Maundy Thursday: Kingdom Expectations

TranscriptioN

Good evening. Good evening. I'm Alexei Laushkin, a member here.

Let's pray. Gracious Father, we thank you for this holy set of services. We ask that you would be with us and help us not to miss the many things that happen in these next several days.

In the name of Jesus, amen. Kingdom expectations. You may, with the uncertainty that many people have faced in the Washington area, or you could think about a time where you've also faced uncertainty, maybe recently or in the past, you may remember the day before an uncertainty began, right? Things seemed normal and fine.

I was recently at a conference, and the conversation centered around 9-11, and we heard from a speaker who was in the White House in the morning, and it was prior to everything that happened on that horrible day, and he had sent an email to another colleague saying, most boring day of the Bush presidency, not knowing what was about to happen. Calamity, uncertainty, expectation, kingdom expectations. We're moving from Palm Sunday into this moment with Jesus and his disciples, the reclining at table, and I want you to get into the disciples' minds as best we can, ask God to be in our hearts and maybe think about what might be on their minds.

They've been with Jesus going on now three years. They've seen him perform miracles. They've seen him stay away from Jerusalem for the most part.

They've seen him recently raise someone who was dead, right? They've seen the crowds in this big festival say, Hosanna, Hosanna. And they think to themselves, this is it. This could be the time.

I want you to imagine this could be the time that the Messiah returns, the kingdom is restored. Just think what's about to happen and what verses might go through their minds. What do they think might happen next? Maybe they think about King David, right? If you can think about how King David ascends to the throne, there's a variety of calamities and difficulties and wars and battles, and perhaps they think to themselves, this is the time.

Or they could think about, in the passage we just read, the Exodus, the many motions that it took for deliverance from God's people to finally make it to the promised land. What they're probably not thinking about is betrayal that same night. That's probably not what they're thinking about.

That what would happen next would be an instantaneous collapse. They're probably not thinking about that. And so they're in this moment thinking about what will occur next.

They're in Jerusalem, and Jesus gives them something surprising to think through, and I'll get to that in a moment. But I want to get at some themes as we think about Easter and we think about our time with Easter. I think we have a tendency, and certainly I do, where we'd like the triumph of death over life, the triumph of Jesus over sin.

We'd like, and we have a tendency to think in very kind of binary ways. It's a celebration of good over evil, and in some ways that's very true. It's a celebration of life over death, and in some ways that is also very true.

But it is also a restoration of God being present with his people over a time in a way that the temple itself wasn't really able to do. And Jesus is the holy temple, and I think this gets to a bit of the meaning about the foot washing and why we have the foot washing this particular night. So if you think a little bit about the children of Israel, it's not by accident that in our reading tonight, this is another way to put it, that Judas is present.

It's not by accident that in the epistles, when we're asked to push away evil, that we're also given teachings to judge not least we be judged, or not to, if you know the parables of the wheat and the chaff, not to necessarily pull up that which is evil among us. And I want us to meditate a little bit on this as we're thinking about this new commandment that in many ways is being given in the midst of a betrayal that's going to happen that very night. And I want you to think about this in relation to our Christian life and that process for these next several days of what it looks like to have our inner hearts cleaned and cleansed.

Jesus is doing something wildly unexpected. And I think that when we often think about the Easter story, a story that's so familiar to us, the foot washing also somewhat familiar, the vigil pieces familiar, I want us to invite us to enter into the shock and expectation of the kingdom of God as we start this evening, the wildness of what's about to happen. And the first wild thing, just to repeat it from as I started, is that the disciples don't expect what's going to happen.

There's a shock process that happens. The second thing I think with foot washing, remember we're getting ready for service tonight and someone in my family was like, oh, foot washing, it's kind of, it's a little gross. It's uncomfortable.

But I think for those of us who've done foot washing before, it's also very familiar. So there's this tension of like it's a little bit of a stretch, but it's also a bit uncomfortable, but it's also a bit familiar. And I want to get us back into the shock, the expectation of the evening, the shock of the evening.

So this is from Bishop Barron. He was doing a sermon a few years back, and he was talking about the shock of what it would be like. And I want you to imagine that you've been invited to a very fancy dinner. 

If you're a sports person, pretend your favorite sports star is there. If you're someone who likes shows, pretend someone very famous. You know, very fancy house.

It's a home for the sake of conversation. It's in McLean. It's a big home.

Someone, you know, with a nice suit. They've invited you in. The car is taking you out.

It's a table. Let's make it close to what's happening this night. So maybe it's about 15.

You're one of the 15. And your favorite star, and let's pretend we all have shoes that, you know, could be cleaned, takes out shoe polish and decides to go person by person before appetizers are served to polish your shoe. You would find it shocking.

You might even say you don't need to do that. It's a little bit, you know, shoe polishing is something people do, but it's not something people do all the time. And to have someone take off their tuxedo or make it a little easier for them to get at your shoe, it would feel really uncomfortable.

And this is the setting that we have when Jesus is taking out his outer garment. Jesus is taking his place, is putting himself in the position not just of a servant but of one of the lowliest servants. It's not every servant who would do the feat.

It usually was the lowliest servant. And you can see that Peter is just shocked. He says, I don't want this.

This is Peter who has seen Jesus do some pretty incredible things. And Jesus gives him this kind of a bit of a get thee behind me Satan sort of moment. Like this is something you must do to be part of the kingdom of God.

And then Peter says, well, okay, all of me. He says, no, it's okay. We don't need to do all of you.

And so it's this command and it's this flipping. And in many ways, it's the cleansing of the temple that we saw happen in Palm Sunday, but we see happen with his disciples, a cleansing of the temple. And I want us to think a little bit about this and a bit about the brokenness that all of this represents and Jesus' hope for this night in ways that are really unexpected.

This is not, again, a narrative the disciples are thinking about or think what would happen. So the temple is a place and just where God's glory is dwelling for Israel. It is the center of the worship life of Israel.

And I'm going to go out of Ezekiel a little bit here just in a moment. But I want you to think about the history of Israel for a moment. The history from the Exodus through Solomon is not necessarily a history where everything's going well.

It's not just a positive, joyful moment. You have enmity. You have sorcery.

I'm just giving you some of the highlights. You've got people who make our current day politics look nice and easy. It's a difficult set of generations in terms of what's happening in Israel.

And through all of that, God is still present with his people and eventually with the temple under Solomon's time. So it's not the case. I think sometimes we get the sense when we're reading the Old Testament where we sort of think, well, they sinned.

They just weren't good enough. God left them. And so then he needed to send his son. 

And thank goodness we don't have to deal with all that religion in the way that they had to deal with it. I'm being very simplistic just to get us into that mindset. But what I'm trying to help you think about with the radicalness of Jesus and God's rescue plan for all of us is that God is not— but he's also very patient.

There are things happening in Israel that are really difficult and bad, and his glory hasn't left. He hasn't abandoned his people. There's judgment, but there's not abandonment.

But there is a portion, and I just want to give you a sense of what some would be thinking about around Jesus in Ezekiel 10, where there is a pronunciation that God's judgment, God's presence would leave the temple. So I want you to think about that. We're going to be tying this into foot washing in a moment.

This is Ezekiel 10, 15. Then the cherubim rose upward. There were the living creatures I had seen by the Kibar River.

When the cherubim moved, the wheels behind them moved. Did it pause there? So if you hang around Anglicans long enough, you're going to realize that the angels aren't just like the little creatures— the cherub—they're not just like little babies. It's a very Western picture.

You're going to see a much more complex picture of what angels look like. So if you're wondering what Ezekiel is referring to, he's actually talking about the angelic, not what you might see at Hallmark. When the cherubim stood still, they also stood still.

When the cherubim rose, they rose with them, because the spirit of the living creatures was in them. Then the glory of the Lord departed from over the threshold of the temple and stopped above the cherubim. While I watched the cherubim spread their wings and rose from the ground, and as they went, the wheels went with them.

They stopped at the entrance of the east gate of the Lord's house, and the glory of Israel was above them. These were the living creatures I had seen beneath the God of Israel by the Kibar River, and I realized that they were cherubim. Each had four faces and four wings.

And so in this Ezekiel passage, it's heartbreaking. And Ezekiel itself is a bit of a mysterious book of prophetic writings. But it's heartbreaking.

You see the spirit of God leave by the east gate. Now we have something in Ezekiel 43. A little bit further.

This is a prophetic utterance about the future. And in Ezekiel 43, you see, this is verse 3. The vision I saw was like the vision I'd seen when he came to destroy the city, and the vision I'd seen by the Kibar River and fell face down. The glory of the Lord entered the temple through the gate facing east, and the spirit lifted me up.

 And so Ezekiel's talking about a time when the glory of the Lord will return. And in our gospel reading for Palm Sunday in Mark, it makes mention that Jesus himself is coming from the east, very intentionally. That the spirit of the Lord will be returning to the temple.

Jesus himself says, I am the temple. Right? And so on this night, where you might expect a plan to, the disciples might expect an eventual plan to reassert temple worship in a new way. I mean, there's lots of ideas about what would it look like for the Messiah to return.

Instead, you get this cleansing element where Jesus himself embodies what is to occur next. That instead of a dynamic where you need to be, and I'm thinking about these unexpected moments, maybe these moments that you've been in. But instead of pushing into, I need to do everything I can to make sure, you know, let's think of American things that we want, right? That there's provision for my children.

That I'm able to have a sustainable job. If you're in a different life circumstance, that I have a good and fulfilling career in future. That I do well by doing right.

That hard work, fair play leads to a good life. All these American isms related to success and how, when we feel uncertain, we want to cling to that success. And here is Jesus in this act of foot washing, actually giving us the opposite example.

We don't have to be held captive by the sin that so easily entangles our lives. We don't have to be focused on any other reality besides the temple and the spirit living in us through Christ. This night, before he is betrayed in just a few hours as we go through it, he is not coming with an army.

He is not coming with a political agenda. He's not coming with, here are the 30 ways that we're going to chase the Romans out of Jerusalem. All these things could have been on the disciples' minds.

I'm not saying they all were. But this is a way that God had reinstituted his kingdom in the past. Instead, he's coming to turn our very desire to put ourselves in the center of our lives and say, no, I who could say that's what we should all be doing, instead I'm going to humble myself.

The God of the universe is going to humble himself and wash his disciples' feet and say, go and do likewise. He's going to be ultimately emptying himself out completely and totally. And in those words of communion that are also related to this evening, that's what we have week after week, this emptying of self, this turning and cleansing of the temple.

But it's not the sort of turning and cleansing that says, well, all the evil, out the door. All that is wrong, be gone. In many ways, it is a seedling that will grow and outgrow the sin that's in the world. 

But the difficulties, the Judas's of our life are still present at this same table. And so as we enter into this Easter season and we start thinking to ourselves, I'm not yet, Lord, the sort of person I ought to be in Christ, which is sometimes maybe this can come up for you. I'm not yet where I wanted to be this Easter.

If you're like some of the folks I interact with day to day or week to week and pray with, I had a terrible Lent. I did nothing for you, Lord. Very Anglican problem.

However you enter into this evening, know that this is not the table or the process for the very, very good and those who try very, very hard. Instead, it is the grace to enter into your life as it is right now. It's the unexpected presence of God in our vulnerability, in our difficulties, in the moments that don't seem to add up.

And yet the glory and the grace of the Lord is present with us tonight. And as we move into the foot washing in a moment, I know it is it is a vulnerable act. It is uncomfortable at times, but however you enter in, whether you come up or you sit and pray, let the Lord touch you and know that this is the way he wants to serve you.

Let the foot washing be an example of the of the way that God is ultimately serving your greatest need in this moment. Because at this night of greatest importance, in this time that is commemorated for all time, our Lord Jesus Christ takes the path of humility and the path of service and commands us to do likewise. Let us pray.

“Gracious Father, we thank you for this evening and we thank you for this holy time. We ask that you would meet us whatever has happened in our weeks and in our days and wherever we are with our walks with you so that we might have Easter be born in our hearts into everlasting life. Amen.”

 Transcribed by TurboScribe.ai. Edited by the Vicar.