Unless you grew up in a tradition that kept the prayers and celebrations of “holy week,” the days leading up to Easter may not have included a time of reflecting on Jesus’ last supper with His friends before His crucifixion. Well, that is what today, Maundy Thursday, marks. The label comes from the shortened Latin word “mandatum,” which means “command” and is the root of our word “mandate.”
On the night before Jesus died, He gathered his apprentices and friends together, giving them a mandate, “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you…By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” (Jn. 13:34-35)
It was at this same meal that Jesus gave the disciples our regular practice of remembering His love for us in the earthy elements of broken bread and poured out wine (Lk. 22:19-20), and the often overshadowed example of His love in the washing of the disciples’ feet (Jn. 13:2-17). An “example,” Jesus says, “that you also should do just as I have done to you.” Both of which he offers even to those who betray him and abandon him.
Here at His final meal before His love is ultimately demonstrated, he not only mandatums a love like His but also gives us all we need never to forget how He loves us. May these words from Malcolm Guite help us remember and respond to Jesus’ mandate on Maundy Thursday and all the days to come.
Here is the source of every sacrament,
The all-transforming presence of the Lord,
Replenishing our every element,
Remaking us in his creative Word.
For here the earth herself gives bread and wine,
The air delights to bear his Spirit’s speech,
The fire dances where the candles shine,
The water cleanses us with his gentle touch.
And here he shows the full extent of love
To us whose love is always incomplete,
In vain we search the heavens high above,
The God of love is kneeling at our feet.
Though we betray him, though it is the night,
He meets us here and loves us into light.