How is this night different?

† May the thoughts of my mind and the words of my heart be always acceptable in your sight, O Lord, my strength and my redeeemer.

Today is Maundy Thursday, the day when Christians remember Jesus's last supper with his twelve apostles. Around the world on this day, Christians remind themselves of Jesus's new commandment, to love one another as he loved them; in fact, the word "maundy" comes from the Latin words for "a new commandment." Christians remind themselves, as well, of the strange things that Jesus did at that Last Supper-his washing the feet of the disciples, and the disturbing things he said over the bread at the beginning of the meal and over the wine at its end. And most of all, today of all days, Christians do what Jesus told them to do, taking the bread and wine from his table, the body and blood from his altar.

When Jesus and his twelve friends sat down for this meal-or, rather, when they lay down on couches, eating the way rich people ate-it was at Passover time; it may have been, as the first three gospels say, the very night of the Passover dinner, the seder, or it may have been the night before the Passover, as John's version says. Certainly, as Jewish men gathering to eat together at that time of year, they would have had Passover on their minds. And possibly they even followed some version of the order for the Passover dinner that people still follow, with the youngest of them asking four ritual questions about the meal. According to ancient tradition, that youngest disciple would have been St. John, and so perhaps we can picture John asking Jesus the four ritual questions. In Hebrew, they begin with this sentence: Ma nishtana ha-laila ha-zeh mi-kol ha-leilot? That is, "How is this night different from all other nights?"

Ma nishtana ha-laila ha-zeh. How is this night different? I have to admit to you that when I hear that question now it reminds me of two other things. It reminds me, in part, of the great ancient hymn of Easter that many denominations still use, the hymn called "Exultet": that hymn recites the story of God's salvation, saying repeatedly "This is the night when…"-as if the hymn were answering, on a Christian understanding, the ancient Jewish question: "How is this night different?" Some of you will hear the Exultet when you go to church for the great vigil of Easter, and if you listen carefully, you'll be able to pick out the answers to that unspoken question.

But-and this is the admission part-I have to say that when I hear that ritual question, "How is this night different?" I am reminded not only of the solemn Passover seder and of the ancient Easter hymn, but also of a ridiculous cartoon show. It's a cartoon series that's several years old, but many of you remember it-I'm thinking of Pinky and the Brain. And without going into any of the details of the various complicated plots, I can just say that the part I can't help thinking of is the end, where Pinky always says: "Gee, Brain, what do you want to do tonight?" And Brain always answers "The same thing we do every night, Pinky… Try to take over the world." It's a funny dialogue, but it's not the sort of thing you want to be thinking about, either at the Passover seder or at the Easter vigil.

But I was surprised to find, when I went to one of the thousands of "Pinky and the Brain" web-sites out there, that there was one episode that was different. In this episode, Brain says: "Come we have work to do." And Pinky replies: "Oh, right. Taking over the world and all." And Brain says: "No , Pinky. Tonight we must save the world." Pinky looks shocked, and says: "Egad, Brain! Save the world?" And Brain replies: "Yes! So it is available to take over tomorrow night."

So with all these things jumbled together in my mind-Pinky and the Exultet and St. John and the Brain and Jesus and the Four Questions from the Seder, let me ask four questions of our own: Ma nishtana ha-laila ha-zeh. How is this night different? The answer is: tonight, God must save the world.

How is this night different? On other nights, the Eucharist ends with a blessing and a dismissal, and today it ends with a prayer over the people, and no dismissal. Tonight, God must save the world. And he does it over the course of three days, from this night at supper with his friends, through his trial and crucifixion, through his lying dead in the tomb, and through his resurrection from the dead on the morning of the third day. So for these three days, we may leave church and return, but there is no dismissal, no break in this one continuous service, as a sign that the three days are all one saving action of God.

How is this night different? On other nights, when all the services are finished, we straighten up the church and leave; but today, after the second service, we will take all the ornaments and decorations off the altar and out of the church. Tonight God must save the world. We take everything away to remember that God saved the world by what he lost. In a plot more unlikely than anything Pinky and the Brain ever came up with, God the Son saved the world by giving up his rights as God and living a human life, as a young rabbi from Nazareth in Galilee; he saved it by having everything taken away from him-his friends, his clothing, and finally even his life, until he was laid to rest in a borrowed tomb.

How is this night different? On other days, we celebrate the Eucharist to give thanks for other things-always for the death and resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ, but also, as one writer put it, for "kings at their crowning and for criminals going to the scaffold, for armies in triumph or for a bride and bridegroom in a little country church; for the wisdom of the Parliament of a mighty nation or for a sick old woman afraid to die." But today we celebrate the Eucharist in thanksgiving for the Eucharist itself. We celebrate the Eucharist to remember something "of absolute simplicity-the taking, blessing, breaking and giving of bread, and the taking, blessing and giving of a cup of wine and water, as these were first done by a young Jew before and after supper with his friends on the night before he died" [Dom Gregory Dix, The Shape of the Eucharist] . Tonight, God must save the world. God saved the world by dying, by giving his body to be broken like this bread, by giving his blood to be poured out like this wine; and so today we give him thanks especially for that body and blood as he gives them to us in this holy sacrament.

How is this night different? For forty days of Lent we have been somber and penitent, with no hymns and purple ornaments for the altar; but today we have hymns and white vestments, which are signs of joy. Tonight, God must save the world. And because we know that God has saved the world, we can already rejoice. Easter is coming, according to the calendar: but the good news of the gospel, the promise of our baptism, and the joy of every Eucharist, is that Easter is already here: Christ has died, Christ is risen, and Christ will come again. Amen.

--John Wm. Houghton