I’m
struck by what Jesus does at the Last Supper; because it is the very opposite
of what he is supposed to do. And I don’t mean a rabbi taking the role of a
servant.
Did
you catch the instructions for how to eat the Passover meal? “Grab your coat;
tie your laces; get that grub down your neck! Come On!” It’s like breakfast on
any given weekday in my house.
But
what does Jesus do? Takes off his coat; gets everyone to take off their shoes.
Waits while Peter has a little stand-off—that’s just like it is in my house,
too—and slows the eating right down.
Why?
I
want to suggest that Jesus isn’t (just) enacting the last meal before departure,
but (also) the first meal after arrival at the destination. The meal that lies
beyond the road through the Sea of Death that will give way to let God’s people
through; that lies beyond the generation of eye-witnesses dying before they see
the fulfilment of their hope. The meal that will be eaten in the Promised Land:
the call to live differently from all the surrounding peoples, in such a way
that God is glorified.
When
you get there—when you arrive home—you hang your coat on the hook, kick off
your shoes, and sit round the kitchen table drinking wine and telling stories late
into the night. And you do the freely-engaged work of treating others with
dignity, as those who are no longer slaves.
Jesus
says, do what I have done. Remind one another of what you have been set free
from—and of what you have been set free for. And then live as if we were
already there. Live in such a way that pulls the future into the present.
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