Maundy Thursday always feels special. It is a night that focuses on the Lord’s table, a towel and a basin. A night of bread broken and hearts breaking as Jesus’ disciples prepare to farewell him and news that one among them is about to betray him. A night when Jesus gathers with His students, disciples, friends, for what looks like an ordinary meal, but becomes the promise of his presence and salvation after he is gone. It is the night when Jesus leaves his disciples with a new commandment. A new commandment I give you: that you love one another as I have loved you. This certainly is different to the answer given to what is the greatest commandment – to love God with all your heart and to love your neighbour as yourself. Jesus now becomes the benchmark for love rather than ourselves.
It’s important that Jesus gives this command not at the beginning of His ministry, but at the end as they are about to witness what his love looks like as he lays down his life for us. He gives this command to love not when the disciples are at their best, but when they are confused, fearful, and about to fail Him. Jesus commands love in the very moment when love is hardest. Jesus shows tonight that love is not an emotion but an action. Before Jesus speaks a word, He acts. He takes off His outer robe, wraps a towel around His waist, and kneels to wash the disciples’ feet. It is such an upside-down moment.
This Servant King, who flung stars into space now scrubs dust from between toes. The One whom the wind and the waves obey pours water into a basin and fulfils Paul’s proclamation in Philippians 2 – he came to serve not to be served.
Peter is still learning what it means to “love as I have loved you” and resists. He cannot imagine a Messiah who kneels.
And like his earlier statement when Jesus explains his arrest and death – never Lord – this will never happen to you – still proclaims – you will never wash my feet. But Jesus insists: Unless I wash you, you have no share with me. This is the heart of Maundy Thursday: Jesus does not save us from above in Heaven, he saves us from below with us. That was the angels promise – he shall be called “Immanuel” God with us. He kneels. He serves. He stoops to the lowest place showing that no one is too low for God to reach.”
Then Jesus takes bread. Ordinary bread like we are using tonight. And He says words that have echoed through centuries: This is my body, given for you. He takes a cup—simple, shared—and says, This is my blood, shed for you. The disciples do not understand. No one could. But in this simple, yet Holy act, Jesus is giving them a way to hold onto Him when everything else falls apart. He is giving them a meal that will carry them through betrayal, denial, fear, and grief. Showing that even though they will all abandon him at his greatest time of need that he “is with us” always. A meal that has and will carry the Church through centuries. A meal that carries us as it has carried Christians throughout the centuries through persecutions, dark ages and falling away.
In Holy Communion, Jesus gives Himself not as an idea, not as a memory, not as a representation but as his true body and blood – his real presence. Love comes through Grace as God becomes present. What makes this night even more astonishing is who is at the table. Judas the betrayer is there. Peter the denier is there. The others who will scatter are there. Jesus washes the feet of the one who will betray Him. He feeds the one who will deny Him. He blesses the ones who will abandon Him. If you ever wonder whether God’s love has limits, Maundy Thursday answers that question. Jesus loves to the end. He loves without condition. He loves knowing exactly who we are. And this is the benchmark he has left us.
A new commandment I give unto you – love one another as I have loved you. Not “love one another when it is convenient.”
Not “love one another when they deserve it.” Not “love one another when you feel like it.” As I have loved you. This is not sentimental love. It’s a love that costs. Even when the path leads to suffering. Even when the cost is everything including death On this night, we are invited to the table again. We come with our doubts, our failures, our fears—just like the disciples. And Jesus meets us with towel, basin, bread, and cup. He kneels before us. He feeds us. He forgives us.
He commands us. He loves us to the end. And now He sends us out—not into comfort, but into the night of the world—to love one another as he has loved us so that everyone will know that we are his disciples.
