Maundy Thursday

Maundy Thursday is the Thursday of Holy Week (the Thursday before Easter). It was the day on which Jesus celebrated the Passover with his disciples, sharing a meal with them which we call the Last Supper.

The name Maundy Thursday is derived from the Latin word mandatum which means commandment and it refers to the "new commandment" of John 13:34.

Jesus tells us to “love one another. In the same way I loved you, you love one another. This is how everyone will recognize that you are my disciples – when they see the love you have for each other.” (John 13:34-35).

Why? Why would he command us to love each other? Is he simply a naïve romantic, a surfer messiah seeking only “peace, man?” Does He have an inescapable obligation to push for love, even when love doesn’t work, or even causes more pain?

Henri Nouwen was a Catholic priest who taught at several theological institutes and universities in his home country of the Netherlands and in the United States. He shared the final years of his life with people with mental disabilities at a home community in Toronto. In his teaching, he often shared the following story about “The Old Man and the Scorpion.”

“Once there was a very old man who used to meditate early every morning under a large tree on the bank of the Ganges River in India. One morning, having finished his meditation, the old man opened his eyes and saw a scorpion floating helplessly in the strong current of the river. As the scorpion was pulled close to the tree, it got caught in the long tree roots that branched out far into the river. The scorpion struggled frantically to free itself but got more and more entangled in the complex network of the tree roots.

“When the old man saw this, he immediately stretched himself onto the extended roots and reached out to rescue the drowning scorpion. But as soon as he touched it, the animal jerked and stung him wildly. Instinctively, the man withdrew his hand, but then, after having regained his balance, he once again stretched himself out along the roots to save the agonized scorpion. But every time the old man came within reach, the scorpion stung him so badly with its poisonous tail that his hands became swollen and bloody and his face distorted with pain.

“At that moment, a passerby saw the old man stretched out on the roots struggling with the scorpion and shouted: ‘Hey, stupid old man. What’s wrong with you? Only a fool risks his life for the sake of an ugly, useless creature. Don’t you know that you may kill yourself to save that ungrateful animal?’
“Slowly the old man turned his head, and looking calmly in the stranger’s eyes, he said: ‘Friend, because it is the nature of the scorpion to sting, why should I give up my own nature to save?’

“Well,” Nouwen says, “that’s the question: Why should we give up our nature to be compassionate even when we get stung in a biting, stinging world?” He goes on to say that the story “challenges us to show that to embrace is more human than to reject, that to kiss is more human than to bite, to behold more human than to stare, to be friends more human than to be rivals, to make peace more human than to make war – in short, that compassion is more human than strife.”

Jesus tells us to “love one another. In the same way I loved you, you love one another. This is how everyone will recognize that you are my disciples – when they see the love you have for each other.” (John 13:34-35).

By Friday of this week (if you don't know the way the story ends) it looks like the wrath of God has eclipsed the love of God. But it isn't so. Mercy triumphs over Judgment at Easter: love triumphs over wrath. Love is the new commandment given on this night by Jesus after he has washed the disciples' feet.... "Love one another as I have loved you." This is the "mandatum novum" from which the name "Maundy Thursday" comes.

In those days it was usual for a servant to wash the guests’ feet on arrival. On this occasion there was no servant present and none of the disciples volunteered to do the menial task. Instead, Jesus got up and washed his disciples’ feet, giving them an object lesson in humility and service.

But the disciples didn't fully comprehend how deeply Jesus has loved them. After all they had been through, it took a king on his knees with a towel around his waist to prove to them the loving, servant heart of God (what if our President, or a king, were to wash the feet of a bunch of fishermen today? What if it were your feet?). But even so, Peter the disciple doesn't understand why Jesus would defile himself in this way.

If Peter finds it hard to accept that Jesus his king would humiliate himself by washing his followers' feet, he will be even more confounded tomorrow. For there will be another demonstration of how God loves on Good Friday, when the perfect love of God in Jesus faces the wrath of God against evil, and love triumphs in the end. All for the love of us.

But there is at least one more level still. To meet the living Christ here, now. Another phrase that John records Jesus saying in this story is spoken when Peter objects to having his feet washed. Jesus says, "If I do not wash you, you have no share with me." Another translator offers, "If I do not wash you, you will have no heritage with me." Jesus spoke to Peter then. Jesus speaks to us today. This is about Jesus expressing love for us. This is about Jesus serving us. This is about our recognition and acceptance of the gift that is offered. Jesus offers to cleanse away the grime of life’s journeying. With a basin and towel, with his death upon the cross. To put a few more words in Jesus’ mouth, what he says to Peter and to us is: "If you do not let me do this for you… If you do not accept my death upon the cross as my gift to you, then you will not truly receive the heritage that is yours… the inheritance of new and eternal life lived in joy in the very presence of God."

We are challenged right now, right in this moment. Will we accept Christ’s service, the gift of his death?

Each of us undoubtedly has many reasons not to. Pride. I do not need anyone’s service. False humility. I am not worthy of such a sacrifice. A profound discomfort with being beholden. Very beholden. No thank you, Jesus. Just imagine that the person who washes your feet this night in this room offers to die for your sins tomorrow. Would you accept such a sacrifice? Such action is not a part of our relationships with one another as individuals within the Body of Christ, but it is a part of our relationship with the living Christ. It is what brings us into relationship with the living Christ. Here. Now.

There was a lot going on in the upper room the evening of the Last Supper. It is good to remember those events and reflect upon their meaning for us. But the living Christ is present in this room this day. Will you let Jesus be your servant? Will you let him give his life for yours?