Thursday we eat. . .

On this day the Church recalls Christ's "mandate" and so some name this Maundy Thursday---"maundy" being a shortened form of mandatum (Latin), which means "command."  It was on this day that our Lord commanded His disciples to love one another as He had loved them and displayed this love in the unthinkable act of footwashing.  Peter found it impossible and protested that the Lord should wash his feet but Jesus would have not backtalk.  Either you meet the Lord on His terms or you have no part with Him.  Peter got that part and though he did not have a clue about what betrayal he would show to Jesus the next day, Peter would be with Christ now no matter what.  "Not my feet only," but all of me was his brave show of solidarity.  But this is not about the cleansing of the outward body but about sin -- the dirt that cannot be escaped and that only Christ can wash clean.

"A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another" (John 13:34).

Jesus never commanded His disciples or us to wash feet.  His command was and is to love as He has loved us.  Footwashing was an example -- a symbol, if you will.  Surely even more distasteful than washing someone's dirty feet is forgiving them as Christ has forgiven us, caring for their needs before our own as Christ has done for us, and dying to self for the sake of another as Christ died for us.  Love is definitely not easy.

Holy Week takes an even more somber and mystifying turn as Thursday continues. From Bethany, Jesus sent Peter and John ahead of Him.  He told them how they would find the Upper Room there in busy Jerusalem where they would prepare for the Passover Feast Jesus wished to eat with them one last time. Before sitting and eating a common meal, much less the Passover, they must be clean.  So on the evening after sunset that Thursday, Jesus washed His disciples' feet so that they would be prepared for all that He was to do for them. Jesus was blunt.  This would not be repeated again before the events of His suffering and death which He had predicted would be fulfilled: "I have been very eager to eat this Passover meal with you before my suffering begins. For I tell you now that I won't eat this meal again until its meaning is fulfilled in the Kingdom of God." (Luke 22:15-16)

The words which John the Baptist spoke of Jesus would soon be fulfilled.  As the Lamb of God, Jesus was about to be sacrificed but this sacrifice would also become the meal that would continue to bestow the fruits of His sacrificial death.  Jesus did not command them to wash feet but He did insist that they "do this in remembrance of Him" until the day would dawn when He came to feast with them again.  This was the fulfillment of the Passover and the unleavened bread and the cup of blessing would take on new meaning as He said "This is My body" and "This is My blood."  "Do this often in remembrance of Me."  St. Paul would flesh out the meaning of all of this for all time by reminding us that the bread which we break is the communion in His flesh and the cup we bless is the communion in His blood -- not a symbol or a sign but that real flesh and real blood that is our real food until He comes to bring even this to its eternal consummation.  Love one another and abide in Christ's love through the fellowship of His table.  That is the legacy of this night which we live out forgiving one another in Christ's name, caring for one another as brothers and sisters in Christ, and gathering together as His people to feast upon His flesh for the life of the world and His blood that cleanses us from all our sin.

Then, having fulfilled all things promised in the Passover and made this meal a foretaste of the eternal yet to come, Jesus took His disciples out of the Upper Room and to the Garden of Gethsemane, where Jesus and the disciples were to pray.  Our Lord prayed in agony to God the Father so that His words were accompanied with "his sweat became like great drops of blood falling down to the ground" (Luke 22:44, ESV). The disciples were too weary to pray and their eyelids closed in sleep when they should have been praying that they remained faithful for the rest of the story yet to come.  Jesus chides them gently and urges them not to choose sleep over the needful preparation before the test of their souls to come.  He had hardly finished before they saw what He was talking about.  There, in Gethsemane, the quiet of prayer was interrupted by the clanging of a brute squad come for ugly business.  Jesus was betrayed with a kiss by Judas Iscariot and arrested by the Sanhedrin. It struck the guard as too easy but Jesus goaded them into doing their terrible duty.  Then He was taken to the home of Caiaphas, the High Priest, where the whole council of the Sanhedrin had gathered to begin making their case against our Lord.

Before the sun rose and as Jesus' trial was getting underway in the kangaroo court of His enemies, Peter denied knowing his Master three times.  The denials seemed to fall easily from his lips but when the rooster crowed Peter could not remain any longer.  Weeping he ran, a shell of a man, who hoped and prayed and waited for the mercy of God to rescue him from his own prison of shame, guilt, and despair.

The events of Thursday of Holy Week are recorded in Matthew 26:17–75, Mark 14:12-72, Luke 22:7-62, and John 13:1-38.