The Last Supper: Grace and joy at our tables
IT'S JUST KEVIN
By Very Rev. Kevin George
THROUGHOUT Lent, St. Paul’s Cathedral has been hosting a study of Will Willimon’s latest book, The Last Supper: Conversations that Led to the Cross. It is a great book. As is the case with most of Willimon’s work, it is challenging, provocative, and full of Good News.
As we draw into Holy Week and Easter, these words in particular jumped out at me:
“Whenever your church breaks bread together in Jesus’s name—whether at a Maundy Thursday Eucharist, a Sunday morning celebration of the Lord’s Supper, or even a covered-dish supper in the fellowship hall on a Wednesday night—open your eyes, receive the bread, share with your neighbor the once hard-to-see kingdom of God, described in Jesus’s parables, breaking out among us. Come to the party!”
I love a good party! What a wonderful way to describe the in-breaking, lifesaving, resurrected love of God. In Holy Week, we are treated to everything from the cries of “Save us!” on Palm Sunday, to “Crucify him!” on Good Friday, to “He is Risen! Alleluia!” at the Great Easter Vigil and on Easter Sunday. Amid all of it, Jesus shows up again and again—and at each turn, he invites others in. He never leaves anyone on the outside looking in. All are beckoned—come to the party.
On Maundy Thursday, Jesus breaks bread with his friends, and he invites them not just to join his dinner party in that upper room, but to join THE party—a way of life, the birthing of a new reign where violence does not get the last word and where the guests can drink in the wine of forgiveness, peace, and reconciliation. Jesus doesn’t stop there. He shows up after his resurrection, moving beyond locked doors to warm the room where the disciples are hiding in fear, and says, “Peace be with you!” I personally picture Jesus going on to ask, “Why the long faces? You don’t believe what the women have told you? Just a few days ago, I invited you to join the party! What makes you think it’s over? I didn’t say it would be easy. In fact, I think I told you this would be the Way.”
Then Jesus pops up on the road to Emmaus. They don’t recognize him. Again, he must remind the followers of the Supper Party. Jesus breaks bread with them, and all at once they realize that this sojourner was no stranger after all—it was Jesus, reminding them that they have been invited into this incredible party. The stories we retell this season remind us that while chaos and division may swirl around us, we hold fast to a faith that insists—against all odds, against the impossible even—that death and destruction will not get the last word.
On Easter Sunday, we proudly proclaim, “Christ is risen! Alleluia!” Let us not forget that we make that proclamation every time we gather around the altar. Each opportunity we take to break bread together is an opportunity to profess to the world around us that violence, imperialism, domination, exploitation, and death have no dominion over us. Each time we break bread together is also an opportunity to declare that we embrace the way of nonviolence, community, inclusion, forgiveness, love of neighbour and stranger, the elevation of the other, and the promise of new life. And that invitation is truly worthy of a party.
Let this Easter season be an opportunity for us to expand our eucharistic celebration beyond the altars we gather around on Sunday mornings to the tables we gather around daily. In Scripture, we find the word eucharisteo. It is the Greek verb for being grateful, feeling thankful, and giving thanks. Jesus uses this word at the Last Supper and when feeding the five thousand, representing a conscious choice to give thanks—both before brokenness and before the miracle of abundance. It is rooted in the Greek words charis (grace) and chara (joy). Grace leads to joy.
This Easter season, let us take the opportunity to live grace-fully. We have been welcomed into the party—gratitude and thanksgiving, lived fully, are an appropriate response. And a willingness to extend grace to friends, to ourselves, to strangers, and even to our enemies will shape a life that leads to joy. Writer Ann Voskamp reminds her readers that “the Eucharist is the central symbol of Christianity.” Let us then be mindful—not just at the Easter dinner table, but at every table where we break bread—that we have the opportunity to embrace the very real and lifesaving grace of Jesus, who reminded us on Holy Thursday: whenever you gather with one another, you do so in memory of the One who showed us the Way—a party with an unlimited guest list.
I hope that we will see grace and joy at our tables and respond to the eucharist we receive there by showing grace, love, forgiveness, peace, and joy to those in our lives who bring us joy—and even to those who drive us mad.
I pray you all enjoy the fifty-day party that is Easter!
Very Rev. Dr. Kevin George is Rector of St. Paul's Cathedral, London, and Dean of Huron.