Worship Notes for Maundy Thursday

Worship Notes

Maundy Thursday

April 17, 2014

The Season

We are in the one week of the year that the Church calls “Holy,” beginning with the Sunday of the Passion/Palm Sunday this past Sunday. After hearing the Gospel account of Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem, we joined the procession shouting, “Hosanna! Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest!” The festive mood quickly changed, however, as we turned to “Passion,” with the account of Jesus’ arrest, trial, crucifixion, death, and burial. Our collective “Hosanna!” turned to “Crucify him!” Today marks the first of the ancient Three Days observance: Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, and Holy Saturday, each with a distinct liturgy. Tomorrow night we observe the Stations of the Cross, with Scripture reading, prayer, and song. On Saturday we form a procession with lighted candles into the darkened Sanctuary singing, “The Light of Christ! Thanks be to God!” Old Testament accounts of God’s deliverance are read and songs are sung, and we affirm our faith in the Trinitarian God of salvation history.

In Word

Tonight we gather around a meal, with elements of the traditional Jewish Seder meal, a Passover remembrance. It was within such a context that Jesus instituted his Last Supper—the Lord’s Supper—with his disciples. We hear an account from Exodus of God delivering the people from the bondage of slavery with the promise of a land—the Promised Land—under the leadership of Moses. The various elements of the Seder meal recollect that first Passover, when the angel of death “passed over” the Hebrew dwellings that were marked with the blood of the lamb on the doorposts. We remember the tears of agony of slavery as well as the promise of new life.

As Jesus gathered with his disciples in the Upper Room, he disrobed, tied a towel around his waist, and washed his disciples’ feet, saying, “So if I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet” (John 13:14). It is an example of Jesus’ New Commandment, his new “mandate” (from the Latin mandatum; thus Maundy Thursday), to love one another “as I have loved you” (John 13:34). Though the Gospel writer John does narrate the institution of the Lord’s Supper, the account is offered in all three synoptic Gospels: Matthew, Mark, and Luke. Taking the bread, Jesus blessed it, broke it, and gave it to his disciples, saying, “This is my body given for you.” In the same way he took the cup: “This cup is the new covenant in my blood, shed for you and for all people, for the forgiveness of sin.” Jesus became the Passover Lamb, the sacrificial lamb, on which are laid the sins of the people. Jesus, the Lamb of God, takes away the sin of the world.

We conclude our worship in the Sanctuary with the ritual stripping of the Altar, singing Psalm 22.

In Song

“When they had sung the hymn, they went out to the Mount of Olives” (Matthew 26:30; Mark 14:26). It is evident that Jesus and his disciples sang together! The traditional Jewish Passover meal included the singing of at least one of the Hallel Psalms (“Praise” psalms), Psalms 113-118. These psalms are sometimes called the “Egyptian Hallels,” as they were sung in the Temple as the Passover lambs were being slaughtered. Tonight we conclude our liturgy of the Lord’s Supper with the singing of Psalm 116, inspired that our Lord knew—and sang—this psalm and the others among the Hallel Psalms.