It is Maundy Thursday on a wet night in Sydney. We are here in church, celebrating something. It is not a service of Holy Communion like those we have every Sunday, there is more happening. In a short while we are invited to come forward and have our feet washed by the clergy - a simple pouring of water and drying with a towel. After that the Mass continues as it does on Sunday. We gather around the altar and the priest breaks the bread and pours the wine which we are to share together as the body and blood of Christ. But then we change our custom again. After communion there is a silence, and the sacrament is carried out of the church and into the chapel, where it is placed on the altar.
Meanwhile, in the church, the furnishings and decorations are removed from the altar and the lights are dimmed. The service ends and we go on our way in silence - there is no fellowship and no comforting cup of tea. We go home.
But in the chapel the light is still on and some of us are sitting, watching and waiting, for as long as we can.
Casual passers-by might be puzzled, but if an Jew passed by and took the time to watch us, then perhaps they would know what was going on. It is Passover night, and Jews know that unless the stories and told and lived out, the people die and the community dies as well. What we are doing is telling the story of the crucifixion and resurrection of Christ to keep ourselves and our world alive, we are living out the Gospel, the good news of Jesus Christ.
Tonight we are not re-enacting the events of the first Maundy Thursday, when Jesus washed the disciples' feet, broke the bread and took the wine, and gave them a new commandment. This is not play-acting. It is real.
And we are not trying to recreate the Last Supper two thousand years on. We cannot, even if we wanted to. The Bible, which is our record of those events does not give us enough information. And, as well, we do not think in the same way that Jesus' disciples did; the world has changed and we are children of the twenty-first century, we cannot go back in time.
And we are not just reliving old memories of something that happened all that time ago, we're not looking at the photo album or the DVD as we might look at the memories of that holiday we took last year. What we are doing is not looking back, it is happening now.
What we are doing is living. We are living the story of our salvation. Each time we take bread and wine, and share it as the body and blood of Christ, then Christ becomes alive in us. Christ's life continues as long as there are Christians to share his body and his blood.
And when we wash each other's feet, then another part of our sacred story comes alive in us. So, too, when we watch with the Sacrament in the St Augustine Chapel, we are at one with those who tried to watch with Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane.
So it will be tomorrow, when we read of Christ's passion and death, and when we walk the Way of the Cross and when we gather at the foot of the Cross to pray.
This is the way God works in our lives. Theology and study and bible reading are very necessary for Christian growth, but Jesus' new commandment is not to read or study, instead it is to love one another as Jesus has loved us.
We can choose to love one another, Christian love is not something which falls from heaven like a flash of lightning, nor is it something which we can learn by reading about it in books, or listening to enough sermons. The love of God, or the Love of Christ is something which we catch from others. When we gather as church, we are gathering to allow God's love into our lives, and what we are doing tonight is part of that allowing.
There is a good word which we use in the thanksgiving prayer; we pray that those who eat the break and drink the wine may be partakers in the body and blood of Christ. To partake of something means to take a part, or to be a part of it. So when we share the bread and wine, we become part of Christ and Christ becomes part of us and Christ is alive in us, as I have said.
Tonight, then, as we do the things we do, remind yourself that this is our work as Christians. This is what Christians do. This is why God has chosen us to be his is Christ. By taking part in Jesus' life we keep Christ the Saviour of the world alive. And if Christ is alive in us, then we can live as Christ in this world, and through Christ, work for its salvation.