Holy Thursday -Evening Mass of the Lord’s Supper

 Lectionary: 39

How shall I make a return to the LORD
            for all the good he has done for me?
The cup of salvation I will take up,
            and I will call upon the name of the LORD.

 L ong before the scriptures tell us about the blood of the sacrificial heifer, or the blood of the lamb, or the blood which Jesus commanded his disciples to drink on the night before he died, we hear God's interrogation of Cain, "What have you done? Your brother’s blood cries for revenge from the earth to heaven!" The story of our salvation, to use a horror film expression, is drenched in blood.

On the night before their Passover out of slavery, the Angel of Death searched every home in Egypt. Where he did not find the blood of a pascal lamb splashed on the doorposts and lintels, he invaded the home and killed the firstborn son of every female: of cattle, sheep, and human. That sacrificial blood saved the Children of Abraham from the last and worst of the ten Egyptian plagues as God led them to freedom. 

For that reason then, upon arriving at Mount Sinai, Moses killed and butchered a heifer, and then…

… took half of the blood and put it in large bowls; the other half he splashed on the altar. Taking the book of the covenant, he read it aloud to the people, who answered, “All that the LORD has said, we will hear and do.” Then he took the blood and splashed it on the people, saying, “This is the blood of the covenant which the LORD has made with you according to all these words.”

God, represented by the stone altar, and his people were bonded in the blood -- that is, the liquid life -- of a heifer. By that strange ritual, the Lord reestablished the ancient covenant with the descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. They also received on that occasion the Ten Commandments and the new Law of Moses there in the wilderness. 

Centuries later, during the trial of Jesus, the same people demanded of Pontius Pilate, "His blood be upon us and upon our children!" But we should recognize the intentional irony of the Evangelist, Saint Matthew. While this mob apparently wanted to kill the Lord, they were actually calling for the blessing of a new covenant. That’s how the Evangelist placed us in the middle of this drama.

By our Eucharist, we call a curse upon ourselves if we fail to honor the sacrifice of Christ, and a blessing upon ourselves if we live by it. It is the unhappy consequence of being a Holy People, a peculiar people, in a hostile world. And it is the blessing of knowing the saving, healing, reconciling Blood of Jesus Christ. His blood atones for Abel’s blood which cried to heaven for revenge. As the Gospel of Luke insists, “Much will be required of those entrusted with much, and still more will be demanded of those entrusted with more.” 

Whenever we attend the Mass, and eat his body and drink his blood; we are like the Hebrews with Moses on Mount Sinai who said, “All that the LORD has said, we will hear and do.” And we are like the mob in Matthew's gospel who shouted, "His blood be upon us and upon our children!"

This evening, Holy Thursday, we begin our Triduum, a drama remembering the Lord's Last Supper, his passion and death on the cross, the silence of Holy Saturday, and the miracle of Easter. And so we remember tonight another story of blood, when Jesus said, "Eat this; this is my body. Drink this; this is my blood. And do this in memory of me."

Having made that statement, his sacrifice was all but complete. From that moment, He must be crucified so that he might become our Eucharist. Jesus must die so that we might eat his flesh and drink his blood and be saved.

Perhaps that is why he went to the Garden of Gethsemane. These words are so important and so heavy that Jesus had to stop everything and pray. St. Luke tells us that, "He was in such agony and he prayed so fervently that his sweat became like drops of blood falling on the ground."

We might, as his friends, urge him to turn back. We might say, "There's still time to get out of Jerusalem. People will protect you. People will hide you. You don't have to go through with this." 

But we also might pray, "Jesus. Please stay here. Please go through with this. Please save us from our sins, and the people who hate us. Please save us from the world we have polluted with our plastics, chemicals, and the blood of innocent lives. Please restore the world you made for us." 

But we already know the Lord's decision as he agonizes in Gethsemane; for we know his teachings, his miracles, and his life. None of that would mean anything if he had fled from Gethsemane. As Saint Paul said, he could not deny himself. 

When we come together tonight we cannot deny ourselves. We are sinners, we are the people who eat his flesh and drink his blood. We are drawn through the sacrifice of the Mass, into the life and vitality of God. Because he has called us here, we do not turn away. Like the disciples in Gethsemane, like his mother Mary he met on the way to Calvary, and the women who stood lamenting and beating their breasts as he was crucified, we want to be with him; we will stay with him during this Triduum. 

Enough blood has been shed. We need no more bloody sacrifices of criminals, murderers, Jews, aliens, enemies, or strangers. We have in Jesus Christ our salvation, freedom, security, and prosperity. 

And we have enormous authority now. Just before he murdered his brother, the Lord told Cain, “...sin lies in wait at your door: its urge is for you, yet you can rule over it.” 

Eating his flesh and drinking his blood has given us dominion over our envy, jealousy, lust, sloth, anger, avarice and pride. We need no more bloody sacrifices, for his blood flows through our hearts, minds, and bodies. It appears on the doorposts of our hearts as God's Angel of Mercy comes to save us.