Maundy Thursday 2025 Remember
“This day shall be a day of remembrance for you,” thus sayeth the Lord as he instituted the first Passover. [i] This is an apt description of Maundy Thursday as well: a day of remembrance. Remember means to bring back or keep information in your mind. We might say it is a kind of mindfulness to remember.
In this year in which Passover and Holy week coincide, we do well to remember that first Passover which led to a remarkable new life for those Hebrew people, some 600,000 we are told, who had been slaves in Egypt for several generations. The Jewish people remember this each year, especially since the destruction of the Temple and Jerusalem in the year 70 as they have been largely living in diaspora – scattered throughout the nations of the world, without a homeland until 1948. The genius of Judaism is that almost all rituals are enacted with family gathered at a dinner table. No need for a temple or synagogue to celebrate this day of remembrance, the day of liberation from the yoke of the Empire of Pharaoh.
It's important for us to remember the Passover and Exodus events for the result after forty years of formation in the wilderness, a people of God was forged, which people some 1,300 years later gave us the young man we know as Jesus, or as The Christ, God’s anointed Son. Every year his people gather at a dinner table and retell, re-member, the story that is the foundational story of who they are and whose they are. When times have been dark in the years since the diaspora, remembering this story of Passover serves as a reminder that God’s past faithfulness is a sign of God’s present faithfulness.
Then there is the apostle Paul, formerly Saul of Tarsus, a
Pharisee deployed by the Romans to root out the emerging community know as The
Way – The Way of Jesus. Until one day on his way to Damascus he encountered the
Risen Christ. And life was never the same again as he became an ambassador for
Christ among the Gentiles. He became friends with the disciples who lived and
worshipped daily at the Temple in Jerusalem. He convinced them that the Good
News was too important not to share it with those beyond the Jewish followers
of the Man from Galilee.
Writing to the emerging church in Corinth, he shares with them what the Lord and his disciples has shared with him: the institution of the Lord’s Supper we now call Holy Eucharist – Holy Thanksgiving. The night before his betrayal, Jesus took hold of the most basic elements and ritual of all Jewish life: the blessing of bread and wine at the Sabbath dinner table. A weekly reminder to pause life even at its most hectic, even at its most dangerous, and remember who we are and whose we are as we enjoy a day of rest. Only now the bread is to help us to remember Christ’s body, and the wine is to help us remember his blood. In so doing, we do this as a community of his people to remember him. And to remember who we are and whose we are: we are the Lord’s people.
After several years living, teaching, healing, and feeding people throughout Galilee and Judea, Jesus blesses the bread, as he had every Sabbath evening, and he blesses the wine, as he had every Sabbath evening, and utters the poignant words, “Do this in remembrance of me.” Paul, in his letter to the church in Corinth is the first recorded memory of this mysterious transformation of the Sabbath meal. [ii] As I utter these words as we gather to give thanks, I still shudder to think he feared we would forget him and all that he had taught us about God’s faithfulness even in the darkest of times. That we might lose sight of the Good News: God has been faithful in the past and is faithful in the present, for we are God’s Beloved Community of Love. Paul is the first witness of our day of remembrance, Holy Communion, the Lord’s Supper: The bread and wine which are to sustain us in good times and in bad. A simple meal of remembrance.
Perhaps this is why when John reports the evening of the Last Supper he records everything but the blessing of the bread and the wine. The central recollection of that night before the betrayal was Jesus washing people’s feet, followed by his issuing a commandment, a mandatum, “to love one another” as he has loved us. “By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” [iii] One could easily lose sight of the Sabbath meal, the blessing of bread and wine, and its new and added significance for those of us who call ourselves by his title, The Christ. But who can ever forget the sight of Jesus stripping down, wrapping a towel around himself, filling a basin with water, and commences to get down on his hands and knees to wash people’s feet. That is usually the assigned chore for the youngest household servant or slave. Yet, here is the Son of God, God’s own Beloved, who “did not regard equality with God as something to be grasped, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, assuming human likeness,” [iv] and washed feet.
Peter is scandalized and refuses, until Jesus says, “I must do this, or you shall have no part in me.” Peter then asks to be bathed from head to foot. No doubt Jesus utters a long sigh. You have already been bathed, remember, in the baptism of John. This is different. This is for you to remember to love one another as I have loved you. This is a ritual reminder that we are to serve one another, now and always. And to remind us all that God my Father has been faithful in the past, is faithful in the present, and remains faithful forever. And ever.
To remember. This night we call Maundy Thursday is a night to remember all the good things God has done for us throughout centuries and centuries all the way back to the first Passover, all the way back to the Last Supper of our Lord, and every day since. And so, we wash feet. And we bless bread and wine. And we seek new ways in which we can serve Christ in all persons, loving our neighbor as ourselves. The present time seems dark to some, hopeful to others. Either way, God is in the midst of it all. All the time. Psalm 116 calls us to say every day:
10 How shall I repay the Lord for all the good things he has
done for me?
11 I will lift up the cup of salvation and call upon the
Name of the Lord.
12 I will fulfill my vows to the Lord in the presence of all his people. [v]
By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, says
Jesus, if you have love for one another. Amen.
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