I want you to think back a very
short time to dinner tonight. I want you
to picture what it was like sitting at your table. In your mind, look around you. Who is there?
Is it family? Is it friends from
church? Maybe some new faces? Are your children there? Your parents?
Who is swirling about? Is there a
youth in a bright t-shirt asking for your drink order? Or an adult telling a youth to ask you for
your drink order? What’s in front of you? Did you get a big bowl of soup? Some Chili?
Some homemade bread? Is it warm
and inviting? Are the smells rising up
with the warmth and filling your senses?
Try to imagine taking a bite, what it tasted like, how it smelled, how
it felt to be warmed by it.
Now, without opening your eyes,
try to imagine tomorrow. Imagine sitting
down to that meal. Imagine the people
there. Imagine the feeling as you look
around at your loved ones, your family and friends, perhaps people you haven’t
seen in a while, or people more new to you.
Imagine the food on the table.
Favorite dishes, traditions, things you skip but someone else loves
dearly, the side dish or the pie that someone else makes perfectly. Let those emotions of the day, the highs and
the stress, the joy and the busyness fill you for a moment. Now open your eyes. Now give a soft elbow to the person on either
side of you… just in case.
I want to suggest a few
things. I want to suggest that the
Passover meal Jesus shared with his disciples, his followers, his brothers,
those with whom he’d shared so many meals before, so many homes, so many
stories, so much shared joy and misery… was much like what you experienced
tonight or what you may experience tomorrow.
We know that Jesus knew what was coming.
We know that could not have been easy.
But I remember my last Thanksgiving with my extended family that my
grandfather was present. I think he knew
it was his last. And I remember him
looking around, taking it all in, surrounded by a large family he had loved so
well, loved till the end, and I remember the joy in his eyes… And I think THAT
is what Christ felt in those moments of his last supper.
I think too often we are
subconsciously influenced even by the term “last supper.” The only people who have last suppers, last
meals… are death row inmates, alone, facing execution for their crimes, unsure
of what will come. But Jesus had
committed no crime. And Jesus was not
alone. And Jesus knew the good that was
to come. I don’t think Jesus faced this
meal as a last supper. I think Jesus
celebrated this meal like my grandfather did.
I believe that Jesus looked
around the room at those he loved and drank it all in. I think he ate the food, which must have been
so familiar, so steeped in Jewish ritual and tradition. This was the Jewish Thanksgiving. It still is.
It’s the meal where they recount the story of their ancestors who
escaped bondage and religious persecution and traveled to a new land, a land
with new people, a land that was not easy, but full of promise. And this history was not one of a perfect
people making good choices, but of an imperfect people who did not always
listen to God.
The Jews gathered then and now
to recount their THANKFULNESS to God for rescuing them, leading them, sparing
them, and providing for them in the midst of their hardship and mistakes. And this makes this story remarkably similar
to our own history, and our celebration of thanks, with all its complications
and mess. And like the Jews, we prepare
our feasts, our traditional meals, be they turkey or tofurkey, or in the case
of my aunt and uncle one year, just side dishes, after they locked their turkey
in an oven cleaning cycle… And we enjoy
the company of those we love and reflect on our year and that for which we are
most thankful.
So why does any of this matter,
Brian? Well, you’ve been very good. You played along with me. I’m thankful for a room full of Presbyterians
who all just played pretend with me and used their imaginations. J This matters because this table at which we
gather for the Lord’s Supper, for what we call the Great Thanksgiving… is a
place of mystery and of imagination.
When we gather, we read words and gather as a people to do this in
remembrance of Christ, someone we’ve never met in the corporeal sense, in the
flesh. And how we remember Christ as we come to table matters. If we only remember the death of Christ, we
are only remembering a fraction of the miraculous gift from God. After it, there is a remarkable resurrection…
and before it… well, before it is a humble birth and an amazing life.
And
if we are to remember and imagine a part of that meal in the breaking of the
bread and the pouring of the cup, perhaps it would serve us to think less of a
last supper, and more of a Passover meal… a meal of thanksgiving. Imagine again with me. You don’t have to close your eyes. But imagine… not a last supper before an
execution… (this isn’t his funeral) but a thanksgiving meal surrounded by all
the comforts of familiar favorite delights, smells, sounds of laughter, and the
sight of those you hold most dear. Hold
those feelings from moments ago, those emotions.
When
you leave here, I want to ask of you two things. First, tomorrow, as you sit down with family
or friends, or by yourself, I want you to imagine this as your Passover feast. I want you to imagine what it was like for
Jesus and his disciples. And then… the
next time you come to this table, I want you to remember that meal, or any
Thanksgiving meal. And I want you to
think not just of the gift of Jesus’ death, but also of his resurrection, his
life, his joy, and his love, and the family and friends Jesus held dear in
those moments. We are a people whose
identity is shaped by the gathering at this table. We do this in remembrance of him. Let us imagine him fully. Let us remember him well.
Let
us pray.
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