Thursday, April 1

Maundy Thursday

Frederick Denison Maurice, Priest (1872)

Lamentations 2:10-18

Psalms 102, 142, 143

1 Corinthians 10:14-17, 11:27-32

Mark 14:12-25

Mark 14:25

Maundy Thursday is the one day of the year where we give John’s version of the Last Supper some serious airtime. John doesn’t include the Eucharist, as crazy as that sounds. There is no blessed bread or raised cup. No “remembrance of me” words. Instead of Eucharist, in John’s Gospel, Jesus washes feet. His ceremonial “remembrance of me” act is one of service. “As I have done, so also you must do,” he tells the disciples. The meaning is clear – go out and serve. If you love Jesus, serve someone at your own expense. The flip is also true – if you’re not serving someone at cost to yourself, then you don’t love Jesus.

Ultimately both versions of the story make the same point. In today’s Office reading from Mark, Jesus offers up the bread and cup and says, “I will never again drink of the fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it new in the kingdom of God.” As a result of our current misunderstandings of heaven, many are given to think Jesus is saying he’ll enjoy some wine up in the clouds after he dies and his soul floats up to be with God. Really this statement is about what the world will look like post-Easter. God sent Jesus to bring heaven to earth. Easter was his definitive victory in that cause. In being raised, Jesus inaugurates the kingdom of God in a new way on Earth. We’re on the edge of a New World this Thursday - a world where people don’t compete with each other in contempt, but serve each other out of love. The kingdom that will burst forth once more on Sunday is a kingdom where bread and wine, basin and towel are as ubiquitous as wallet and keys.

Fr. Patrick Hall