Remember and Give Thanks

As Jesus gathered with his disciples in the Upper Room, hopes and fears were colliding. The disciples’ thoughts must have been racing. The chief priests and teachers of the law were strategizing. What was that woman with the nard in the alabaster jar doing? Why was Jesus was talking about being prepared for his burial? Judas Iscariot had disappeared for a while and come back, but he was acting strange. What could all this mean?
As their thoughts swirled, they were centered by the meal. They have come to Jerusalem to celebrate the Passover. And they are together, reclining at the table. Together they ate and drank and retold the deliverance of God’s people from slavery in Egypt. They remembered and gave thanks for God’s faithfulness throughout all generations, and they waited, just as their parents and grandparents for generations had waited for God’s new covenant.
The prophet Jeremiah had spoken God’s promise, “The days are coming,” declares the Lord, “when I will make a new covenant. I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people.”
They had thought the hour was at hand. Maybe it was. Did they dare to hope? Maybe it wasn’t. Fear and confusion must have hung like draperies in the room.
Jesus knows, he looks around and says, “One of you has betrayed me.” And then they followed the Passover rituals. They remembered the story. They ate the bread. They drank the cup.
When I find myself unsettled, I often find comfort in the words of a hymn. The Book of Psalms was their hymnbook. I wonder if the words of the hymn 116 that we read tonight reverberated in their thoughts, “The cords of death entangled me, the anguish of the grave came upon me; I was overcome by trouble and sorrow. Then I called on the name of the Lord: “O Lord, save me!”
And the Lord is gracious and merciful. I can just imagine them calming themselves, “Return to your rest, my soul, for the Lord has been good to you. For you, Lord, have delivered me from death, my eyes from tears, my feet from stumbling, that I may walk before the Lord in the land of the living.”
Remember that is why we are here even now. To lift up the cup of salvation and remember God’s faithfulness. Truly I am your servant, Lord.”
Tonight, we come here to remember, too. We come here to remember that the song of the Psalmist is our song, too. The cords of death entangled us, and we were saved. We remember Christ Jesus, who did not exploit his equality with God, but emptied himself, was born, and lived, and served among us, an example for us and a savior for us. So with the psalmist we lift the cup of salvation and offer a sacrifice of thanks, ourselves. “O Lord,” may we proclaim with the psalmist, “Truly I am your servant.”