The Reality of Love

West End UMC Podcast Audio Podcast

This is Maundy Thursday, the service in which we remember and participate in the Last Supper. The scripture for this service is the familiar story from the Fourth Gospel wherein Jesus washes the feet of the disciples and leaves them with the commandment to love one another. Delivering the communion meditation is our Pastor of Spiritual Formation, Rev. Will McLeane. He begins with the contrast in his own children of rejecting the traditional cartoons in favor of “real” people in their programs, and he speaks of our own desire for reality. The disciples have followed whom they feel to be the real Jesus, but in this moment of Jesus taking on the mantle of servitude he was actually revealing reality to them. Through this, Jesus lays out a love story that is absolute and fundamental reality. Receiving the reality of God’s love can be one of the most difficult things in our faith, and that is demonstrated by Peter’s resistance in the narrative. The power of the resurrection can only be known when we realize the power of the passion – in spite of all of those things he suffered, Jesus and his love remained. Tonight Jesus offers us the path to the reality of love.