Carousel Medicine

A sermon for Maundy Thursday
April 2, 2026, at St. Luke’s Episcopal Church, Hot Springs, AR

Readings: Exodus 12:1-4, (5-10), 11-14; 1 Corinthians 11:23-26; John 13:1-17, 31b-35; Psalm 116:1, 10-17

In a Colorado meadow, there is a carousel. It’s called the Carousel of Happiness, and you will hear laughter and the classic carousel tune played from an old theatre organ. You will see 57 hand-carved wooden animals—tigers and swans and rabbits—painted with bright colors in a restored 1910 building, with outdoor light streaming in, surrounded by flowers and mountains. It’s an idyllic vision, and you can’t help but smile. And you just might run into the owner Scott Harrison, a Marine Corps veteran and old fashioned woodworker. But what does this have to do with Easter? What does this have to do with the table, and the cross, and the tomb? What do any of our lives, the ordinary and extraordinary, have to do with Easter? Everything. And I want to tell you about it over these three holiest of days. 

But first, we must visit the guest room where Jesus and his friends keep their Last Supper. We must see how he takes the bread—this is my body given for you—and the chalice—this is my blood of the New Covenant poured out for you. We must witness how he stoops to wash the feet of those he calls his friends and gives a new commandment: Just as I have loved you, so you must love one another. 

This is a story we rehearse week after week. The words of the Eucharist, which we read tonight in I Corinthians, are familiar and worn, comforting and steady. In a confounding and chaotic world, those words, spoken by our Lord as promises of his abiding presence with us, give us our mooring. They remind us that our Lord has given himself for us, for our redemption, for our healing, and that the Son of God held nothing back. There is no cost too great for our reconciliation, our reconnection to the heart of God, our restoration to that first relationship in the Garden of Eden. And we feed on the riches of that grace even today. Having been fed by that grace, we are called into new life, into a life of service for the other, a life of compassion, a life that takes the shape of Jesus stooping to wash the feet of his disciples, emptying himself of all glory so that he can take up his cross. 

And we find that such a cruciform way of life, embodying the example of Jesus, following him to wash the feet of others and to serve them with compassion–we find that this way of life, this way of service, is truly the way of freedom and peace. We find that this way of life, this way of self-emptying, is truly the way to being fulfilled. We find that this way of life, this way of love and compassion for the other, is none other than the way of healing. 

That’s what Scott in Colorado has found. He built his Carousel of Happiness, each animal by hand, over three decades. It became his medicine. A Vietnam veteran with PTSD, he tried to heal himself in every way he could. He tried alcohol; he lived on a boat at sea for a year; he retreated and retreated and found that he was still wounded, not like when he was evacuated from Vietnam’s battlefields, but internally and spiritually. It wasn’t until he discovered compassion for himself and others; it wasn’t until he dedicated his life to the other and to finding beauty in the world; it wasn’t until he made carousel animals out of wood and saw the smiles on faces of his guests, broken like him, that he began to heal in places no surgeon could reach. 

Our healing begins as we are baptized into Christ’s death and resurrection. Our healing continues as we receive the body and blood of Christ given for us out of grace. Our healing continues at the basin, where Christ washes our feet so that we can share in his life. And our healing continues as we are sent out into the world, with the same compassion, with the same mercy, with the same love, reaching out to those God has put into our lives. For Scott, that looked like picking up a chisel and making carousel animals. For you it will look different. But it must look like something–some embodied, concrete action for the other. 

Just as I have loved you, so you must love one another. That’s what Jesus tells us today. And what our Lord shows us is that love is not some warm, fuzzy emotion. Love is not a fluttering feeling in the gut. Love is a decision to lay down our lives for the other. Love is a decision to show compassion to someone else. Love is a decision to forgive and embrace anew. Love is a decision, like Scott’s, to pick up a chisel and work to bring joy and compassion into the lonely and despairing world. Love is a decision to live like Jesus Christ, to pick up the towel, to offer grace and mercy and welcome and hope. And we find that in loving others, in showing compassion for them, God’s grace begins to heal our souls and make us new again.