Maundy Thursday on The Stream
Maundy. The term comes from an old hymn, “Mandatum novum do vobis.” Latin for “a new commandment I give you” (John 13:34). And that command? Love one another. That’s how the world will know we are His disciples.
Here are a few reflections previously published on The Stream regarding the evening before Christ was crucified.
Why Jesus Washed the Apostles’ Feet, and Why We Do It Too
By
David Mills
My wife has nice feet. Mine aren’t. I think of this every Holy Thursday. Our pastor washes the feet of twelve people, in imitation of Jesus washing the Apostles’ feet at the start of the Last Supper, and I always think “I’m glad I’m not up there.” Vain, I admit.
Jesus’s washing the Apostles’ feet points to the whole mystery of Christ, Benedict says. It points to “his service of salvation, his descent even to the cross, his love to the end.” His being a servant to his friends in that way — even to Judas, who He knows will betray Him — points to the even greater sacrifice He would make for us the next day. He washed His disciples’ feet as a sign that he would die for them so he could wash their souls.
What does this mean for us?
On Jesus’s Road to Death
By
John Yeatts
Today is a solemn day, as we enter into the final hours of Jesus life. If we were there then: Tonight will be the night he will eat his last Passover meal with his disciples. Tonight will be the night Judas betrays him. Tonight will be the night he will hold the weight of the world on his heart and pray “Father if there be any way this cup could pass before me let it be, yet not my will, but yours.”
Tonight he will sweat with blood, weep over his lost sheep, battle the serpent one last time. For tomorrow He will lay down his life for a people who hate him, a world who curse him, for debt he does not owe, for a wrath that is not his to bear.
Early tomorrow morning, the Lamb of God will be taken to the temple and prepared for slaughter. He will stand before the pagan courts and remind them the only authority they have over him has been given to them from above. He has already told them, “No man takes my life. I freely lay it down for my sheep”
They will mock him, they will beat him bloody with the cat of nine tales, they will crown him with thorns and drive them deep into his brow with a the pounding of the cane. They will strip him in shame, laugh at him, spit in his face, and once again speak that Satanic Question, “If you be the Son of God.”
Gethsemane: Jesus’s Soul Crushed With Grief
By
Joseph D’Hippolito
Today is a solemn day, as we enter into the final hours of Jesus life. If we were there then: Tonight will be the night he will eat his last Passover meal with his disciples. Tonight will be the night Judas betrays him. Tonight will be the night he will hold the weight of the world on his heart and pray “Father if there be any way this cup could pass before me let it be, yet not my will, but yours.”
Tonight he will sweat with blood, weep over his lost sheep, battle the serpent one last time. For tomorrow He will lay down his life for a people who hate him, a world who curse him, for debt he does not owe, for a wrath that is not his to bear.
Early tomorrow morning, the Lamb of God will be taken to the temple and prepared for slaughter. He will stand before the pagan courts and remind them the only authority they have over him has been given to them from above. He has already told them, “No man takes my life. I freely lay it down for my sheep”
They will mock him, they will beat him bloody with the cat of nine tales, they will crown him with thorns and drive them deep into his brow with a the pounding of the cane. They will strip him in shame, laugh at him, spit in his face, and once again speak that Satanic Question, “If you be the Son of God.”
For more Holy Week articles, click here.
