Maundy Thursday
**Please note this is based on the format of the Anglican Church of
Canada. Unless otherwise indicated, all prayers come from the Book of
Alternative Services (BAS). Hymns and other prayers have been sourced to give
appropriate credit.
**NRSV translation used for the readings.
**This is for personal use at home as the church is unable to gather in
our houses of worship but together we can worship in our own homes.
Opening Hymn – Great God, Your Love has Called Us
Here (BCP #442)
This is the day that
Christ the Lamb of God gave himself into the hands of those who would slay him.
This is the day that
Christ gathered with his disciples in the upper room.
This is the day that
Christ took a towel and washed the disciples’ feet, giving us an example that
we should do to others as he has done to us.
This is the day that
Christ our God gave us this holy feast, that we who eat this bread and drink
this cup may here proclaim his Holy Sacrifice and be partakers of his resurrection,
and at the last day may reign with him in heaven.
Collect
O God, your son Jesus
Christ has left to us this meal of bread and wine in which we share his body
and his blood. May we who celebrate this sign of his great love show in our
lives the fruits of his redemption; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives
and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen.
A reading from the book of Exodus 12:1-14
The Lord said to Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt: This month shall
mark for you the beginning of months; it shall be the first month of the year
for you. Tell the whole congregation of Israel that on the tenth of this month
they are to take a lamb for each family, a lamb for each household. If a
household is too small for a whole lamb, it shall join its closest neighbor in
obtaining one; the lamb shall be divided in proportion to the number of people
who eat of it. Your lamb shall be without blemish, a year-old male; you may
take it from the sheep or from the goats. You shall keep it until the
fourteenth day of this month; then the whole assembled congregation of Israel
shall slaughter it at twilight. They shall take some of the blood and put it on
the two doorposts and the lintel of the houses in which they eat it. They shall
eat the lamb that same night; they shall eat it roasted over the fire with
unleavened bread and bitter herbs. Do not eat any of it raw or boiled in water,
but roasted over the fire, with its head, legs, and inner organs. You shall let
none of it remain until the morning; anything that remains until the morning
you shall burn. This is how you shall eat it: your loins girded, your sandals
on your feet, and your staff in your hand; and you shall eat it hurriedly. It
is the passover of the Lord. For I will pass through the land of Egypt that
night, and I will strike down every firstborn in the land of Egypt, both human
beings and animals; on all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgments: I am the
Lord. The blood shall be a sign for you on the houses where you live: when I
see the blood, I will pass over you, and no plague shall destroy you when I
strike the land of Egypt.
This day shall be a day of remembrance for you. You shall celebrate it
as a festival to the Lord; throughout your generations you shall observe it as
a perpetual ordinance.
The word of
the Lord
Thanks be to God!
Psalm 116: 1, 10-17
I love the Lord, because he has heard
my voice and my supplications.
I kept my faith, even when I said,
“I am greatly afflicted”;
I said in my consternation,
“Everyone is a liar.”
What shall I return to the Lord
for all his bounty to me?
I will lift up the cup of salvation
and call on the name of the
Lord,
I will pay my vows to the Lord
in the presence of all his
people.
Precious in the sight of the Lord
is the death of his faithful
ones.
O Lord, I am your servant;
I am your servant, the child
of your serving girl.
You have loosed my bonds.
I will offer to you a thanksgiving sacrifice
and call on the name of the
Lord.
For I received from the Lord what I also handed on to you, that the Lord
Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took a loaf of bread, and when he had
given thanks, he broke it and said, “This is my body that is for you. Do
this in remembrance of me.” In the same way he took the cup also, after supper,
saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you
drink it, in remembrance of me.” For as often as you eat this bread and drink
the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.
Gradual Hymn – This is Love by Steve Bell
The Lord be with you.
And also with you.
A video reading from the
Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ according to John 13:1-17, 31b-35
Sermon
Holy Week is celebrated by
both Jews and Christians alike - for similar reasons but with very different
undertones.
In tonight’s account in Exodus,
God tells Moses and Aaron how to combat the 10th plague. Do you remember what
the 10th plague is? Let me remind you:
From Exodus 11:
Moses said, “Thus says the
LORD: About midnight I will go out through Egypt. Every firstborn in the land
of Egypt shall die, from the firstborn of Pharaoh who sits on his throne to the
firstborn of the female slave who is behind the handmill, and all the firstborn
of the livestock. Then there will be a loud cry throughout the whole land of Egypt,
such as has never been or will ever be again. But not a dog shall growl at any
of the Israelites—not at people, not at animals—so that you may know that the
LORD makes a distinction between Egypt and Israel.
In tonight’s reading from
Exodus 12, God instructs Moses and Aaron to have each family slaughter a lamb
and spread its blood on their doorways. By doing so, they would be telling God
which houses belong to the Israelites, and thus, by default, which belong to
the Egyptians. It says in line 13, “The blood shall be a sign for you on the
houses where you live: when I see the blood, I will pass over you, and no
plague shall destroy you when I strike the land of Egypt.”
For the Jewish community, this
week is one of celebration that commemorates the exodus of the Jews from
slavery in Egypt. The Hebrew word pesach (pay-sock) refers to the ancient
Passover sacrifice, known as the Paschal Lamb; it is also said to refer to the
idea that God “passed over” the houses of the Jews during the 10th plague on the
Egyptians, the slaying of the first born. The holiday is ultimately a
celebration of freedom, and the story of the exodus from Egypt is a powerful
metaphor that is appreciated not only by Jews, but by people of other faiths as
well.
Passover is one of the best
known Jewish holidays, as much for its connection to Jewish redemption and the
figure of Moses as for its ties with Christian history. The Last Supper has
been described as a Passover seder (say-der), a Jewish ritual feast that marks
the beginning of the Jewish holiday of Passover.
According to the Synoptic
Gospels, it is on Thursday evening that Jesus, in the upper room with his
disciples, celebrates Passover and institutes the Lord's Supper. The Gospel of
John, however, speaks of the Thursday supper as the day before Passover,
linking Jesus' death on Friday with the Passover sacrifices.
And so while Jews are
celebrating the joy of their freedom from slavery, this week, for Christians,
is a week of sadness as we come closer to the end Jesus’ life.
In the end, Christians will
celebrate their freedom and forgiveness from sin, but the build-up to Easter
Sunday is more sombre than joyful.
Tonight is an especially
sombre night as Jesus lays the foundation of his departure even while his
disciples are oblivious to the fact.
There was no human reason why
Jesus had to die. To the general public, he was more helpful than harmful. But
to the Roman leadership, Jesus was a real pain.
Jesus was a small-town peasant
in a Roman province far from the centers of political and religious power.
People in such circumstances rarely threatened Rome in any serious way. A
miracle-working Jewish prophet and teacher would not have posed much of a
conventional threat to such power and brutality. For his own part, Jesus never
took up arms, nor did he encourage his followers to do so.
But while Jesus did not
exercise conventional kinds of political authority, his actions and his message
included threats to the status quo.
Chief among his threatening
actions? Jesus could draw a crowd. The gospels report that great crowds
followed him. When he entered Jerusalem during the last week of his life, he
entered to local fanfare.
The popularity of Jesus,
combined with the gathering of perhaps hundreds of thousands of pilgrims in
Jerusalem for Passover, would have made Roman authorities very nervous. It was
this nervousness that flamed the desire to pull Jesus from hiding and set him
on trial before Pilate.
Jesus knew this was all going
to happen. He knew that his time on earth was coming to an end. He even knew
who was going to hand him to Roman authorities. And he knew that the ending
wasn’t going to be a pleasant one.
So why didn’t he tell anyone?
Why did he turn towards the end instead of running the other way?
Cryptic as always, Jesus
washes the feet of his disciples, declares that one of them will betray him,
and tells them that he will only be with them a short while longer. And as
usual, the whole situation goes over the disciples’ heads.
If you knew you were going to
die, wouldn’t you tell your best friends? Wouldn’t you want you their support?
Or at least give them a chance to say goodbye?
Jesus didn’t do any of that,
but he did impart some pretty heavy last lessons to his disciples.
First, he delivers to them a
new commandment – to love one another.
The reading says, “Just as I
have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know
that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”
While the Romans thought Jesus
was a rebel-rouser, he really was, in fact, a teacher in the art of love. In
all of his miracles, parables, and lessons, the underlying fact is that all can
be done and achieved through the love of one another and of the stranger.
Second, Jesus imparted a
lesson of remembrance.
Jesus may not have openly
declared to his people what was about to happen, but he wanted his disciples to
remember him and the lessons that he had been teaching.
And so, much in the Jewish
tradition of seder, Jesus and his disciples had one final supper together.
The Last Supper is one of the
foundational pieces of the Christian faith. To accept the Eucharist in
remembrance and thanks to the life and death of Jesus is to openly declare
yourself one of his disciples.
It is what makes this night so
special, despite its darkness.
Similar to the Jewish
celebration of freedom from Egyptian slavery, tonight we, as Christians,
celebrate our freedom to declare our love and faith in Jesus and reveal our
willingness to follow in his footsteps.
Feel the quiet power these
words:
Take this bread and eat it. It
is my body. As you eat it, remember me.
Take this wine and drink it.
It is my blood. As you drink it, remember me.
Ten years ago, I read
tonight’s Corinthians passage aloud for the first time, my lips sounding out
the words of our Eucharistic prayers.
I felt a presence in those
words, a presence that I felt physically, emotionally, and spiritually.
Ten years ago, I heeded the
words of our Lord and became his disciple.
Tonight is a powerful night.
It was for the disciples 2000
years ago. It was for me ten years ago.
It is for us tonight.
We go into the darkness, but
there is still a presence. One that will remain with us until our Lord comes to
us once again.
Amen.
Hymn of the Day – The Servant Song (BCP #500)
Fellow servants of
our Lord Jesus Christ,
on the night before
his death, Jesus set an example for his disciples by washing their feet, an act
of humble service.
He taught that
strength and growth in the life of the kingdom of God come not by power,
authority, or even miracle, but by such lowly service.
Therefore, I invite
you who share in the royal priesthood of Christ, that you may recall whose
servant you are by following the example of your Master.
But come remembering
his admonition that what will be done for you is also to be done by you to
others, for “a servant is no greater than his master, nor is one who is sent
greater than the one who sent him. If you know these things, blessed are you if
you do them.”
Foot Washing
Prayers of the People
(Please allow
yourself some quiet time for reflection on the intercessions after each of the
suggested petitions and take time to offer your own prayers.)
With confidence and trust, let us pray to the Lord.
For the one holy catholic and apostolic Church throughout the world, we
pray to you, Lord.
Lord, have mercy.
For the mission of the Church, that in faithful witness it may preach
the gospel to the ends of the earth, we pray to you, Lord.
Lord, have mercy.
For peace in the world; that a spirit of respect and reconciliation may
grow among nations and peoples, we pray to you, Lord.
Lord, have mercy.
For the poor, the persecuted, the sick, and all who suffer; for
refugees, prisoners, and all in danger; for all those working in essential
services and their families; for all who have been stricken with the COVID-19
virus; that they may be relieved and protected, we pray to you, Lord.
Lord, have mercy.
For all whom we have injured or offended, we pray to you, Lord.
Lord, have mercy.
For grace to amend our lives and to further the reign of God, we pray to
you, Lord.
Lord, have mercy.
Gathering our prayers and praises into one, let us pray as our Saviour
taught us,
Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as in heaven.
Give us today our daily bread.
Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us.
Save us from the time of trial, and deliver us from evil.
For the kingdom, the power, and the glory are yours, now and for ever. Amen.
A new commandment I
give to you, that you love one another as I have loved you. John 13:34
Stripping of the Altar
Just finished. It was a very beautiful service! I loved the sermon! Thank you!
ReplyDeleteThanks, Pr. Theo. Just what I needed.
ReplyDelete