Maundy Thursday - 21 April 2011
Exodus 12:1-14
Psalm 116:1, 10-17
I Corinthians 11:23-26
St. John 13:1-17, 31b-35
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| Watanabe - Jesus washes Peter's feet |
BACKGROUND: Maundy Thursday
With this day we enter the Triduum (the Three Great Days – Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, and Easter). The liturgies on these days are not three separate liturgies but rather a single service that extends from Thursday to the Great Vigil of Easter. The services before the Vigil will not end in a blessing, but rather silence; the blessing being deferred until the Great Vigil. The name, Maundy Thursday, comes either from the Latin mandatum (command) in which Jesus asks his followers to “love one another”. The name also might come from an old English word maund, which means to beg. The tradition in England is that on this day the sovereign hands out bags of money to poor, perhaps as an example of loving one another.
Maundy Thursday, or Holy Thursday as it is sometimes named, is full of several symbols and intentions. Primarily it commemorates the institution of the Holy Eucharist, and for that reason the Gloria is sung, and the color is white. It is a brief respite from the privations of Holy Week. Recently, other ceremonies have been added or restored to the liturgy. The most noticeable is the Washing of Feet, which comes from the Gospel for the day. Other ceremonies include the stripping and cleansing of the Altar, the removal of the reserved Sacrament to an Altar of Repose, and a vigil before the Sacrament. This liturgy quite literally sets the stage for the liturgies that follow it, setting a tone and atmosphere of meditation, subdued joy in the Eucharist, and a feeling of anticipation.
Exodus 12:1-14
The LORD said to Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt: This month shall mark for you the beginning of months; it shall be the first month of the year for you. Tell the whole congregation of Israel that on the tenth of this month they are to take a lamb for each family, a lamb for each household. If a household is too small for a whole lamb, it shall join its closest neighbor in obtaining one; the lamb shall be divided in proportion to the number of people who eat of it. [Your lamb shall be without blemish, a year-old male; you may take it from the sheep or from the goats. You shall keep it until the fourteenth day of this month; then the whole assembled congregation of Israel shall slaughter it at twilight. They shall take some of the blood and put it on the two doorposts and the lintel of the houses in which they eat it. They shall eat the lamb that same night; they shall eat it roasted over the fire with unleavened bread and bitter herbs. Do not eat any of it raw or boiled in water, but roasted over the fire, with its head, legs, and inner organs. You shall let none of it remain until the morning; anything that remains until the morning you shall burn.] This is how you shall eat it: your loins girded, your sandals on your feet, and your staff in your hand; and you shall eat it hurriedly. It is the Passover of the LORD. For I will pass through the land of Egypt that night, and I will strike down every firstborn in the land of Egypt, both human beings and animals; on all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgments: I am the LORD. The blood shall be a sign for you on the houses where you live: when I see the blood, I will pass over you, and no plague shall destroy you when I strike the land of Egypt.
This day shall be a day of remembrance for you. You shall celebrate it as a festival to the LORD; throughout your generations you shall observe it as a perpetual ordinance.
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| Marc Chagall - The Passover |
The ties of the Passover Meal to the Eucharist are quite clearly implied in the selection of this reading for this day. If we follow the chain of development back, we shall see that this practice of the Paschal Feast goes back well before its association with the Exodus. Some aspects of the Passover are seen in other earlier ceremonies, such as the use of blood and unleavened bread. The spattering or painting with blood is an old nomadic custom that spoke to the wished for fecundity of the tribes flocks. The unleavened bread comes from the Canaanite barley harvest during which, for seven days, the people ate unleavened bread.
These early feasts are then attached to a historic day of some significance: the Exodus from Egypt, and each level of the older feasts comments on or enhances the Exodus Story. The very name Pesach may derive from a Hebrew verb that means “to jump”, or from an Akkadian verb which means “to appease”. Both roots seem appropriate to the theological intentions of the Passover Feast – that God looked over the Jews in Egypt and punished the Egyptians. The blood was the actuality of the slaughtering of the paschal lamb, and was a sign to all around them. The bread, likewise, takes on a new meaning, as being the bread of haste. All of these elements combine to comment on the saving and memorial nature of the day, an association that is not lost on the early Christians.
Breaking open Exodus:
- What festive meals does your family celebrate, or celebrated in the past?
- What did they commemorate?
- What other ceremonies accompanied the meal?
Psalm 116:1, 10-17 Dilexi, quoniam
I love the LORD, because he has heard the voice of my supplication, *
because he has inclined his ear to me whenever I called upon him.
How shall I repay the LORD *
for all the good things he has done for me?
I will lift up the cup of salvation *
and call upon the Name of the LORD.
I will fulfill my vows to the LORD *
in the presence of all his people.
Precious in the sight of the LORD *
is the death of his servants.
O LORD, I am your servant; *
I am your servant and the child of your handmaid;
you have freed me from my bonds.
I will offer you the sacrifice of thanksgiving *
and call upon the Name of the LORD.
I will fulfill my vows to the LORD *
in the presence of all his people,
In the courts of the LORD'S house, *
in the midst of you, O Jerusalem.
Hallelujah!
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| Master of Giles - The Mass of Saint Giles |
The setting of this thanksgiving psalm is clearly the Temple in Jerusalem, where the psalmist gives thanks for delivery from some type of affliction or evil. He rejoices in the fact that God listens and acts. The final verses of the psalm serve as a record of the psalmist’s response to this delivery. The references to the lifted cup of salvation, the vows made, the sacrifice of thanksgiving, and to the Temple itself, all find associations to the Christian Eucharist. In addition there are the theological associations with “freedom” and “forgiveness.” All of this is done in the assembly, not as a private act, but rather the act of an individual amongst those and with those gathered to worship.
Breaking open Psalm 116:
1. What might you do to offer to God a “sacrifice of thanksgiving”?
2. What vows have you made to God? How have you fulfilled them.
3. What are your emotions when you enter a church?
I Corinthians 11:23-26
For I received from the Lord what I also handed on to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took a loaf of bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, "This is my body that is for you. Do this in remembrance of me." In the same way he took the cup also, after supper, saying, "This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me." For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes.
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| Giotto - The First Eucharist |
In this letter to the Corinthians, we have some of the earliest traditions of the Christian Community, especially of Easter, and of the institution of the Eucharist. Paul rehearses those traditions here as a way of countering abuses that were seen in the Church at Corinth. He characterizes them as ancient, having received them from others. These traditions Paul passes on to the Corinthians. It is important for us to understand the abuses that Paul hopes to counter with a rehearsal of the old traditions. The Eucharist was celebrated in the midst of a community meal, although community may over state it, for it seems that all the factions in the Corinthian Church ate separately and did not exhibit the ties with which the community is bound in the Eucharist. Thus he reminds them of the point of the exercise, and gives to us the so-called “words of institution”. These words are at the heart of the Eucharistic Prayer – a means to remind us why we have gathered to celebrate. Thus this reading is important on this night when we remember and celebrate the Eucharist’s institution.
Breaking open I Corinthians:
- How was the faith transmitted to you? Who did the sharing?
- What was the faith that was shared with you?
- Is it a treasure to you – how do you make use of it?
Saint John 13:1-17, 31b-35
Now before the festival of the Passover, Jesus knew that his hour had come to depart from this world and go to the Father. Having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end. The devil had already put it into the heart of Judas son of Simon Iscariot to betray him. And during supper Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands, and that he had come from God and was going to God, got up from the table, took off his outer robe, and tied a towel around himself. Then he poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples' feet and to wipe them with the towel that was tied around him. He came to Simon Peter, who said to him, "Lord, are you going to wash my feet?" Jesus answered, "You do not know now what I am doing, but later you will understand." Peter said to him, "You will never wash my feet." Jesus answered, "Unless I wash you, you have no share with me." Simon Peter said to him, "Lord, not my feet only but also my hands and my head!" Jesus said to him, "One who has bathed does not need to wash, except for the feet, but is entirely clean. And you are clean, though not all of you." For he knew who was to betray him; for this reason he said, "Not all of you are clean."
After he had washed their feet, had put on his robe, and had returned to the table, he said to them, "Do you know what I have done to you? You call me Teacher and Lord--and you are right, for that is what I am. So if I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another's feet. For I have set you an example, that you also should do as I have done to you. Very truly, I tell you, servants are not greater than their master, nor are messengers greater than the one who sent them. If you know these things, you are blessed if you do them.
Jesus said, "Now the Son of Man has been glorified, and God has been glorified in him. If God has been glorified in him, God will also glorify him in himself and will glorify him at once. Little children, I am with you only a little longer. You will look for me; and as I said to the Jews so now I say to you, `Where I am going, you cannot come.' I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another."
In the previous chapter of John, the Book of the Signs comes to an end, and in this chapter begins the Book of Exaltation. This book envelops the Passion Narrative, and as such shares a great deal more with the so-called synoptic Gospels (literally, “with one eye”, the Gospels of Mark, Matthew, and Luke). The book begins with Jesus’ instruction. The disciples need to know the meaning of what will follow, and Jesus intends for them to understand. The scene of this reading is a meal with Jesus and the disciples. Unlike the synoptic gospels it is not a Passover Meal, but merely a communal meal, but one with significant acts. John will not rehearse an institution narrative for us, such as we just read in I Corinthians. Instead, there are other points of teaching, namely the foot washing, in which Jesus wishes to help the disciples understand that the old order is changing. It is this point that Peter doesn’t understand, and thus he rejects Jesus’ proposal. Jesus takes on humility (see the Epistle Lesson) and now expects it of any who would follow him. To make the point clear, Jesus repeats the expectation in the mandatum “love one another.”
Breaking open the Gospel:
- Have you ever employed a servant?
- Have you ever been a servant?
- How are servant hood and love related?
After breaking open the Word, you might want to pray the Collect for Sunday:
Almighty Father, whose dear Son, on the night before he suffered, instituted the Sacrament of his Body and Blood: Mercifully grant that we may receive it thankfully in remembrance of Jesus Christ our Lord, who in these holy mysteries gives us a pledge of eternal life; and who now lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
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