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“When Jesus had received the vinegar, he said, ‘it is finished’; and he bowed his head and gave up his spirit” (John 19:30).

When Rita and I lived in Chicago during my seminary days, we would often attend the Church of the Ascension, North Lasalle Street. It was an Anglo-Catholic shrine parish under the very godly rectorship of Father Gregory Norris, a one-time Benedictine monk who after his rectorship converted to Eastern Orthodoxy. It was where we first experienced a Solemn High Mass and Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament as we do here.

On the front wall of the church facing North Lasalle Street and all its city traffic was a life-size crucifix over which was written the words from the Book of Lamentations, “Is it nothing to you, all you who pass by?” (Lam. 1:12). For many who passed by it was nothing because the dramatic figure of Jesus crucified was irrelevant, and many passed by so quickly and hurriedly that it was not even noticed.

“For I received from the Lord what I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it, and said, ‘This is my body which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.’ In the same way also the cup, after supper, saying, ‘This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me’” (I Corinthians 12:23-25).

Maundy Thursday receives its name from the mandantum novum – the new commandment, “Love one another as I have loved you” which Jesus physically and intimately demonstrated in the washing of His apostles’ feet.

But there was another commandment as well this night, “Do this in remembrance of me.”

On this night before Jesus was betrayed, arrested, and put on trial, He instituted the Sacrament of the Mass and commissioned His Apostles and their successors throughout the ages to do what He did in the Upper Room “to proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.” And they did and we do here tonight celebrate the Eucharist to proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.

“Jesus said to her [the Samaritan woman], ‘Every one who drinks of this water will thirst again, but whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him will never thirst; the water that I shall give him will become in him a spring of living water welling up to eternal life” (John 4:13-14).

What can be said about the Gospel according to St. John that adequately states what a treasure it is as a means and part of God’s revelation? It is that unique Gospel which is a theological treatise rather than an historical and chronological account of the life of Jesus, as the first three Gospels are. It contains unique stories not written by Saints Matthew, Mark, and Luke. It presents the triumph of Jesus as being in the Cross which proclaimed His willingness to go the Cross and what that states about God, rather than the triumph being His Resurrection.

Today we have the incredible story of our Lord’s encounter with the woman of Samaria at Jacob’s well. We have heard the rather long and very full story, and no sermon can adequately plumb its depths. To understand the story fully requires more time and study, as in a course of study or in reading a book on the story.

Jesus answered, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the Kingdom of God” (John 3: 5).

This statement that made by Jesus to Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews, was a follow-up on what He had already stated, “Truly, truly, I can to you, unless one is born anew (or from above), he cannot see the Kingdom of God.”

Nicodemus was a devout man and a seeker of God – two characteristics that pleased our Lord and which we should emulate. We are all to be devout, and striving for personal holiness, and we are to life-long seekers whose desire is to grow in our knowledge and love of God. In the Christian life, we either move forward or backward in our spiritual lives. We don’t stay the same because the life of the flesh will have its way more and more if we are not conscientiously seeking to deepen and develop our relationship with God.

On March 2 (4th Sunday in Lent) the choir will sing Choral Evensong.  The canticle setting and anthem on that occasion will be by John Blow (1649-1708), one of the greatest English composers in the second half of the seventeenth century, perhaps second only to his friend and colleague Henry Purcell (1659-1695). 

Each week we pray for the end of war and an abundance of the fruits of the earth. But in a fallen world, war rages on from century to century. And as far as provision goes, Jesus said that the poor will always be with us. Yet Jesus told his disciples that he leaves them his peace in the midst of the broader turmoil of the world—peace that the world does not give.

So he leaves a peace that is more specific to the Church and from one person to another. What kind of peace does he mean? St. Augustine gives us an interesting definition of a deeper sort of peace. He says, “Peace is serenity of mind, tranquility of soul, simplicity of heart, the bond of love, the company of charity.”