Maundy Thursday: Humble Trepidation or False Confidence?

            Today is Maundy Thursday, a day that commemorates all the events that happened the day before Jesus was crucified. And a lot happened that day: Jesus washed his disciples feet, Jesus taught about the need to be servants and to love one another, Jesus led the disciples in celebrating the last supper together, Jesus prayed in the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus was arrested through the betrayal of Judas, Jesus was interrogated by the high priest, and Peter denied Jesus three times; all of this happened on Thursday before morning of the next day when Jesus was brought before Pontius Pilate of Rome.

            So there are a lot of different events that one could focus on today. But I want to begin by focusing on the betrayal of Jesus that happened this day. And he was betrayed in diverse and varied ways. First, he was betrayed by the religious officials of Israel and Jerusalem. He was arrested on the behest of the chief priests and Pharisees. And we’re so used to this part of the story that I think sometimes it begins to lose its shock value. But imagine that God came down to live on earth. Wouldn’t you expect that the people most eager and ready to welcome him would be God’s chosen people: the Israelites, and especially their religious leaders? Yes, we might expect the Pharaohs and the Caesars of this world to reject him, but these religious leaders whose entire livelihood and occupation are supposedly meant to be built around worshipping God, following his laws, and learning more about the divine, that is shocking that they reject God.

            Think of the shock nowadays when we see some of our more famous religious leaders outed for sinful, predatory lifestyles, the shock of hearing of the people whom we trusted and looked up to being not who we thought they were, names like Bill Hybels or Ravi Zacharias. The shock of these stories is so great that they almost always go viral. This is the shock we should feel when Jesus is betrayed by the very people most meant to support him: the Israelite religious leaders.

            Jesus gives his disciples a rather scary prediction on Maundy Thursday in John 16:2. He said, “The hour is coming when those who kill you will think that by doing so they are offering worship to God.” What great irony that the chief priests and Pharisees are about to kill God thinking they are acting on behalf of God. They charge Jesus with blasphemy because he claims to be God; that would be a blasphemous claim indeed, except he really was God. And they bring in witnesses testifying to how Jesus said, “I will destroy this temple that is made with hands, and in three days I will build another, not made with hands.” You can see why the priests might want to zealously defend the temple: this is the place they encounter God’s presence! Think how happy you'd be if someone threatened to tear down your church. But they failed to see that the temple as a means of accessing God’s presence, though useful for a time, was now obsolete. What use was the temple when God in the flesh was right there in front of them? What use would the temple be for accessing God’s presence when the Holy Spirit was about to be sent into our hearts?

            But here’s the key thing to note: it was religious motivations that led these religious officials to oppose Jesus, and that fact should give us great pause today. It should lead us to act with humility and trepidation lest our own religious zealotry might be misguided, and our most holy of intentions are twisted by the devil to serve the most nefarious ends. There’s a famous latin phrase: Corruptio optima pessima. It means the corruption of the best is the worst. Religion can be one of the best and most beautiful and holy things in all the world, which means that when corrupted it can become one of the most harmful and destructive forces in the world. All you have to do is open a history book to see how this all too often becomes the case. On Maundy Thursday we are reminded that you must beware if you find that your religious zeal is leading you more towards garnering hatred than love. A good test of our religion is whether it lives into Jesus’ Maundy Thursday command to love one another as he loved us.

            Secondly, Jesus was betrayed by his friends, his closest confidants, his disciples. Judas, a disciple who was with Jesus for years, had apparently been following Jesus for less than genuine motives. He would steal from the money bag that was meant for donations to the poor, and he sold Jesus out for 30 pieces of silver. The story of Judas warns us about the great temptation that money can be, how money is the root of all kinds of evil. It’s amazing the type of wicked things people will line up to do if it will make them an extra buck. And do note that there are many legal ways to exploit people for money, but just because it is legal does not mean it is ethical or just. Judas earned his silver legally from the chief priests.

            Judas’ story reminds us again that there are many who follow Jesus for less than genuine motives. In most churches today you can find people who are not there for the right reason. Some are there to perhaps simply appear more righteous than they are by being able to say they are a churchgoer. Some come as wolves in sheep’s clothing to trick and devour the true sheep. Jesus warns us that within his church weeds always grow alongside the good wheat. May Judas’ life serve as a warning to us that we must examine again our motives for following after Jesus: are they pure? Judas’ life shows us that it is not enough to be a member of a church, it is not enough to be among the disciples of Jesus, one must be truly and sincerely living out the ways of Jesus. If not, the end of our life may be no happier than the end of Judas’: his life ended with remorse and despair, for it is no small thing on one’s conscience to betray someone good and righteous. Judas heard every sermon Jesus preached. But it is one thing to hear, another thing to do and act.

            But Jesus was not just betrayed by Judas, by disciples who were following him with ill intentions. No, even those who followed him with the best intentions let him down. But they didn’t think they would! It is quite interesting to see how the gospel accounts sandwich close together the contrasting ways in which Jesus and his disciples reacted to the prospect of soon having to die for their faith. It contrasts the extreme confidence of the disciples with Jesus’ wary, trembling spirit. Peter and the disciples were certain they’d follow Jesus even unto death. They were certain they wouldn’t deny him. Yet when Jesus faced the specter of death, the knowledge that he may have to become a martyr, he didn’t think it’d be a piece of cake. He prayed in agony, he sweat like drops of blood; he was grieved and deeply agitated. He had to devote hours to prayer to steel his nerves for the task ahead. And he only went forward to his death once he was fully certain that God needed it to be thus, that there was no other way in which the trial could have been avoided. Jesus prayed, “if possible, remove this cup from me, but not my will but your will be done.” In the end, Jesus’ humble fear resulted in him following through with his great sacrifice, but the disciple’s prideful confidence quickly resulted in their failure. We see that they could not even stay awake with Jesus a few hours as he prayed, let alone were they really ready to risk imprisonment or death. Peter would deny Jesus 3 times before that very night was over.

            Think of it this way: who would you bet your money on to complete a marathon race set to take place a few months from now? The person who says,  "Oh, that’s easy, that’ll be a piece of cake."? Or the person who says, "That is probably going to be one of the most difficult things I’ve ever done, but if I prepare myself, if I work hard, I just maybe will be able to do it."? I would bet on the one who approaches the task with trepidation. The one who is full of false confidence will not properly prepare, they won’t train, and when they find on race day that the task is harder than they anticipated that it would be, which it will be, they will quickly falter. But the one who is uncertain of their strength will be out there training every day for months to prepare for the task ahead and may find they are able to accomplish what once seemed impossible.

Perhaps we should thus approach the great callings of our faith with humility and trepidation. Perhaps we should not have the false confidence of Peter and the disciples, but the fear and trembling of Jesus. Perhaps we must soak our lives in prayer if we are to be at all prepared for the lives of sacrifice and service that God is calling us to. God’s commands are possible… but not easy. The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak. If we know the difficulty of the call, then we will work all the harder to prepare ourselves to live it out and accomplish the goal set before us. The prideful will say I don’t need to go to church, I’ve got it figured out, all I’ve got to do is love others. The humble will say, oh my gosh, it is really, really hard to love other people well. It is far easier to selfishly prioritize myself than to serve others. I need to be in church every week, out training again and again the same way as if I was prepping for a marathon, I need to do that if I have any hope at all of being successful in the task of loving other people to the high standard, the high measure of loving in the same way Christ loved me.

            Well we’ve seen now in three ways how Maundy Thursday was a day of great betrayal. It was a betrayal less by those we would expect to be enemies of God, but betrayal more so by those who should’ve been Jesus’ friends: the disciples and the religious leaders. These betrayals have reminded us that we must be wary of even our best religious motives, for like the chief priests our religious motives can be twisted towards evil, like Judas we might have evil motivations that we are simply hiding behind a nice religious façade, and like Peter we may noble, high aspirations yet find ourselves falling far short of our lofty goals.

            But what was Jesus up to on this day of great betrayal? We might expect one facing such major betrayals to be plotting revenge or speaking condemnation. But that’s not what we find Jesus doing. On Maundy Thursday we find Jesus setting up a table for the last supper, preparing to serve those who would betray him, to feed those who would let him down; Jesus was there giving a communion meal showing that he was breaking his body like bread for sinners like them, shedding his blood like wine for sinners like them. This is the love of Christ we are called to emulate, love even for enemies and sinners.

            When I think of the great love shown during the last supper meal I think on the image of many a middle school or high school cafeteria. Have you ever been a kid in the cafeteria where kids wouldn’t let you sit with them at their table so you had to find another place to sit? Or maybe they let you sit, but then they just ignored you or bullied you, they didn’t make you feel a part of the group. Or have you ever felt so unwelcomed and shy that you just went and sat all by yourself, assuming that no one would want to sit with you? But half hoping that someone kind might come join you or invite you over to sit with them.

            I think of the communion meal in light of this all too common image of a child who is lonely, who doesn’t fit in. And I think of Jesus being the one who says you are always welcome at my table. I think of Jesus saying I want you here: you are my precious child, you belong. And I think of the church as the group in which Jesus then places us, giving us numerous friends, and he instructs to each person in the church, this child here, love him, make him one of your own. The ragtag group of disciples we see at Jesus’ last supper from betrayers to deniers, from tax collectors to zealots, it shows us that there is room at Jesus’ table for everyone, whether you’re a sinner or a prodigal, whether you’re uncool or awkward, there is room for you. Jesus lets any come who want to partake of his grace.

Maundy Thursday was a day of great betrayal. And when we’re betrayed, we build up bigger walls out of fear and anger. But Jesus spent his last days not building bigger walls but building bigger tables, spreading wide his love, getting ready to die even for those who would let him down, to save and forgive those who would kill him. May we love as Christ loved us. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, Amen.