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| The Last Supper at Cologne Cathedral (photo in the public domain) |
Maundy: Middle English maunde, from Old French mandé, from Latin mandatum; command, order; from the words spoken by Jesus to his disciples after washing their feet at the Last Supper, “A new commandment I give unto you, that ye love one another...” (John 13:34).
Today. This day. This moment in Time unlike any other in anguish, in impact, in historical consequence. In power. Hope. Promise.
We are here, struggling through the metaphorical, and increasingly tangible, high tides of earth-life—clinging to the beauty, the integrity, the absolutes that remain, a constant shimmer above the dark waters. Our lives, our future upon this planet, all that it means to be human is caught in a rip tide.
We need—oh, how we need—to see, to perceive the One who calmed the raging sea.
We cannot recognize Him within the storm until we see Him sagging from the nails that, finally, held the weight of Him . . . and yet, we cannot fully perceive the purpose and power of the cross until we see Him standing imperially in that small, tossing skiff. Caught in the grip of a violent storm (Luke 16.22-25). Unafraid, majestic. God in the midst of His elements.
He was, in both disparate moments, in utter control over Life. He established His authority over the elements—the Genesis Moment—simply by raising his hand against the inanimate. No mortal man, even the occasional "miracle-workers" who habited the fringes of spirituality, could control the rudiments of earth. It was here that He identified Himself in full to His disciples, beyond their stumbling cognizance. Here they perceived The One. Here they gained a fear of God, beyond their fear of death.
But . . . He forfeited His authority over His own authority at Gethsemane. Strange statement? Certainly. But we cannot fully decipher the authority of Jesus the man, maimed and murdered, until we calculate Christ the man perched in utter dominion
. . . upon the edge of obliteration. And obliterating it.
We are clinging to the mast, to the sides of our small skiff of life, watching the storm metastasize. And He is waiting, ready, not asleep.
This night He dies again, once again, as He has through all the centuries before us. The One Who raises us, the dead, from the soul-storms that destroy our life. The nails will never hold Him again. Earth is not large enough to define Him. Nor small enough to confine us to a shattered end.
One day soon we shall meet Him, walking on the waters, His arms opened wide.
