Maundy Thursday the Sacrament of our Lords Body and Blood
Maundy Thursday 2019 Luke 22:14-30
Jesus' great desire was to eat the Passover with His disciples. We often forget that this is what was going on. vs 14-15 of Luke 22 tell us that. This year Passover is tomorrow nite. But we are not Jews . We are Christians who believe all of the OT was fulfilled in Jesus Christ, His only Son our Lord.
I was reading thru some devotionals and came across this letter from CS Lewis. "
Dear Mrs. Neylan,
Sorry you’re in a trough. I’m just emerging (at least I hope I am) from a long one myself. As for the difficulty of believing it is a trough, one wants to be careful about the word “believing.” We often mean by it “having confidence or assurance as a psychological state” – as we have about the existence of furniture. But that comes and goes and by no means always accompanies intellectual assent. For example, in learning to swim you believe, and even know intellectually, that water will support you, long before you feel any real confidence in the fact. ...
In the meantime, as one has learnt to swim only by acting on the assent in the teeth of all instinctive conviction, so we shall proceed to faith only by acting as if we had it. Adapting a passage in The Imitation of Christ [Thomas à Kempis], one can say: “What would I do now if I had a full assurance that there was only a temporary trough,” and having got the answer, go and do it.
I am a man, and therefore lazy: you a woman, therefore probably a fidget. So it may be good to advise you (though it would be bad to me) not even to try to do in the trough all you can do on the peak. ...
I know all about the despair of overcoming chronic temptations. It is not serious, provided self-offended petulance, annoyance at breaking records, impatience, etc. doesn’t get the upper hand. No amount of falls will really undo us if we keep on picking ourselves up each time.
We shall of course be very muddy and tattered children by the time we reach home. But the bathrooms are all ready, the towels put out, and the clean linen clothes are in the airing cupboard. The only fatal thing is to lose one’s temper and give up. It is when we notice the dirt that God is most present to us: it is the very sign of his presence."
Taken from The Collected Letters of C. S. Lewis, volume 2, ed. Walter Hooper (Harper San Francisco, 2005), 506–507. Copyright © 2004 by C.S. Lewis Pte. Ltd. Extract reprinted by permission.
I read that to say Jesus was in a huge trough and He could have said no to the Father, but as we saw in the Palm Sunday meditation, " Not my will, but yours be done." He had to deal with the disciples if the coming cross was not enough. Peter of course in a little while would betray Him. Judas would do it as well and he was at the Last Supper we commemorate tonite.
If this was coming what was happened was in vs 24 after He instituted the New Covenant of the Lord's Eucharist, " And there arose also a contention among them, which of them was accounted to be greatest."
The greek word contention I have looked up. It makes me sick. It is negative love. philos is love. Not here. It is love of strife, contention.
Have we ever been there? " But ye shall not be so: but he that is the greater among you, let him become as the younger; and he that is chief, as he that doth serve."
Dorothy Day said in quoting ST Augustine, " Lord, let me know myself, that I may know Thee." That seems a strange place to begin. But that is where we must begin, with our own confession of sin, shortcomings, lack of faith, mistrust, and contention in our own soul. Tonite is not a night to take it lightly.
But as someone pointed out Jesus ends on a very encouraging note at the end of tonite's Gospel, " But I am among you as the one who serves. 28 “You are those who have stayed with me in my trials, 29 and I assign to you, as my Father assigned to me, a kingdom, 30 that you may eat and drink at my table in my kingdom and sit on thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel. "
May we discern our own lack of faith so that we may turn to the one who can give us what we need, the Sacrament of His Body and Blood which we take in faith.
amen.
Jesus' great desire was to eat the Passover with His disciples. We often forget that this is what was going on. vs 14-15 of Luke 22 tell us that. This year Passover is tomorrow nite. But we are not Jews . We are Christians who believe all of the OT was fulfilled in Jesus Christ, His only Son our Lord.
I was reading thru some devotionals and came across this letter from CS Lewis. "
Dear Mrs. Neylan,
Sorry you’re in a trough. I’m just emerging (at least I hope I am) from a long one myself. As for the difficulty of believing it is a trough, one wants to be careful about the word “believing.” We often mean by it “having confidence or assurance as a psychological state” – as we have about the existence of furniture. But that comes and goes and by no means always accompanies intellectual assent. For example, in learning to swim you believe, and even know intellectually, that water will support you, long before you feel any real confidence in the fact. ...
In the meantime, as one has learnt to swim only by acting on the assent in the teeth of all instinctive conviction, so we shall proceed to faith only by acting as if we had it. Adapting a passage in The Imitation of Christ [Thomas à Kempis], one can say: “What would I do now if I had a full assurance that there was only a temporary trough,” and having got the answer, go and do it.
I am a man, and therefore lazy: you a woman, therefore probably a fidget. So it may be good to advise you (though it would be bad to me) not even to try to do in the trough all you can do on the peak. ...
I know all about the despair of overcoming chronic temptations. It is not serious, provided self-offended petulance, annoyance at breaking records, impatience, etc. doesn’t get the upper hand. No amount of falls will really undo us if we keep on picking ourselves up each time.
We shall of course be very muddy and tattered children by the time we reach home. But the bathrooms are all ready, the towels put out, and the clean linen clothes are in the airing cupboard. The only fatal thing is to lose one’s temper and give up. It is when we notice the dirt that God is most present to us: it is the very sign of his presence."
Taken from The Collected Letters of C. S. Lewis, volume 2, ed. Walter Hooper (Harper San Francisco, 2005), 506–507. Copyright © 2004 by C.S. Lewis Pte. Ltd. Extract reprinted by permission.
I read that to say Jesus was in a huge trough and He could have said no to the Father, but as we saw in the Palm Sunday meditation, " Not my will, but yours be done." He had to deal with the disciples if the coming cross was not enough. Peter of course in a little while would betray Him. Judas would do it as well and he was at the Last Supper we commemorate tonite.
If this was coming what was happened was in vs 24 after He instituted the New Covenant of the Lord's Eucharist, " And there arose also a contention among them, which of them was accounted to be greatest."
The greek word contention I have looked up. It makes me sick. It is negative love. philos is love. Not here. It is love of strife, contention.
Have we ever been there? " But ye shall not be so: but he that is the greater among you, let him become as the younger; and he that is chief, as he that doth serve."
Dorothy Day said in quoting ST Augustine, " Lord, let me know myself, that I may know Thee." That seems a strange place to begin. But that is where we must begin, with our own confession of sin, shortcomings, lack of faith, mistrust, and contention in our own soul. Tonite is not a night to take it lightly.
But as someone pointed out Jesus ends on a very encouraging note at the end of tonite's Gospel, " But I am among you as the one who serves. 28 “You are those who have stayed with me in my trials, 29 and I assign to you, as my Father assigned to me, a kingdom, 30 that you may eat and drink at my table in my kingdom and sit on thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel. "
May we discern our own lack of faith so that we may turn to the one who can give us what we need, the Sacrament of His Body and Blood which we take in faith.
amen.
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