LENT 2020: Day 38: Maundy Thursday

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• Thursday, April 9, 2020: Maundy Thursday
  Exodus 12.1-14; Psalm 116.1-2, 12-19; 1 Cor. 11.23-26; John 13.1-17, 31b-35

     I love the LORD, for he has heard
          my voice, my supplications.
    For he has inclined his ears to me
          when in my days I called.

The Psalmist’s words are timely.

And timeless. 

It is essential to recall the ways God has worked throughout history, to build up our memory, to give us hope during difficult times. For if God has heard our cries in the past, then God will hear our cries again.

So it’s important to tell the Passover story, which remains central to Judaism to this day.

     And they shall take from the blood and put it on the doorposts
    and on the lintel, on the houses in which they will eat it.
    And they shall eat the meat on this night fire-roasted, with
    flatbread on bitter herbs shall they eat it.
    And thus shall you eat it: your loins girded, your sandals on
    your feet, your staff in your hand, and you shall eat it in haste.
    It is a passover offering to the LORD.
    And the blood will be a sign…
    I will see the blood and I will pass over you.
    And this day shall be a remembrance for you

As we reflect upon our own Holy Week liturgies, we would do well to consider Terrence Fretheim’s observations on the Passover.

“A newly liberated people will create practices and institutions that are in tune with their new status. In the case of the passover, however, liturgy precedes the liberative event.”

In other words, we might expect the passover ritual to follow the salvific events of passover and exodus. Instead, the ritual actually comes before the event it commemorates.

Moreover: “When Israel reenacts the passover, it is not a fiction, as if nothing really happens in the ritual, or all that happens is a recollection of the...original event. The reenactment is as much salvific event as the original enactment.”

By which he means: “The saving power of the original event is made available ever anew to the community by God’s redeeming activity within the context of worship.”

And it is with this understanding that we should approach the other ritual in today’s Maundy Thursday readings.

     Now before the festival of the Passover, Jesus knew that his
    hour had come to depart from this world and go to the Father.
    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.

     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.

     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."