Sermon for Maundy Thursday
“A new commandment I give unto you, that you love one another”
The love of the Son for the Father in the bond of the Holy Spirit is the moving force in the Passion of Jesus Christ. This divine love is the action which underlies the Passion of the whole life of Jesus Christ. John Donne reminds us:
The whole life of Christ was a continuall Passion, his birth and his death were but a continuall Act and his Christmas-day and his Good Friday are but the evening and the morning of one and the same day.
The whole life of Christ is concentrated in the Passion. The Passion manifests the deep love of God – the love of God in himself and his love for us. Over and against this is our hatred and envy at the goodness of God and at God himself. For the Passion equally manifests the potentialities and actualities for evil in our hearts. We are on display in this week, too. Only the love of God makes it possible for us to contemplate this darkness within us and not be destroyed by what we see.
Were we to despair of the love of God, then we would be like Judas, whose remorse is not repentance and whose death, as a consequence, is simply the further denial of the love of God. We deny the truth that the love of God is greater than our hearts. But “if our hearts condemn us, God is greater than our hearts.” It is the lesson of this night. The new commandment to love one another is only made possible by the love of God moving in us despite our betrayals of that love. His love alone can set our loves in order.
