Reflections on Maundy Thursday
Yesterday was Maundy Thursday, the day we celebrate the last Passover meal Jesus shared with his disciples and instituted the “Lord’s Supper.” Last night, our church family gathered around tables in our fellowship hall. We ate dinner together – potluck – and then the lights were dimmed. We celebrated communion together around those tables: a traditional ritual done in a very untraditional way.
I have been forced to rethink and clarify my ideas about Maundy Thursday and communion this year, for various reasons. And I’m wondering if this might not be more what that original communion was like. We’ve made communion such a somber thing – meditative, deathly silent, ritualistic. But that night was a celebration – it was Passover, the all-important festival in the Jewish year, an occasion for family and friends to commemorate and celebrate.
The disciples had no clue what was coming in the hours ahead. As well as serious moments – like Jesus washing their feet, for instance – I can only imagine there was also laughter, singing, and memories shared.
In retrospect you and I can understand what Jesus meant by “this is my body,” and “this is my blood.” But the disciples were probably confused – or perhaps it held a different kind of meaning to them. They’d been hearing Jesus talk about his death for a while, and it made them uncomfortable. By now, they might even have been rolling their eyes – “there he goes, talking about dying again…”
For all they knew, this night Jesus was doing something traditional – the Passover meal – and something different alongside it. Something different, and something special. And the key phrase that most of the Gospels record of the evening was “remember me.”
When I first started looking at this and preparing for our Maundy service, I heard “remember me,” and I thought of how we often shield children – or even grownups at times – from seeing someone who is deathly ill, someone who has sustained serious injuries, or someone who has died. We justify it by saying something like, “We don’t want them to remember her like this.”
I admit that to some extent it’s irrational – as if people were two-dimensional photos, and like a good photographer we could choose the perfect setting to capture them in, and discard the rest. But I see the value in it. After all, I think we all try this kind of “snapshotting” when we interact with others. We want to leave a certain impression with people, so we act a certain way or say certain things – we try to control the way they will “remember us,” though we’d never use those terms.
So I think it’s significant the moment that Jesus asked his disciples to “remember him.” It wasn’t when he was hanging on the cross, struggling for breath as he died for their sins. It wasn’t after he was raised from the dead, proving that he was alive. It wasn’t in the midst of his greatest miracles – feeding thousands, walking on water, healing the sick.
No, Jesus knew his followers would remember those times without fail. But in this time, in this setting that was ordinary compared to the exciting things they’d experienced with their Master, Jesus asked them to remember him. Sharing a meal together. Laughing and sharing memories around the table. Keeping the old Passover traditions alive and meaningful. As a brother, a close friend who loved them so much he was willing to wash their feet.
That was the snapshot Jesus wanted to capture. That was the moment he wanted them to remember for years – and centuries – to come.
So when we sit around the table and enjoy our fellowship together, when we share a meal together in our churches or our homes, when we work together to bring our traditions and rituals to new life and meaning, when we serve one another, when we share each other’s joys and sorrows as friends…
When we do these things, we are as close to Jesus as we ever are. When we do those things, it’s a perfect time to remember Jesus. When we do those things, Jesus is there among us, laughing and crying, sharing joy and sorrow.
