” On the night before he died, certainly he spent time in prayer to God in the Garden of Gethsemane. But before he did that, he needed to be with his friends, with those he loved, for a last supper. “He loved his own in the world and he loved them to the end.” At his moment of truth, he wanted to connect in a personal, human way with those he loved and those who loved him. In order to understand this night, Holy Thursday, when we commemorate the institution of the Eucharist at that Last Supper, we should bear in mind that this night became important because of the love Jesus bore his followers. Today is about love.
So, yes, on the Holy Thursday let’s call to mind the great events of our salvation. As Catholics we don’t let a Eucharist go by without invoking the fact that “Christ has died, Christ is risen, Christ will come again.” But we aren’t here for a catechism lesson but rather to connect with the love which underlay the life, death and resurrection of Jesus. Jesus had that sacred meal with his followers to help them feel the love. “This body is for you.” “Drink this cup in remembrance of me.” We’ve heard those words so often they’ve lost their power to shock, yet in their own way they are heart-wrenching. The bread which was broken and the cup which was passed around connected those gathered in the upper room, and connects us gathered here, to the body that was tortured on the cross and the blood which flowed down Calvary’s hill. Jesus went to his death because of love. He left us his body and blood on this altar because of love. St. John makes that very explicit in his retelling of the Last Supper when he recounts that Jesus washed the feet of his disciples to give them an example of love. Where the other evangelists report how Jesus took, blessed, and shared the bread and wine, St. John tells us of the foot washing. It’s as if he wants to drive home the point that there is no Eucharist, no Communion, unless there is loving service. The events of salvation are not written on the grand scale of history and in the lofty language of scripture. The events of salvation won for us by Jesus on the cross are only understood in the language of love.
The Last Supper is Jesus’ Last Will and Testament. During the meal he bequeaths to his disciples, to us, our true inheritance – that he is still with us. In the Eucharist he shows his real presence. In love and service we show his presence in our hearts. To understand more fully what is going on we must remember that this Last Supper was a Passover meal. During Passover the custom was, is, to tell the story of God’s love for Israel. But it is told in a very particular way. It is a first person story. When we were slaves in Egypt, when they made us suffer, we cried out to God, God heard our voice and saw our suffering, God delivered us with a strong hand and outstretched arm, with great signs and wonders, and God brought us into the promised land, how much more so should we be grateful to the Omnipresent One for the doubled and redoubled goodness that God has bestowed upon us. At Passover, the story of God is not a history lesson about somebody else. It is current events involving us, we, you and me. That is the backdrop against which Jesus gives the Eucharist. We do not break the bread and share the cup out of nostalgia for the good old days when Jesus walked the dusty roads of Galilee. No, Jesus is as present to us today as we was to Peter and the rest in the upper room. Just as he “loved them to the end” so he loves us. On this Holy Thursday we tell our story: when we were lost and confused, when we raised our voices in prayer, when we sought to make sense of sickness, of loss, of grief, then our Jesus was with us with gentle hands outstretched with divine gifts of his Real Presence. What else can we be but grateful for God’s blessings of love given us today and everyday, even to the end.
