HYMN FOR MAUNDY THURSDAY Ah! Holy Jesus

The Last Supper. Leonardo da Vinci Text: Johann Heerman (1585-1647) Tune: Johann Crüger (1598-1662) 1. Ah, holy Jesus, how hast thou offended, That we to judge thee have in hate pretended? By foes derided, by thine own rejected, O most afflicted!   2. Who was the guilty? Who brought this upon thee? Alas, my treason, Jesus, hath undone thee! 'Twas I, Lord Jesus, I it was denied thee; I crucified thee.   3. Lo, the Good Shepherd for the sheep is offered; The slave hath sinned, and the Son hath suffered. For our atonement, while we nothing heeded, God interceded.   4. For me, kind Jesus, was thy incarnation, Thy mortal sorrow, and thy life's oblation; Thy death of anguish and thy bitter passion, For my salvation.   5. Therefore, kind Jesus, since I cannot pay thee, I do adore thee, and will ever pray thee, Think on thy pity and thy love unswerving, Not my deserving. Tr. Robert Bridges 1844-1930   REFLECTION Last Supper. Duccio My pastor has memorized the gospel of Mark and made chapters 14-15 the full sum of his sermon this Palm Sunday. To hear it from the beginning through to the burial was more powerful than one might think because we have heard pieces of it all our lives. But like any great story, it keeps on yielding meaning and richness as we hear it over and over again, especially in one setting.   One of the most awful parts is to hear how Jesus predicts during the supper that he will be betrayed by one in their midst. It is the moment that Leonardo Da Vinci portrayed in his great painting the Last Supper. The disciples are all thunder struck and wondering who it is.   Who could do such a thing? Our Lord has only done good, he has healed people, raised some from the dead, fed them, counseled them, entered into the fullness of life with them, their weddings and religious festivals, and yet one of his closest friends betrays him?   In fact, we acknowledge it every time we celebrate the Lord’s Supper—On the night in which he was betrayed… which should always jolt us awake. Then even as he knows this, he offers himself to them in the bread and wine. He knows he is going to his death for them, even his betrayer. This is all unfathomable, this kind of love. He isn’t doing it just for good people, he is doing it for the worst of the worst. And as the hymn makes clear it was I who crucified him.. And yet as Paul makes clear in Romans, because of his last will and testment we become co-heirs with Jesus, who gives us all his goodness in exchange for all our sins.   Here Jesus passes out his testament, our inheritance, to us. Legally, we know that a testament cannot be given or received until the giver has died. Then the gift can be given. Here in this moment we receive his legacy of life from his death and resurrection. He goes to the cross and takes on our sin even as he gives us his eternal life. Luther called it the divine exchange. Through his gifts, he has become one with our flesh and spirit. Wherever we go, no matter how weak our witness, he lives in us. Through our bodies and spirits, he gets his work done.   He will become the temple that will be raised up in three days, something the religious authorities scoff at, so he also makes us his temples because the temple is where God dwells, from Eden to the wilderness, to Solomon’s porches, and Herod’s restoration of it, to him and then to us. Think as you receive the sacrament this Thursday how Christ is making you his own, joining with you, to make his presence known to all the world.   HYMN INFO Johann Heerman Johan Heerman’s (1585-1647) life is a study in suffering. Born in Silesia, he had poetic gifts and was encouraged in them by friends and teachers. He almost died as a child. His first wife died in their first year of marriage. He suffered poor health his entire life. He wrote this hymn in 1630 during his pastorate in Koben where he served from 1611-1634. Plagues, fires, pestilence, and the Thirty Years War ravaged the area. Several times he and his family had to flee the armies pillaging the town. In 1634, he finally had to give up his work because of a continuing sinus infection that some say even spread to the bones in his skull. He died in Lissa, in what is now Poland.   With its tune by Johan Crüger, organist at St. Nikolai Church in Berlin, who set many of Gerhardt's and Herman's texts, the hymn became a Holy Thursday/Good Friday classic among Lutherans. Johan Sebastian Bach used it in his great St. Matthew Passion. It is surprising how popular it is on Youtube. It appears in many styles, from Bach to rock. Here are some versions:   LINKS Choir, congregation arrangement Craig Courtney https://youtu.be/SGYduw3VblU Choir/John Ferguson Arrangement/First Plymouth Church/viola https://youtu.be/l9we-11OUw0 Classic Christian hymns https://youtu.be/s4MKOP-vhQ0?si=L0IkjLeyll1_M_G5