Having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end. We have come this evening to our Maundy Thursday worship service. Tonight, as you just heard, we focus on events recorded for us in the 13th chapter of John. I pray that the Holy Spirit would enlighten us as we consider this important part of God's Word tonight! John , N. Jesus' public teaching has been completed, and now Jesus prepares his disciples for what is to come. In chapter 13, as I say, we come to the second half of John's gospel, and, for the next five chapters, all of us, not just Jesus' disciples, are prepared for Jesus' crucifixion, His resurrection, and His ascension to heaven. Jesus loved, not just His disciples, but the whole world, to the fullest extent, as much as he could v. He loved, as we will see in a moment, despite betrayal and the power of darkness. His goal was to prepare His disciples to continue on without him after he died, was raised, and ascended into heaven.
Eyes on Jesus: More Than Meets The Eye
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The word Maundy means Commandment. He shows them how to be incarnate agents of grace—how to dignify people by washing their feet, feeding them, and telling them stories. On a symbolic level, everyone loves this theme.
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The night in which He was betrayed. What the church calls Maundy Thursday, or Thursday of the Mandate. A mandate is a lasting rule, to be observed until it is fulfilled. God had given Israel a mandate when they were still in captivity in Egypt. This mandate was connected to the 10th plague, the plague that finally caused Pharaoh to let Israel go. This mandate was an interesting one. We just read it a moment ago. Did you notice just how specific the instructions from God were. This was a life and death situation, and the Israelites had to follow these instructions to the letter in order to protect their firstborn from death. The perfect one year old male lamb or goat, was to be slaughtered at dusk, and the blood painted on the top and sides of the door frames of the houses of Israel.
Maundy Thursday is the day on which we remember Jesus and his disciples having a meal together, the meal they ate together on the night of his arrest and trial, the night before his crucifixion — the last meal they ate together, the Last Supper as we have come to call it. During the meal, Jesus took some bread and gave it a name — his body — and took some wine and gave it a name too — his blood — and he gave the bread and wine to his disciples and told them that he was giving his life so that they could have life; he told them to take his life into their lives so that he would live in them and they would know true life. This giving of the bread and wine is what we now to call Communion. And that is what we are to do on Maundy Thursday: remember that night long ago, and remember him. Even as a church we sometimes forget him — in the midst of all the busyness and meetings and goings on we can forget that finally the only reason the church is here is Christ and that what we are to be is him, Christ one to the other. And the place to begin, I think, is with trying to picture the room in which Jesus and his closest followers gathered.
