Watch Night is a late-night worship service held on New Year's Eve, designed to review the year that has passed and prepare for the year ahead. Originated by John Wesley, the founder of Methodism, in 1740, the service, which often included the Wesleyan Covenant Prayer, provided Methodist Christians with a godly alternative to times of drunken revelry. In 1862, the Watch Night Service gained added significance as blacks gathered in churches and homes on "Freedom's Eve" to celebrate the Emancipation Proclamation taking effect. At the stroke of midnight, January 1, 1863, all slaves in the Confederate States were declared legally free. In certain regions of the United States, Watch Night is still a big deal. Church members enjoy a potluck supper, family games and a movie. At the conclusion of worship they read the Passover story from the book of Exodus and they celebrate Holy Communion. Like the people of ancient Israel, they remembered they had been bought with a price and set free. Freedom is the primary focus of the Passover Seder, which is the meal in which Jesus was participating when he had his last supper. Freedom from slavery is commemorated as they hear again the story of the Israelites gaining freedom from slavery in Egypt. When Jesus ate his last Passover Seder with his disciples, they were in an upper room. It was after sunset, the official beginning of Passover, and they were gathered together to share the holiest meal of the Jewish people. During the meal they would retell the story of their deliverance from slavery in Egypt. Told in the beginning of the book of Exodus, the story begins with how Pharaoh began to fear the Hebrew people who were becoming too numerous and he oppressed them even more than he had before, forcing them to make bricks but giving them fewer resources and supplies. Into the course of events came Moses, who went to confront Pharaoh and ask for his people's release. But Pharaoh would not listen to him. As the story progresses, we hear the stories of the plagues of frogs, then of locusts, then of rivers turning to blood, and other sorts of plagues that would delight any Sunday School boy with their increasing grossness and severity. All in all, the first 9 plagues were frightening and devastating to many across the land, but when God ended each plague, Pharaoh changed his mind about releasing the Israelite people and they remained in slavery. Pharaoh saw these plagues as merely a nuisance. They weren't life-threatening. When God sent the tenth plague, God said to Moses, "Tell the Israelites to pack up their things because they are leaving tonight. Tell them to eat quickly. Tell them to slaughter a lamb and roast it and eat the meal quickly. The bread they will eat will have no time to 1
rise, so they need to make the bread and bake the unleavened bread and have it ready to go. They need to take the blood of the lamb and, using hyssop branches, spread the blood on the doorposts and lintels of their homes. "This night God will pass through the land of Egypt and every home that has the blood of the lamb upon it, death will pass over and not touch anyone in that household. And their children would be spared." That night the children of Israel prepared their meal, their last supper in Egypt, their last supper in slavery. They marked their doorposts and lintels with the blood of the lamb and at midnight, the angel of death came and there was great weeping and wailing in the land as God's angel took the firstborn of every Egyptian family. The people of Egypt begged the people of Israel to go and even gave them all their gold and silver as they left. And at midnight, they were free. This meal of freedom, this remembrance of God's liberation was something that the Jewish people were commanded to do every year on the anniversary of the Passover The purpose of re-enacting the Passover meal every year is for each person who participates to feel as if they have left slavery in Egypt, that they are now free. When Jesus says, 'This is my body, this is my blood,' he is saying that in my sacrifice I will become part of you and I will be a part of that message of freedom from slavery. So the question becomes, as we reenact the last supper of Jesus which was in itself a reenactment of the last supper of the Israelites in Egypt, what is it that we are enslaved to? What is it that we need freedom from? At the last supper Jesus' heart is heavy because he knows that in a few hours he will be arrested, betrayed, abandoned by those who said they would follow him even to death, and one would even deny that he knew him. Jesus will be tried, beaten and crucified. But at the meal, the disciples know none of this. They are caught up in their own little world. Do you know what they were talking about at this most sacred of meals? Luke tells us: "A dispute also arose among them as to which one of them was to be regarded as the greatest." (22:24) Can you believe it? They are arguing about their greatness and here is Jesus, greater than all of them, getting ready to face unimaginable pain and suffering and death. Good thing we're not like that. We are never concerned about who is greater than whom. Or are we? You know, I hate to admit it, but whenever a bunch of pastors get together, they start asking questions. Not, "How is it with your soul?" or "How have you blessed the community lately?" No, it's usually some questions like, "How many do you have worshipping at your church?" "How big is your budget this year?" We're trying, not so subtly, to figure out who is the greatest and how we can impress others. Trying to figure 2
out who is the greatest is all about position and status and self-importance and I'm guessing that pastors aren't the only ones who do this. We are enslaved, the disciples were enslaved, by the sin of pride. We want to figure out who can top whom and how we can get to the top of the pile because that's our ultimate goal. We worry about how others see us and we want to portray the picture of success. Also at the meal was a man named Judas. He was actually sitting right next to Jesus, in a place of honor, even though Jesus knew what Judas was about to do. Earlier in the day, Judas had gone to the religious leaders, the ones who wanted to get rid of Jesus, and Judas asked them what they would pay him to betray Jesus. They said, 30 pieces of silver, which in today's dollars would be over $10,000. And for that amount of money, Judas was willing to betray Jesus into their hands. Scholars say that Judas did this, in part because he didn't think Jesus had it right. Judas was a Zealot, and as a Zealot, he was one of the ones who was not only waiting for a Messiah to come and help overthrow the oppressive Roman government, he was one of the ones who was going to make sure it happened. And after three years of following Jesus, he was pretty sure Jesus wasn't the man to do the job. The other thing that compelled Judas was greed. Judas was the treasurer of the disciples and there were rumors that every once in a while he helped himself to what was in the common purse. He wanted to be sure and get his, and since he had given up three years of his life to follow this man, Jesus, he wanted to be sure he was compensated for his trouble. So Judas was enslaved by his political agenda and by greed. What are you enslaved by? What is it that has become the most important thing in your life? What is it that has become so important to you that it exceeds all other values? Is it what other people think about you? Is it status or position or power or money or political ideology? Because none of those things really can compete with Jesus. Jesus offers them, Jesus offers us liberation from those things that bind us, those concerns that hold us back. Jesus gives us time and again the example of servant leadership. He says the greatest among us must be servants and whoever would be first must be the slave of all. He shows us how to be free of concerns about social standing and political ideology and money by how he lived his life. Remember that on the night that he celebrated the Passover Seder with his closest friends, he took a jar of water and a basin and began to wash their feet. Some of them, especially Peter, were particularly uncomfortable with this, but he showed them by his example what leaders do. 3
It says in John 13:12ff "After he had washed their feet...he said to them, 'Do you know what I have done to you? You call me Teacher and Lord So if I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another's feet '" He was talking here not only of literal washing of feet, but of having a servant heart, of seeking to serve rather than be served, to be freed from worries of social status and focus on serving others. I read about a CEO of a major American airlines who makes sure he rides one of his planes at least once a month, to be better in touch with his customers. When he rides on the airplane, he doesn't just ride, he dons a flight attendant uniform and serves the people and listens to the customers on the plane, writing down any suggestions they have for improvement. This CEO doesn't keep hidden behind a desk or think that being a flight attendant is beneath him, he is working the planes at least once a month, getting in touch with the people and serving them. Do you think people have greater or less respect for him because he works occasionally as a flight attendant? I think they had more respect for him because he took on the role of servant. And when you find yourself no longer caught up with how you are impressing others, you find yourself free indeed. Another telling example of Jesus-style leadership comes in the way that he treated Judas. Judas, though Jesus knew he would betray him, was seated next to Jesus, at the place of honor at the Last Supper. Judas and Jesus were sharing the same dipping cup into which they were dipping their bread during the Seder meal. Jesus said, "The one with whom I dip the sop, the one I serve bread to, he is the one who will betray me." So Jesus serves Judas Iscariot and Judas now knows that Jesus knows. By the way, dipping the sop with someone is a sign of affection. After dipping the sop, you are supposed to give it to someone you love in order for them to eat. Most scholars say Jesus dipped some bread into the Charoseth, a mead of wine and fruit used at Passover. Jesus dipped the sop and gave it to Judas. Jesus treats with love the one who will betray him. How do we deal with those who betray us? Do we treat them with distrust or with love? Another great example of this servant leadership, this self-giving love, in addition to Jesus, is Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. who in his Christmas Eve sermon in 1967, just 3 1/2 months before he was killed said this: "Do to us what you will and we will still love you Bomb our homes and threaten our children, and, as difficult as it is, we will still love you. Send your hooded perpetrators of violence into our communities at the midnight hour and drag us out on some wayside road and leave us half-dead as you beat us, and we will still love you But be assured that we'll wear you down by our capacity to suffer, and one day we will win our freedom. 4
We will not only win freedom for ourselves; we will so appeal to your heart and conscience that we will win you in the process, and our victory will be a double victory." Jesus came to set us free from all that binds us, from our petty self-interests and our concerns about getting ahead. Jesus wants us to be free from anger and from fear, free from guilt and shame and hate and bigotry, free from concern about status or impressing others or getting our own way. Christ is our Passover Lamb who has come to set us free. 5