Remember these Words: Matthew 26:17-30 - Maundy Thursday

Did you catch that little detail included at the end of the Last Supper Story: that before Jesus and his disciples left the upper room, they sang “the hymn”?

Being a music lover, I want to know what they sung. This is Jesus’s last supper with his disciples. It’s his final night of life. I want to know what they sung because I want to be drawn more deeply into Christ’s Passover, and what it means for me and for the rest of the world. 

Click here to read the Scripture text

Fortunately, we can be fairly certain of what they sang. Psalms 113-118 are known as the Hallel in Judaism. Hallel is the Hebrew word for praise, and is the root for the word Hallelujah, meaning praise the Lord. Psalms 113-114 were sung during the Passover meal, and Psalms 115-118 were after the meal. 

Moments ago, we spoke the words of one of those hymns in our first reading. 

The disciples, being Jews, knew these hymns well—more so, in fact, than we know our favorite hymns and Christmas carols. The Passover hymns kept alive the memory of God’s liberation of his people from slavery in Egypt. It brought the past into the present and set the tone for the future.

Tonight, Jesus celebrates the Passover. Tomorrow, Jesus will fulfill the Passover. He is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. Jesus sets the table for a new Passover meal, speaking those sweet words, “This is my body; this is my blood, given for you.” Jesus makes a new covenant with us, that we love one another as he loves us.

But I fear that this generation may be on the cusp of forgetting these words and losing hold on the life contained within them. I cannot overstate how much is at stake here: not only our belonging to one another as the Body of Christ, but on the power that daily frees us from sin and death, and the faith grace makes us people of hope in this troubled world.

Can you imagine where you’d be in life were it not for Jesus Christ? Can you imagine how dead you would be if Christ were not alive in you? Can you imagine the horror of facing your trials without the help of Jesus?

You only need to turn on the news, read the newspaper, or even venture out of your home to see just how much this world needs the teachings of Jesus, the love of Jesus, and the redemption of Jesus.

The world needs to know, every broken soul needs to know, every hurting heart needs to know that Jesus, in his love for all the world, willingly took upon himself the fullness of human sin in the humiliation and the agony of death the cross. Even though we drove the nails through his hands and feet and thrust the spear into his side in our sin against God and neighbor, still he cries, “Father, forgive them” with his last dying breaths. And on the third day, the Holy Spirit raised him up from the depths of hell to break the powers of death and the devil for good. We know that Jesus bears all our fears, all our grief, all our afflictions, and that he overcomes them by his rising. We believe that love is stronger than hate, that hope is stronger than fear, that life is stronger than death. Loving one another as we are loved in Christ, we can bring real change to our world and create new life where there is death. We can transform the future by the power of God that is at work within us.

So tonight, we lift up the cup of salvation, and sing praise to the one whose body and blood sets us free to be people of God. We come to his table, where there is forgiveness, and where everyone belongs. We make our Passover journey with Jesus, so that we may be revived in our faith and empowered to proclaim him unto the nations.

O Christ, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world. Have mercy upon us, we cry; have mercy upon us; grant us peace. 

Bread for the Life of the World by Lawrence OP on flickr. CC BY-NC-ND 2.0