Dear Cornerstone Family,
Today marks the beginning of the high holy days of the church calendar. For this year’s Holy Week, we will gather twice leading up to Easter morn. First, we will gather on Thursday evening for a Maundy Thursday Communion Service and again the next evening for a Good Friday Service. It’s long been our custom to gather on Good Friday, but for the first time in our history, we will gather on Maundy Thursday, too. Since this is something new for us, it’s worth asking, “What is the significance of Maundy Thursday?”
Over the centuries, the church has set aside time on the Thursday before Easter to reflect on events that take place at the last supper Jesus shares with His disciples. Aside from certain common themes and the celebration of communion, it is traditional during a Maundy Thursday service for the Communion Table to be stripped—that is, the removal of communion vessels and fine linens from the sanctuary to indicate the end of feasting and the coming suffering of Jesus Christ. Said differently, as Jesus’s life is being stripped away—betrayal, arrest, trial, beating and crucifixion—the Lord’s Table is stripped of the comfort and life symbolized in the communion elements. During our Maundy Thursday service this year, we will practice the stripping of the table, reminding ourselves of the sorrow and loss that marked Jesus’s final hours of life.
The word “maundy” is an abbreviated form of the Latin word mandatum from where we get the English word mandate. It refers to Jesus’s words in John 13:34, “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another.” You’ll probably recall that previous to issuing this command, Jesus laid aside his outer garments, wrapped himself in a towel, filled a basin with water and washed his disciples’ feet. It was a job reserved for the lowest ranking bondservant, but Jesus, the Son of God, willingly became a servant to the disciples, giving them a powerful demonstration of his love and an enduring example to follow.
Moreover, in that humble act of service, Jesus prefigured what he was going to do on the very next night. For on Good Friday, Jesus would take the lowest place of all. He would absorb the wrath of His Father toward sin—our sin—on the cross. His love for us was so great that he would stand condemned on our behalf in order that we might be made righteous. He would be our servant on the cross, so we could be made the children of God. He would take our dirty, stench-of-death souls and make them clean, washed in the blood of the Lamb.
Just writing those words, my heart soars! Truly, I can’t wait to gather with you on Thursday and Friday this week in anticipation of Easter Sunday! If you haven’t already, please register for these special services. Let’s whole heartedly enter into Holy Week as we collectively offer a sacrifice of praise to God for the gift of the Savior.
Your servant,
