Maundy Thursday sermon 2025

Exodus 12. 1-4, 11-14 Passover

Psalm 116 1, 10 end

1 Corinthians 11. 23-26 explanation of the last supper

John 13. 1-17, 31b-35 Washing of the disciples feet and last supper

Atonement

Our first reading this evening is from Exodus. The story of the Passover. I have always found this story difficult to hear. I remember watching a feature film about the exodus and the angel of death is depicted as this black mass that drifts over each household in Egypt and you then hear the cries from people as the first born son is discovered to be dead. It is quite brutal, and I have often struggled to relate to a God who would kill. Yet, over Holy Week we are recalling Jesus’ last moments on earth and his death, which we must assume was the will of God.  The idea of Jesus’ death atoning for our sins is a big question but central to our faith as Christians. Did Jesus have to die? What was the purpose of his death?

Throughout scripture we read how God is trying to establish a good relationship with us, his children. We were created as beings with free will and choice. At the beginning God said to Adam and Eve not to eat from the tree of Knowledge, yet they chose to disobey and broke the relationship between God and his children. From then onwards God has been journeying with us trying to help us restore our relationship back to God. Yet how can we do that when we turn away from God? If you think about all the main stories in the Old Testament, they are all about us turning away from God in some way or other God trying to help us back or in other words God saving us. We cannot bring God’s Kingdom on earth on our own, we need God’s help and salvation.

In our gospel reading this evening, Jesus and his disciples are together celebrating Passover. They are celebrating that they as Jewish people, were Passed over by the angel of death and saved by the blood of a lamb. They obeyed God’s instructions upon them and were saved, not just from death but also from slavery. God intervened and saved them from death and slavery and brought them to a promised land. This story of the Jews being saved from slavery is our story too. Without God, we are slaves to the evil in our world, the evil of greed and injustice, selfishness and all manners of evils that bring pain and suffering to ourselves and to others. We need God not only to help us see and understand these evils but also to avoid being tempted by them. We need God’s strength, and the work of the Holy Spirt to deliver us from evil and help us see that sometimes following the will of God is not the easiest path. The Israelites wondered in the dessert for forty years, not because they were lost, but because they didn’t always follow the will of God. Mistakes happened along the way, which meant the path to the promised land wasn’t straight forward.

Just as the journey to the promised land is not straight forward, neither is understanding why Jesus died on the cross. For the early church, debates raged, and councils met to decide on WHO Jesus was, how he could be both human and divine. Yet even though councils created The Apostles Creed so that we had a clear affirmation of faith, yet the question of WHY Jesus had to die is not something that has not actually been clearly decided. For centuries the question of why Jesus came on earth, what is he saving us from and for who, have been debated and through these debates, the term atonement has evolved. Atonement or at onement, describes how our separation from God when we turn away from him is reconciled. How we are brought back to God. But the theory behind how we are reconciled to God is not one straightforward idea, it has evolved into different atonement theories, three of which have emerged as the most prominent. However, a sermon is not the space to give a detailed account of each atonement theory, so we are just going to explore some of the themes of salvation which lead to Jesus’ death on the cross. 

One clear theme of Salvation is the idea of the sacrificial lamb. Throughout scripture there are stories of the lamb being sacrificed for our sins. In Genesis 22, God tests Abraham’s faith by commanding him to sacrifice his only son Isaac and only at the last minute intervenes by providing a ram to be sacrificed as a burnt offering. Then we have the Passover story in Exodus where the blood of the lamb saves them from the angel of death. It would therefore seem to be obvious that Jesus is the sacrificial lamb that takes away our sins. It is what we say as part of our Eucharist services, so isn’t this therefore what we believe? Well, yes but also no. The problem with solely believing that Jesus is the sacrificial lamb is that we begin to have to question God. Can God not forgive us unless his only son is killed? How can we believe in a loving God who required the death of his son to appease him in some way? Was the only purpose of Jesus’ life to die on the cross for us? If Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross is not the only thing that helped us be reconciled to God, we must also consider Jesus’ life. The Orthodox church, believe that the act of the incarnation, God becoming human, is the act of salvation. God being in relationship with us and experiencing all aspects of life, pain and death, is how we are reconciled back to God. God loves us so much that he wants to be with us and Jesus represents us and obeys the will of God, even if it leads to death. However, believing that Jesus’ life and experience is enough to reconcile us back to God, does not acknowledge the depths of our sins. We are not capable of being reconciled to God on our own, just by following Jesus’ good example, we need something more. Some theologians such as Luther and Wesley, believed at the fall, Satan entered the snake that led to the broken relationship between us and God. Since then, God and the forces of Satan have been at war. Jesus opposes the forces of evil during his life but at his death he is defeated by Satan. However, when Jesus is resurrected from death, he brings the ultimate victory and defeat upon Satan. We cannot defeat evil on our own, we need Jesus to intervene for us to defeat the power of sin in the world. The problem with solely believing that Jesus was victorious over Satan, gives the idea that there was a possibility that God could have been defeated, which would make Satan on a par with God.

So, as we can see, the atonement or our ability to being reconciled to God is not straightforward, there are many themes around our salvation and reconciliation to God to consider when thinking why Jesus came to live among us and die on the cross. On this Maundy Thursday as we experience Jesus’ last moments with his disciples, it is good to ponder why Jesus lived on earth, died on the cross and was raised to new life on Easter Day. You might want to consider how you feel reconciled to God. What aspect of Jesus’ saving grace given to us through his life, death and resurrection draws you to having a closer relationship with God?

(The sacrifice of God is a broken spirit. A broken and contrite heart, God will not despise.)

Amen