Suggested Readings: Exodus 12:1-4; (5-10), 11-14, Psalms 116:1-2, 12, 19, I Corinthians 11:23-26, John 13:1-17, 31b-35
On the night before he was crucified, Jesus gave a final command (from which we get “maundy,” from the Latin word “mandatum,” meaning “commandment”). The command wasn’t to read our Bibles, important as God’s written revelation is to us through the prophets and apostles.
On Maundy Thursday, Jesus did not command us to engage in regular worship or prayer practices, important as prayer and adoration are in the life of the believing community.
Jesus did not even command us to “go into all the world and make disciples of all nations,” to grow the beloved community of co-laborers with God for the transformation of the world—those would be part of his final earthly words to us, but this was not yet the time for that.
Instead, on the night in which Jesus was betrayed by one of his closest friends…on the night in which the religious and governmental leaders conspired against him…on the night in which his best friends would deny they even knew him…on this night of all nights, when darkness reigned, Jesus chose to talk about love.
It was on the night of a Passover commemoration 2,000 years ago that Jesus took a stand for God’s love as the only force that cannot be overcome by the economic and political and interpersonal forces of selfishness and injustice. Not fighting fire with fire; not getting even; not giving them a taste of their own medicine. All of these ways of being in the world put us a long way down the wrong road.
Jesus does not suggest that love is a good thing to try—he commands us to embrace it as the only way to live. Jesus could live in love only because he knew he was loved:
Jesus knew that the Father had put all things under his power, and that he had come from God, and was returning to God.
It was only because he knew he was fully loved by God and that these three things were true, that he was able to live in love. On Maundy Thursday, he washed the feet of those who would betray and deny him, as a final act of lowly, loving service, before giving his life for the world, as only the God who is Love could.
Todd Lake
