Will You Follow?

Maundy Thursday 2011
Will You Follow

It all started with a young lady. You know how rumors can start in a small town... She was to marry her sweetheart Jo but then the scandal broke. It seems we have become accustomed to it in our day, often young couples begin their family before the wedding. But it wasn't too many years ago that it was scandalous.
People would turn their head and talk when she and Jo would walk by. At times the shame would overcome her. Other times she remembered that this was different. She didn't plan this. She didn't really even want this. But she accepted it. Little did she know her life would never be the same. Little did she know what her sacrifice really meant. Little did she know that she would one day give up her son so that others might live.
This scenario could fit any number of stories to illustrate the point, but the story of Jesus really needs no other illustration. Jesus came to us as a child. Humble, helpless, and innocent. Jesus lived as a pauper. We read his own words as he says he has no place to lay his head, he ate grain that was plucked from the side of the road and he wandered around the countryside, often by foot. Jesus was not royalty by earthly standards. Yet, he was called King.
On this night we remember Jesus final meeting with the disciples in the upper room. They gathered for the Passover Feast, a meal to commemorate and celebrate God's final deliverance of Israel from Egyptian Bondage. We have heard the directions for this meal from Exodus 12. In that reading it is interesting to note the communal aspect of the meal. It was meant that families would share in the meal with others, no food was to be left. All of Israel gathered in their homes and ate the meal at the same time. This was a communal remembrance of God's salvation. (Amber Essick – Abingdon Preaching Annual)
It was this feast that Jesus chose as his communal meal for the church, we call it Communion. Paul reminds us that the church is to gather for this meal regularly to remember what Christ has done for us on the Cross. The old remembrance of Passover has now marked the new covenant through the body and blood of Christ.
As we read in John, there was more to the night than just the meal. Jesus, the one they called Lord and Savior, donned the clothes of a servant and stooped to wash their dirty feet. There is so much more in this image than just the God-man stooping before humanity. Amber Essick says it like this, “Not only is the God-person stooping to humanity, but during the feast celebrating freedom from slavery, Jesus takes on the role of a slave in order to teach his disciples a vital lesson about what it means to follow... It is a life of giving up our own way to walk the Christian path together.”
And there we have it again. The concept of following.

And where is Jesus asking us to go? Where is he asking us to follow him? Where does he lead?
Jesus leads us to love. To love one another to the point of becoming our slaves.
If by some way the imagery of Palm Sunday was lost on any of the 12 in that room, now it was clear. Jesus is leading them to love and to serve. For it is through loving and serving that others will know we are Christ's disciples.

Will you follow? Will you love and serve your neighbor? Will you go where Jesus calls you?

That is what you will need to answer over the next few days as Easter approaches.

Let us Pray.