Maundy Thursday

Many of you probably know the Harry Potter books by Scottish author J.K. Rowling, or maybe the movies made of the books. You might have read them in school, or read them to your children, watched them with your family. Perhaps you remember there was controversy over the books, as some Christians thought they were inappropriate because they depicted magic and talked about witches and wizards.

Even if you don’t know the books or movies, you’d still understand the story. J.K. Rowling is a Christian, and the story is a Christian allegory, in the same vein as C.S. Lewis’ “Chronicles of Narnia.” That is to say, the fictional story of the boy Harry Potter and the evil wizard Lord Voldemort has a hidden meaning and it’s one that any Christian should recognize: good triumphing over evil through self-sacrifice, serving others more important than being served, power that comes from humility, love stronger than death, death that leads to resurrection and new life.

In the books, the name of the evil wizard Voldemort translates to “theft of death,” and his followers are called “Death Eaters.” A main theme of the seven-book series is the conflict between life and death, including the desire for immortality, and ultimately, the sacrifice of the hero, who willingly lays down his life to save his friends and indeed, the whole world.

You might wonder what this all has to do with Maundy Thursday. But remember—that author is a Christian, and she is telling the story of Christ’s humility, his servanthood, his self-sacrificial love in a modern fairytale for young people. But it’s even deeper than that. The ideas of blood, sacrifice, eating death, gaining immortality —this is the deep magic, as the lion Aslan says. It’s ancient stuff, given by God to his Israelite people, and detailed in the book of Leviticus.

I preached about this on Ash Wednesday, just about 40 nights ago-- about how in ancient Israel ashes were mixed with the blood of a heifer to form a kind of ritual soap, used to make pure anyone who had been in contact with death, and how the ashes on our heads are in the shape of the cross, because in the death of the Lamb of God are we made pure. I even quoted a bit of the book of Leviticus, which might have been a first in a sermon for me.

What I didn’t say that night back in March is that the whole book of Leviticus is full of that kind of thing: minute details of animal sacrifices—remember the two doves that Mary and Joseph bring to the Temple when Jesus was born? That’s from there.  There’s also lots and lots of blood. Explicit directions on what to do with the various body parts of the animals who were killed. Things like, most animal hides go to the priests; fat goes to God; some of the meat is eaten, some burned up on the altar, and some mixed with other stuff to make that ritual detergent.

This is so strange to us, and anybody who has ever tried to read the Bible cover to cover gets to Leviticus and usually starts, uh, skipping ahead. But hold up. Because on this night, when we hear about the blood of the Passover lamb, and the Blood of the new covenant, I really want you to make some connections.

See, God didn’t need all these animals. Instead, he gave this system of sacrificial worship to Israel after he gave them the Law, so that they would have a divinely instituted means by which they could be cleansed of their transgressions of the Law. The sacrifices weren’t for God but for people. God wanted his people to have concrete proof that their sins were forgiven, to know without a doubt that as this animal is killed, their sins had died along with it.

And there was one specific sacrifice that was most important, called “the Sin Offering.” It was presented on behalf of all the people, for all their sins. This animal soaked up all the impurity of the Israelites for whom it was killed. Its blood was shed for sin. But instead of being burned up on the altar of God, it was eaten.

But wait…if this animal soaked up all the sins, wouldn’t that mean its meat was contaminated or impure? No--very much the opposite. The body of the sacrificed animal was extremely holy: it gave holiness to those who touched it.

When the ancient Israelite priest ate this sin offering, he was making a profound statement: holiness has swallowed impurity; life can defeat death. The priest, as God’s holy man, stood for life and purity. He took into himself the meat that had taken away impurity, that sacrifice which had defeated death. He was the sin-eater, the death-eater—but of sin that had been forgiven, of death that had been conquered.

In one of my favorite Old Testament passages to read at funerals here, the prophet Isaiah says this: “On this mountain the Lord of hosts will make for all peoples a feast of rich food, a feast of well-matured wines, of rich food filled with marrow, of well-matured wines strained clear. And he will destroy on this mountain the shroud that is cast over all peoples, the sheet that is spread over all nations; he will swallow up death forever.”

The Lord swallows up death. At a funeral, we tend to think of it as a future time of resurrection, except-- it’s actually tomorrow. Good Friday. Jesus, as our priest, ate death for us, swallowed sin for us. And more than that—he was both the sin offering and the priest. He swallowed all that is wrong with the world, all that is wrong with us. In his resurrection, he showed the entire world that holiness has swallowed impurity; that life has defeated death.

This gets a little confusing because time is topsy-turvy in Holy Week. Good Friday has already come—2,000 years ago--but it is also tomorrow, and also fulfilled in our future. The feast Isaiah talks about was in the Upper Room at the Last Supper when Jesus took the form of a slave and washed his disciples’ feet—but it’s also tonight on THIS Passover Eve; and it’s every Sunday; and it’s coming when we die and it’s at the end of all time.

Do you see? This, tonight, is the messianic feast, all time collapsed into this one night.  Jesus, the Lamb of God, gives himself as a sacrifice. He lays down his life willingly; he sheds his blood out of love.  He makes a feast for us of his own Body and Blood. We eat the most holy food and drink the most holy drink, for it is the body and blood of the one who took away impurity and defeated death, once and forever.

This feast is hosted by the priest who became a sacrifice, and it is the concrete way we know that our sins are forgiven. As Jesus, the Lamb of God, dies, our sin dies with him; our death dies with him. It is swallowed up forever and his blood makes us clean forever. Having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end. To the cross. To the grave. To the brilliant light of Easter Day. Amen.