In our church, like in many across America and across the world, today is an extraordinarily special day in the church calendar. It is often called Maundy Thursday.
The Thursday of Holy Week (which began on Palm Sunday) has been referred to by the church as Maundy Thursday for centuries.
"Maundy" comes from the Latin mandatum meaning "commandment." It is on this Thursday at the Passover Supper, what is usually referred to as the Last Supper, that Jesus gives his apostles, and therefore his church, a new commandment.
“A new commandment I give you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you are to love one another.” John 13:34 ESV.
Talk about an impossible task. The only perfect man to walk the earth, the incarnate god-man tells us that we must love as he does, which means we are to love perfectly.
Then Jesus adds in the next verse, "By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another."
It would seem that our Lord has demanded an impossible task.
No one, except him, could ever keep that commandment. Therefore we are all going to fail, fall short, and be condemned.
Exactly.
Except for one thing. As I said earlier, it was during this evening that Jesus instituted the Lord's Supper, holy communion, telling us the bread is his body broken for us, and the wine is his blood shed for us. He was pointing to what he was about to do. The act that he had explained to his disciples previously was the ultimate act of love, the greatest act of friendship, the laying down of your life for your friends. An act that would pay the price for our sins and bring eternal life to any who will trust and believe in him.
The law, the commandments, even the one above, they remind us of our sinfulness and they condemn us. But the law also points us to the lawgiver where we find the gospel, the good news that yes we will fail but the one who lived the perfect life and gave us those mandatums knows we will never measure up.
So on the day after Maundy Thursday, what is often called Good Friday, Jesus gave his life on a cross because he loves us. Of course on that Sunday he would rise from the dead and overcome death so we can have the same with him.
When we strive to live out Christ's new mandatum we demonstrate to all around that there is hope and love and peace and joy and a reason for living, and a way to eternal life.
The gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke concentrate on the institution of the Lord's Supper, so Holy Communion is always celebrated in worship services on Maundy Thursday.
Not this year.
There is that epidemic we're facing.
Our pastor sent out the order of worship in advance so I have printed out copies and my wife and I will stream the service (with only a few people actually at the church) on my computer. There won't be a communion meal either.
In our church, after the communion meal in Maundy Thursday worship services, at the end of the service as the pastor reads aloud the entirety of Psalm 22 there is the stripping of the altar. (Psalm 22 is clearly a prophetic utterance centuries before Christ's crucifixion.) All vessels, crosses, books, candles, linens, banners, and other decorations are removed from the altar and around it.
I guess you could call it a ritual, but it's been a part of church tradition for centuries, and it is a tremendously dramatic method of reminding us of the Lord's being stripped and humiliated at the hands of the Roman soldiers.
After the altar is stripped, it will be covered in black, transforming it from the communion table of Maundy Thursday into the tomb slab of Good Friday which we will look upon during that evening's service where we will be reminded of Christ's words on the cross just before he gave up his spirit. "It is finished."
That is part of the beauty of Holy Week, or Passion Week, when we get to deeply reflect upon Jesus's new mandatum to us all, the price he paid to make it possible to know his love and the power to strive to be like him.
And then there's the peace we can have when we remind ourselves that there is nothing we can do to earn forgiveness for not loving as we should. That was taken care of on the cross, and it is finished.
Psalm 22 (ESV)
uMy God, my God, why have you forsaken me?
2 O my God, I cry by xday, but you do not answer,
and by night, but I find no rest.
3 Yet you are yholy,
4 In you our fathers trusted;
they trusted, and you delivered them.
5 To you they bcried and were rescued;
in you they ctrusted and were not put to shame.
6 But I am da worm and not a man,
7 All who see me gmock me;
they make mouths at me; they hwag their heads;
let him rescue him, for he kdelights in him!”
9 Yet you are he who ltook me from the womb;
you made me trust you at my mother's breasts.
10 On you was I cast from my birth,
and from mmy mother's womb you have been my God.
11 Be not nfar from me,
for trouble is near,
and there is onone to help.
12 Many bulls encompass me;
13 they ropen wide their mouths at me,
like a ravening and roaring lion.
14 I am spoured out like water,
and all my bones are tout of joint;
it is melted within my breast;
15 my strength is wdried up like a potsherd,
and my xtongue sticks to my jaws;
you lay me in the dust of death.
16 For ydogs encompass me;
a company of evildoers zencircles me;
17 I can count all my bones—
they bstare and gloat over me;
18 cthey divide my garments among them,
and for my clothing they cast lots.
19 But you, O LORD, ndo not be far off!
O you my help, dcome quickly to my aid!
20 Deliver my soul from the sword,
my precious life from the power of ethe dog!
21 Save me from fthe mouth of the lion!
in the midst of the congregation I will praise you:
23 You who jfear the LORD, praise him!
All you offspring of Jacob, kglorify him,
and stand in awe of him, all you offspring of Israel!
24 For he has not despised or abhorred
the affliction of lthe afflicted,
and he has not mhidden his face from him,
but has heard, when he ncried to him.
25 From you comes my praise in the great ocongregation;
those who seek him shall praise the LORD!
May your hearts tlive forever!
27 All uthe ends of the earth shall remember
and turn to the LORD,
and all vthe families of the nations
shall worship before you.
28 For wkingship belongs to the LORD,
and he rules over the nations.
29 All xthe prosperous of the earth eat and worship;
before him shall ybow all who go down to the dust,
even the one who could not zkeep himself alive.
30 Posterity shall serve him;
it shall be told of the Lord to the coming ageneration;
that he has done it.
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