Every year I also have to remind myself again of the meaning of Maundy Thursday. It’s one of those “churchy words” that we use once a year, “Maundy,” but its significance …can always be lost in the previous year’s facts and figures.
“Maundy” means “commandment.” It comes from an old Latin word that sounds similar, “Mandatum” and we call tonight “Maundy Thursday” because we read the scripture reading from John’s gospel – in which Jesus gives his disciples “a new commandment.”
“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 that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”
This “new commandment” might not seem that “new”…or “improved” or “different.” It is kind of – what we might expect! Love!
“Wasn’t God all about love from the very beginning?”
But the love Jesus is “speaking” of here –“the love Jesus is showing here” isn’t your “ordinary love.” It is unique.
It’s a love that’s “never been seen before.” It is not brotherly/sisterly/fatherly/motherly – it is not “exciting or titillating love,” it’s not of the “emotional variety”…nothing “sappy, nothing syrupy, nothing all rhyme-y”…nothing of the “iambic pentameter variety.” It’s different!
It seems like the “Easter season” is especially a time for Hallmark cards, Easter bunnies, and nice hopeful spring sayings and tons of flowers…
“April showers bring May flowers” we say. Or , as Robin Williams once said, “Spring is nature’s way of saying, ‘Let’s par—tay!’”
So in spring we buy Peeps and pastel colored M&Ms, and — yes, the Easter Bunny arrives where Santa Clause left off at the Brookfield Square, or at the local Community Center in Oak Creek and kids pose for their annual pictures. (Kind of like with the live donkey!)
Spring sort of brings out – this festive spirit of pastels and play and “nice ditties.” But quite frankly this has nothing whatsoever to do with “the love” of which Jesus speaks…
“The type of love” Jesus is speaking of is “intense” and is not to be found written on a Hallmark card anywhere.
“Love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another.”
This is personal. This is direct. This purposeful.
John writes that “The devil had already put it into the heart of Judas son of Simon Iscariot to betray him.” That betrayal would soon lead to Jesus’ death on a cross. But Jesus washed the feet of each and every disciple, including Judas.
“The type of love” Jesus showed was in spite of, or perhaps, because of the devil in Judas. Judas either “wasn’t strong enough,” or the devil was “too strong for him,” but Jesus didn’t seem fazed a bit by any of it…
Jesus knew what was up, and he washed Judas’ feet anyways…of course, he did, because he was Jesus!
In Jesus’ time, no host would ever wash his guest’s feet. Washing feet was a “dirty-smelly-task, a-menial-task perhaps for a slave or a servant, but usually something you just had to do yourself.
If the host was nice, he’d set a bowl of water and towel out, but no “free person” would ever wash the feet of another “free person”…it, just wasn’t done! So-ooo- Jesus turns the table “upside down,” as per usual.
Jesus takes a towel and kneels down, washing dirty feet from the dusty roads, dirt, grime and dung of Palestine…
Jesus takes on “the task” of a slave or that of a servant showing weakness and vulnerability which really showed his strength beyond measure.
Love is like that. It’s measured not in power or prestige, but in acts of humility. So when Jesus commands his disciples to “love one another” as he has loved them, when Jesus commands “US” to love one another as he has loved US, the command is for “love on a new level,” a ‘higher level’…a love unknown before…a different kind of love…a love that serves…
It was the kind of love “that startles and surprises.” It is totally not expected. “It is a call for love “to show up” when no one might expect it.” It takes your breath away…And so, we are called, to love even–or “exactly when”–it might catch folks off their guard.
God didn’t send Jesus to die, God sent Jesus “to love.” And the very fact that Jesus “lived out this love” so well, got the authorities angry at him. Jesus showed the world “a different way to love,” “a different way to live.”
May our loving always bring surprise, delight and happiness to others…I pray it is so. Amen.