This Night

In the Passover liturgy, the youngest son at the meal asks the seminal question, “Why is this night different from all others?”

The narrative of the Passover, the haste in being ready at a moment’s notice to leave Egypt, the hurried meal, so rushed that the dough for the bread has no time to rise.  The night of death that hovers about the fleeing families as they hear the howls of anguish from those families touched by the Angel of Death.  It must have been most terrifying to the young.

Even if they had no understanding of the danger and the dread of their parents as the readied for a journey into a terrifying unknown – they surely sensed the danger and the silent anxiety of their parents and neighbors as families gathered in bunches on the path outside their houses.

A night like none other.

This story has provided assurance for people fleeing oppression throughout the ages.  It was a lamp for the feet of Harriett Tubman and those fleeing enslavement in the south.  To hear the baying of the tracker dogs was surely no less frightening than the sound of clanking armor and pounding of horses’ hooves of Pharoah’s approaching army that perused the escaping Hebrews.  That night of departure, a night like none other.

I’ve been listening to an oral history of the personages and events around the development of the atomic bomb.  What struck me was the fraught moment of decision for many Jewish scientists as the Nazi storm clouds began to envelope Germany.

The recollection of those whose options were diminishing by the moment and the alarm forcing a decision.  To leave or stay.  I’m surprised by the number in denial, saying, chancellors come and chancellors go.  Hitler probably won’t be any worse than the others.

And their other colleagues, university professors and doctors squeezed out of their professions and livelihoods, as options shrank – those intrepid souls who decided to get out while it was still possible.  Before doom settled in.

Nights like no other, Krystallnacht, the Night of the Long Knives when Hitler’s Brown Shirts assassinatedmany of the intelligentsia, business and professional classes of Jews who remained behind.

Nights of terror.  Nights like no other as Germany sank into a living hell.

Today, US Marines have been called up for duty in Iran.  Their commanders have told them to prepare their equipment, steel their spine and make loved ones aware that some of them will not be coming back.  Get your affairs in order. Final instructions ought to be given for families to carry on in the case they’re killed in battle are now in order.

Nights like no other as they hastily assemble and prepare to head out.

We all have premonitions of that last night or our last fleeting moments.  The time when everything hangs in the balance.  A time when we will no longer look forward to that aromatic cup of coffee.  A time when we will see that last sunset.  The time when we will no longer hear the voice of a loved one or feel their gentle caress.  In a real sense, we all face a final night like no others.

As Jesus drew his friends around him, he knew that night would be a night like none other.  For all of them.  He knew that this would be his last meal with those companions over these last three or so years.  Night was closing in.  The end was in sight.

A night that would turn the world upside down.  Caeser’s arms might momentarily hold sway, but a new, subversive order was in the borning.  Not based on might, prestige or outward appearance, but based on humility.

As Jesus took a towel and basin and prepared to wash his disciples’ feet, a gesture so radical, they could not comprehend it.  Nothing in their past experience had prepared any of them for this new way of being. 

Yes, even at those last hours they still understood nothing.  As Luke records the disciples’ bad behavior at that meal and the commandment to serve one another, “They understood none of these things; this saying was hid from them and they did not grasp what was said.”[1]  They quarreled amongst themselves at that table.  Who would be the greatest?  And if they should fall to the Caesar’s sword, who among them might sit at their Lord’s right hand?

They understood nothing; nor do we comprehend this new thing God is doing before our very eyes.  Time and again we mess it up.  Yet here we are, assembled at this night out of sheer Grace at the Welcome Table..

As we come forward in obedience to Christ’s command to wash one another’s feet, to share in the Bread broken and the Cup of Sorrows poured out — in all humility let us remember and give thanks to that Man for Others who by his example has ushered in a new way of being.  A night like no others as we prepare to venture out – not knowing where the Spirit leads, but on the road in faith. 

As it has been through the eons of time, for generation after generation – it has ben that the choice is ours.  Will we with humble and contrite hearts set our prerogatives aside and join our Lord in the creation of a New Creation – will we join Christ’s vision of a Beloved Community – united as brothers and sisters in venturing into a new way of being?  Or will we drift along wherever the Kingdom of Caesar takes us?  Lives of lesser purpose.  Just a part of the food chain until our eyes are finally shut in sweet oblivion? 

O Lord, in this moment, teach us to number our days that we might get a heart of wisdom.  Lead us into that Life Abundant that we might truly live.  Usher us toward a foretaste of Eternity.  On This Night.  Amen.

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[1] Luke 18:34, RSV.

April 2, 2026, Maundy Thursday

“This Night”

The Rev. Dr. John C. Forney, St. Francis Episcopal Mission

Exodus 12:1-4, 11-14; Psalm 116:1, 10-17;
1 Corinthians 11:23-26; Gospel: John 13:1-17, 31b-35