Maundy Thursday

Passover ... the traditional Seder Feast of the Jewish people - practiced, participated in and celebrated for over 4000 years. So what is the relevance of Passover to a Christian community? Well, Jesus Christ was a Jew and he himself participated in Passover, it was in fact the Passover meal that he was practicing and celebrating the night of his arrest. It was through that final Seder that Christ instituted the sacrament of communion practiced by Christians all over the world.

It's hard for me to picture the scene that night. There may have been many people gathered together in that upper room for the Passover meal; there may have been only the twelve with Christ. There may have been a solemness as Christ washed the feet of those who entered the room; there may have been a revelry as they all came together for that Seder meal.  What was in the mind of Jesus Christ? Did he know in fact that this was his last night on Earth? And his disciples? Were they of the mindset that there coming to Jerusalem was to be the beginning of the end of the Roman occupation?

All that I knew of the Passion of Christ had once come from Jesus Christ Superstar ... and the portrayal of the last supper in that smash musical was of a bunch of drunken disciples who couldn't wrap their minds around their own thoughts and words let alone the words that Christ was speaking to them.

... he took bread, and blessed, and broke it, and gave it to them, and said, "Take; this is my body." And he took a cup, and when he had given thanks he gave it to them, and they all drank of it. And he said to them, "This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many.  --  Mark 14:22-25

Maundy Thursday is both a celebration and an anguish to Christians world over. We remember on this night the suffering of Christ at the hands of the Sanhedrin and Pilate, the brutality of the Roman guards, the desertion of the disciples. We find solace in the knowing that the Passion of Christ that leads to his death on the Cross on Good Friday brings the resurrection of Easter morning ... "joy comes with the morning (or mourning)". 

We participate this night with our Jewish neighbors in the ceremony of the Seder to remember both where Christ came from and where we came from - enslaved people (to sin) freed by the God. (through Christ).

Amen and Amen!