“Thou art the man”
“A new commandment I give unto you that you love one another,” Jesus says. But what is new about that? Haven’t we heard the commandment “to love God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength” from Deuteronomy (6.5) to which Mark has added “and with all your mind”? Haven’t we heard from Leviticus (19.18) “to love your neighbour as yourself? How then is this a new commandment?
Because of the service and sacrifice of Christ which gives a new meaning to our lives and our loves. They are intensified in the Passion of Christ. What is given a more intense meaning is the depth of human sin, on the one hand, and the greater love of God towards us precisely in our sins, on the other hand. The new commandment to love is about service and sacrifice undertaken in a myriad of ways as the rites and ceremonies of Maundy Thursday indicate.
The washing of feet, the institution of the Holy Eucharist, the stripping of the altar, the going to Gethsemane in prayer and vigil, the traditions of the Sovereign giving alms to the poor, are among those rites and ceremonies. In a way, they are all about opening us out to a new and deeper understanding about the love of God and the love of man because they are concentrated in Christ, true God and true man.
Holy Week immerses us in the Passion of Christ. The rites and rituals of this day serve to bring us to ourselves as sinners and as beloved of God. We confront ourselves in order to find ourselves in the deep love of Christ for our humanity. “Thou art the man,” our Holy Week text, takes on a fuller significance in the Triduum Sacrum.
Perhaps no ritual is more intriguing than the Judas Cup ceremony instituted by the monks of Durham Cathedral in northern England in the 14th century. Following Holy Communion, a large cup or bowl called a mazer was placed before the monks. As Douglas Davies explains, “it was once called the Judas cup because the face of Judas was worked into its bowl so that when the monks drank from it they could see, as it were, the face of Judas looking at them and, in a sense, mirroring their own face.”
We are meant to confront ourselves as the betrayers and the persecutors of Christ. To see ourselves in all of the events of the Passion is the purpose of this week. It is profoundly counter-culture because it is not about pointing fingers of blame at others or about wallowing in the competing forms of victimhood. It is about confronting ourselves as the persecutors and betrayers of God, the principle of all truth and goodness.
In so doing, our relation to one another and our world undergoes a radical change that negates the tiresome forms of self-righteousness, narcissistic obsessiveness, and virtue signalling that defines much of our contemporary world. As if it is all about us. As if it is all about ‘look at me, look at me’ or, even more, ‘look at me looking at you looking at me,’ as I like to put it. The paradox is that none of these features are really about knowing ourselves as we are truly known in Christ. In none of these modes, do we have the wisdom of Nathan simply saying to David, “Thou art the man.” In none of these modes of behaviour do we confront ourselves as Judas, as sinners and persecutors, as betrayers. Yet this is the great and necessary good of Maundy Thursday and Holy Week, the great good of Christ’s Passion. Here is a mirror in which we might truly see ourselves and a window through which we behold the love of God.
Luke’s continuation of the Passion gives us three of the last seven words of Christ from the cross. He gives us the first and last word, beginning and ending with the address of the Son to the Father, the gathering of all things back to God. “Father, forgive them for they know not what they do” and “Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit.” These words belong to the truth of our humanity as restored to God. But Luke gives us the second word which is also a word of forgiveness and restoration. It is his response to the prayer of the one who was crucified with him, the one who has recognized his own sin but also recognizes the innocence of Christ. “This man has done nothing amiss,” he says and then says to Jesus, “remember me when you come into your kingdom.” Jesus says, “today shalt thou be with me in paradise.” The penitent has seen himself through Christ. He knows that he is the man, a sinner, and only as such can he seek the mercy of Christ, “remember me.” It is to know as we are known in the knowing love of God in Christ. Christ’s remembering is the principle of our remembering in turn.
For here is the love which carried himself in his own hands (Augustine, Ennarrations, Ps. 34) to give himself to us, body broken and blood out-poured, the Lamb of God who wills to bear in his own body on the tree all the sins of our humanity. “Do this in remembrance of me.” Here is the new commandment to love, a new commandment because it is only accomplished in him and him in us. But only if we can look and see that “thou art the man.” Seeing ourselves in Judas; seeing ourselves in Jesus.
“Thou art the man”
Fr. David Curry
Maundy Thursday, 2022