Maundy Thursday (Holy Thursday)

As on Palm Sunday, the preacher has choices on Maundy Thursday. There is the servant leadership on display in the foot washing, the mandate to love one another following Christ’s example, and the all-important institution of the Lord’s Supper. But the preacher will also find a helpful application in an oft-neglected tradition of expounding the Exodus reading on the Passover, (the pasch) and how Jesus fulfills it even now in his church.

Like the Israelites, the church has gathered together for Holy Week. Our lamb is Christ the Lamb of God, a male without blemish (as Jesus was sinless). In the Eucharist, his perfect once-for-all sacrifice is mysteriously made present, and his flesh and blood nourish those gathered in the sacramental bread and wine. In this way we come “under the doorpost”� of the lamb’s blood, and death passes us over. But we are also to eat this Eucharistic meal with our loins girded, our shoes on our feet, supplied for action, since we are not supposed to rest in this world but with the Lord at the end of all things.

The church is not a sedentary institution, but the embodiment of God’s Spirit which is always on the move to convict the proud, to bless the needy, and to act as guides—with staffs in hand!—to show the way to salvation.