Maundy Thursday For What?

Church Family:
Today is the Thursday of Holy Week, it is known as Maundy Thursday. The term maundy comes from the Latin root mandatum, or commandment, from 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.”  This commandment was given by the Lord on the Thursday before his crucifixion when He was teaching the disciples to observe the first Communion. So Maundy Thursday is the “Thursday of the Commandment.”

At this first celebration of Communion, Jesus gave His disciples “a new command,” that they should love and serve each other. To demonstrate what Jesus meant, He picked up a basin of water and a towel and washed the disciple's feet teaching them the eternal sacrificial love that God has for His people. When Jesus humbly washes His disciples feet He lowers Himself into the position of a lowly slave, He served them like a slave washing the disciples’ feet like a slave would because ultimately He was preparing to die the death of a slave (John 13:1-20; Phil. 2:5-8).

On Maundy Thursday the Creator of the universe humbled Himself bending down to His knees to wash the dirt off of His disciples feet. Jeus is declaring that the God-Man came to serve, not to be served and to be a ransom for us (Mat. 20:28). Jesus was showing His disciples that He has come to wash them clean from all of their sin. The Son of God willingly came to earth as a lowly slave, to serve us, to be crushed for us, and to cleanse us from the sin and slavery that leads to eternal death.

The disciples would not fully understand why Jesus washed their feet until the following days after the crucifixion, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ. As they were talking with the resurrected Christ they looked back and understood Maundy Thursday as an act of deep humility in the light of the cross that brought us a sufficient and eternal cleansing from all of our sin.

Church, dwell on this great love! “Having loved his own who were in the world, He loved them to the end” (John 13:1). “He laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers” This is the commandment of Maundy Thursday.

Loving you as Jesus has loved me: Steve