The great climax of Holy Week begins with our Lord’s celebration of the Last Supper, which St. Paul introduces by writing, ‘On the night he was betrayed'. We tend to lose something of the sense of continuity between the Last Supper and the Crucifixion because we have a night’s sleep between Maundy Thursday and Good Friday. For Jesus, however, there was no night’s sleep. The train of action which followed from his last meal led directly to Gethsemane, his betrayal and arrest, the desertion of his disciples, trial by night before the Sanhedrin, his handing over to the Romans, his passion and death. There is no more appropriate night of the year than this on which to ‘watch and pray’, as commanded by Jesus to his disciples.
It is no coincidence that the Last Supper occurred at the season of the Passover. This is the festival at which the Jews remember how the Lord delivered them from slavery in Egypt by commanding them to mark their doorposts with the blood of a lamb, in order that the angel of death should ‘pass over’ their homes. Jesus himself drew upon this imagery to explain his own death. John the Baptist describes him as ‘The Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world’, prompting St Paul to write, ‘Christ our Passover has been sacrificed for us, so let us celebrate the feast’ (1 Corinthians 5:7-8). Hence the Last Supper has become the event by which we remember the sacrifice of Christ, taking bread and wine, as He commanded and sharing them, ‘in remembrance of me’. We continue to share these tokens of His body and blood, as a foretaste of ultimate glory.
So the Last Supper and Good Friday are not separate events, but are better thought of as two parts of the same event: one leads directly to the other. The first provides the background which helps us to understand the meaning of Christ’s death, the second is the most solemn event in the Christian calendar, without which there would be no forgiveness, no salvation, no hope for the future.
The title ‘Maundy’ comes from our Lord’s teaching at the Last Supper, as described in John’s Gospel, chapter 13. It is derived from the Latin word, Mandatum, which means commandment. Before He washes His disciples’ feet, Jesus says, ‘A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another as I have loved you.’ From the earliest Christian centuries, it became a custom amongst priests to wash the feet of twelve poor men on this day. Gradually, the giving of money, food and clothes was added to the rite. In recent years, one Bishop – the Bishop of Peterborough – even spent the afternoon sitting in the High Street polishing the shoes of passers-by. In Medieval England, even the monarch shared in this foot-washing ceremony. Since then, a gift of money has been added to the ceremony, and since 1992, the monarch in person has attended the Maundy ceremony to make these gifts. From the start of her reign, Queen Elizabeth II determined that the annual Maundy Service should travel around the country, visiting a different Cathedral each year. Today, King Charles III was in York for the ceremony. In 1998, I was honoured to be able to present an elderly parishioner from my parish to the queen in Portsmouth Cathedral, to receive his Maundy Money.
Living God,
your Son made himself known to his disciples
in the breaking of bread:
open the eyes of our faith,
that we may see him in all his redeeming work;
who is alive and reigns, now and for ever. Amen.
(The Church of England)
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