Maundy

Tonight is holy. Not because of scripture or ancient liturgies. But because we gather around a table that stretches back in time. To an upper room in Jerusalem, where Jesus shared his last meal with his friends. I say “friends” because that’s what he calls them. Not students. Not servants. Friends.

While the other gospels focus on the bread and the cup—the Last Supper, John’s gospel gives us a front-row seat to what might just be the most tender and human night of Jesus’ life.

Unlike Mark who hurries to Easter, John lingers in this space for a while. He slows the camera down, zooms in on the quiet, more intimate moments. The washing of feet. The honest confessions. The prayers that stretch out like arms trying to embrace the world.

More than a gospel, or timeline of events John’s writing a love story. One that begins in a rented room in a stranger’s home. One that invites us to sit down beside Jesus and feel what he’s feeling.

​Because this night, Maundy Thursday, is about the kind of love that doesn’t just feel Jesus’ compassion. It offers it. It kneels. It serves. It feeds. It speaks truth and grace.

This is how John begins…

Now before the festival of the Passover, Jesus knew that his hour had come to depart from this world and go to the Father. Having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end. ... And during supper Jesus, ... got up from supper, 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. He came to Simon Peter, who said to him, “Lord, are you going to wash my feet?” Jesus answered, “You do not know now what I am doing, but later you will understand.” Peter said to him, “You will never wash my feet.” Jesus answered, “Unless I wash you, you have no share with me.” ... After he had washed their feet, ... 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, slaves are not greater than their master, nor are messengers greater than the one who sent them. ... Very truly, I tell you, whoever receives one whom I send receives me, and whoever receives me receives him who sent me. 
​                                                                                                John 13:3-20

The night begins with an act so stunning, it catches everyone off guard. Jesus gets up from the table, wraps a towel around his waist, pours water into a basin—and starts washing the calloused, cracked, dusty feet of those who he has spent three years walking beside.

This lesson he is teaching is not symbolic. Unlike his parables, it’s not a metaphor for anything. It’s just the way Jesus invites us to follow him as he wipes grime off the ones who still don’t fully get who he is.

Peter, as Peter often does, protests. He states rather boldly, “No, Lord. You’re not washing my feet.” He can’t stand the idea that Jesus—their Teacher, their Lord—would do the work of the lowliest servant. But Jesus insists: “Unless I wash you, you have no share with me.”

Jesus could have taught them a theology on servanthood. But instead He says, “Let me show you how it’s done.”  This is what love does. It stoops. It serves. It gets close enough to smell the sweat. And see inside the cracks in your heels.

When he is done, Jesus turns to them—and to us— and says, “Just as I have done for you, go and do for one another.” If you want to makes the kingdom of heaven come alive go and live your life, as Paul describes, “in imitation of Christ.”

Right after Jesus does this humble act, something holy happens. They eat. Not just bread and wine, but the fullness of a shared meal. A Passover supper, rich in memory and meaning.

Somewhere between the dipping of bread and the drinking of the cup, Jesus tells them something extraordinary. He says, “I do not call you servants any longer… I have called you friends.” Friends. That word should stop us in our tracks.

The very idea that Jesus, the Son of God, who walked on water and raised the dead, pulls us close and says: “You’re my beloved friend.” To be a friend of Jesus is to be not just seen, but known. Fully and completely. The good and the bad. And still be welcomed at the table

Jesus calls them friends, even though he knows betrayal is coming. Peter will deny him. The rest will scatter. And Judas is already reaching for the bread with treachery in his heart.

Still, Jesus doesn’t hold back his love for them all. He leans in. He gives the bread as a symbol of his body. He offers the wine as a reminder of God’s covenant and the blood he is about to shed. And, most importantly, he loves them to the very end. Nothing will ever be the same again.

That’s the power of love. Real Love. The kind that comes from God. The kind that’s not transactional, but transformational. Not based on our worthiness, but rooted in God’s mercy and grace.

So, in this room, around this table with his friends, Jesus gives them what is called the mandatum novum—a Latin phrase that means “new mandate” or “new commandment.” It’s where we get the word “Maundy”

Jesus says: “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 you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” (John 13:34-35)

Love as I have loved you. That’s the commandment that still hangs in the air every Maundy Thursday. It’s the one thing death cannot contain. Jesus says, Love is the greatest and second greatest commandment. All the other ones hang on this truth - Love God. Love One Another.

Be the kind of love that shows up with a towel and a basin. That sets a table for both enemies and friends alike. That prays even for those who do you wrong.

St. Augustine once said, “What does love look like? It has the hands to help others, the feet to hasten to the poor and needy, the eyes to see misery and want, and the ears to hear the sighs and sorrows of others. That is what love looks like.”

Jesus could have stopped there. And it would have been enough. But he gets up from the table, knowing what is coming and what he has to do. He leaves the room, and his friends follow.
Together they walk to a garden to pray under the moon and stars. Yes, they pray.

Jesus' prayer is a deep, aching, heartfelt prayer too. it's a prayer for his strength. His faithfulness. His courage. He also prays for his friends. For those of us who will come after. For you and me.

He prays, “That they may all be one… that the love with which you have loved me may be in them” (John 17: 21, 26).

On the brink of his own suffering, Jesus stops to pray for us. For our unity. For our love. And Peace. He prays for our capacity to live in the space between as a people who reflect the love of God.

That kind of love isn’t soft or sentimental. It’s fiercely hopeful. It believes that even in a fractured world, even when betrayal is close and the cross is looming, we can still be a people who love each other well.

Which brings us to this space where thousands of years later, we still gather at the table, still trying to live into that new commandment.

But it seems ever more apparent to me that Christ’s body is more fractured and broken than ever. How we have forgotten the point of Maundy Thursday. It’s not to reenact a moment, but to reimagine what it means to love like Jesus in the here and now.

To build a community of love, together, in the space between—between success and failure, between certainty and doubt, between your good days and your worst ones. That’s Anamesa.

The sacred ground where God kneels with a towel, where Jesus calls us, “Friend.”

Yes, this is a holy night. It’s holy because it teaches us how to be church. Not by programs or perfect theology, but by proximity and presence.

By washing the feet of the ones who are hard to love.

By opening the door for those who feel left out. Setting a table for the ones we’ve shut out.

And by daring to call someone “friend” even when they don’t deserve it. Because that’s how Jesus loved. And he says, “Go do likewise.”

As the mystic Julian of Norwich said, “The greatest honor we can give Almighty God is to live gladly because of the knowledge of his love.”


Let us go and rejoice together, washing, eating, sharing, praying, and showing up for each other in all the different ways we love God, love others, and serve both.