April 18: Maundy Thursday: Passover and Preparation
♫ Music:
Thursday, April 18
Christ, the Paschal Lamb
MAUNDY THURSDAY
Scriptures: Exodus 12:5-7, 13, I Peter 1:18-21, I Corinthians 5:7-8
Your lamb shall be without blemish, a male a year old. You may take it from the sheep or from the goats, and you shall keep it until the fourteenth day of this month, when the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel shall kill their lambs at twilight. Then they shall take some of the blood and put it on the two doorposts and the lintel of the houses in which they eat it. The blood shall be a sign for you, on the houses where you are. And when I see the blood, I will pass over you, and no plague will befall you to destroy you, when I strike the land of Egypt.
Knowing that you were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your forefathers, not with perishable things such as silver or gold, but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot. He was foreknown before the foundation of the world but was made manifest in the last times for the sake of you who through him are believers in God, [Therefore] cleanse out the old leaven that you may be a new lump, as you really are unleavened. For Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed. Let us therefore celebrate the festival, not with the old leaven, the leaven of malice and evil, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.
Poetry:
From “Holy Week: Illuminations”
by Lisa Russ Spaar
Thursday
Black strokes of branchwork, each hung
with a hundred half-moon, pendant drops
of rain that seem to open up the background’s
muted blur of henna, dun and olive
right into the natal light of heaven itself.
Is Paradise behind all things?
If such a pearl were at your ear, your nostril,
anywhere, I’d close my mouth around it.
Impossibly these globes depend, held this day
twixt heaven and earth, and yet tending ever
groundward, heavy and conditional
and pregnant with their own rising.
I press then into my palms--wet hands I’ll open,
hieratic tablets, at your priestly feet.
MAUNDY THURSDAY: PASSOVER AND PREPARATION
“Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.”
It is the night of Passover and our Lord is with his disciples. As they prepare to enter into the familiar rhythms of remembering the suffering of Israel and God’s faithfulness to his people, the twelve, I imagine, are full of questions.
Even if they were unfazed by their Teacher’s uncanny ability to foreknow the place they were to share a meal, an instance not unlike other miracles they’ve witnessed, they are surely unusually conscious of their feet — washed by the One who has cast out demons, healed lepers, brought the dead to life. They are bewildered by the urgency of his teachings. They are troubled by his assertion that he will be betrayed by someone around the table. But the questions are only going to multiply.
Jesus gives thanks. When he next speaks, it is not of history, not of plagues and blood on doorposts, not of the passing over of God and the freedom of Israel. No. Instead, he speaks of his body as bread, his blood as wine. Broken. Poured out.
For he is the unblemished Passover Lamb that saves God’s people. His is the blood of the covenant. He will bring freedom not from the tyranny of a man, but the tyranny of sin and death. He is a better Moses, a better High Priest, a better Sacrifice, a better Israel, a better Adam. His Promised Land will be eternal. But for the disciples, the larger story is obscured by the growing conviction that something is terribly wrong. Their Teacher is going where they cannot follow — not yet.
Judas dips his bread and slinks into the darkness. Peter makes hasty promises in belligerence; Jesus answers with knowing correction. The time has come for the eleven to leave the table and follow their Lord to the Garden of Gethsemane, but this will be no mountain-top revelation of blinding glory. Jesus is desperate to pray. He is distressed. He is troubled. He is sorrowful, even to death. Nearby, his closest friends lie asleep; for the spirit is indeed willing, but the flesh is weak. Three times Jesus pleads, and three times the answer is the same: the cup will not be removed. And so the crowd comes with swords and clubs, and Judas bestows a lethal kiss.
It is a night of meaning and confusion, community and isolation, hope and dread. It is a night of paradoxes. “Let the Scriptures be fulfilled.” The world holds its breath and heaven comes close, knowing the time to mourn is near.
Shepherd, Lamb. Lord, Servant. Priest, Sacrifice.
The Eternal One prepares to die.
“Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.”
Prayer:
Jesus,
Through the power of your grace, teach us to join you in communion and in the agony of waiting. Keep us awake and watchful, attentive to your work. Lead us into sacrificial obedience and prepare us to follow you in the Way of the Cross.
Amen.
Hannah Williamson
Biola and Torrey Alum
Class of 2018
Copywriter
About the Art:
I Have the Perfect Lamb Lord, 2015
Mary Jane Q Cross
Oil on panel (finger painting)
71.12 x 55.88 cm | 28 x 22 in
Mary Jane Q. Cross says of this work: “Purity is a singular perfection, as in a Passover lamb. My eight-year-old model had just learned that although newborn lambs are not named (since they might come to the dinner table) they are prayed over and blessed. With resolve and a bit of secrecy she said, under her breath, "But I am going to name this one Heidi." With this tender moment we began the photo shoot - words of life and death hanging in the air around us. Days of painting progressed well [and] there was a reverent seriousness in her, as she brought something to the composition I had not expected but recognized as uniquely her. As this work unfolded another theme was added as I painted through nights of tears and prayers for a dear friend and art collector who was dying. Portrait painter John Singer Sargent's quote on his tombstone is written, 'To Paint is to Pray.' In our family of painters, it is the not so silent Spirit of God that weaves the fabric of our paintings and poems and that will outlive us in our art."
About the Artist:
Mary Jane Q Cross (b. 1951) paints with her fingers, something that became necessary after developing a tremor that made brushwork difficult. All of her paintings are 95 to 98% painted with her fingers. The remaining 2 to 5 % is refined in small strategic places with a brush, but using prosthetic devices, of her own invention and adaptation. She received formal training at The Worcester Art Museum School in the early 1970’s where she says she was a closet realist in a time of expressionism. But she says, “Out of necessity since losing so much of my ability to do brushwork, I have explored the more impressionist styles. And the resultant dreamy quality of the two styles has melded into a voice that is my own…In my oil paintings I am most looking to achieve respect for the truth of a subject, that lets my work find meaning for others. If this is done with close attention, with academic craftsmanship that achieves a spirited and self-assured vigorous presentment, I feel I am creating something I have not seen before… Solitary painting for me is a tangible form of reverence and love for the blessings of the Creator. When I consider my God’s artistic creation, it turns me in on myself, first to a place of tangible emotion, then to a place of prayer, respect, and contemplative reflection. And, finally, I am in a place of a sifting through the thoughts that come forth as fingerprints of His good pleasure on my life.”
About the Music:
“Christus Paradox” (“You, Lord, Are Both Lamb and Shepherd”)
Lyrics:
You, Lord, are both Lamb and Shepherd.
You, Lord, are both prince and slave.
You, peace-maker and sword-bringer
of the way you took and gave.
You, the everlasting instant;
you, whom we both scorn and crave.
About the Composer:
Traditional French carol entitled "Picardy" arranged by Alfred V. Fedak
Alfred V. Fedak (b. 1953) is Minister of Music and Arts at Westminster Presbyterian Church in Albany, New York. He holds degrees in Organ and Music History from Hope College and Montclair State University, and has done additional study at Westminster Choir College. The winner of many honors and awards in organ performance and composition, Mr. Fedak has published nearly 200 individual works for organ and voices, which appear in the catalogs of a dozen publishers. His hymn tunes appear in hymnals and collections throughout the US, Canada, UK, and Japan, and two collections of his hymns have been published by Selah Publishing Company.
About the Lyricist:
Sylvia Dunstan (1955-1993) attributes her love of song to her grandparents, who kept music alive in the family and entrusted Sylvia's formal musical education to a nun at the local convent. In the early 1970s, Sylvia began writing songs. It was Sister Miriam Theresa Winter who encouraged her to write songs based on Scripture. Sylvia eventually realized that her talents did not lay with musical composition but instead with the lyrics. "Congregational resistance to unfamiliar tunes led me to use the hymn book tunes as the vehicle for the texts," she explained. Her bachelor degree was earned from York University, and she received graduate degrees in theology and divinity from Emmanuel College, Toronto. During her career, she served as a minister, a prison chaplain, and editor of a Canadian worship resource journal, Gathering. She left behind a ministry that combined a compassionate concern for the needy and distraught with a consuming love of liturgy.
About the Performers:
Calvin College Campus Choir, John Witvliet conducting
Supported by both the Calvin Institute of Christian Worship and the Music Department, the Calvin College Campus Choir performs at the annual Calvin Music Festival, gives a Lessons and Carols Advent service, and presents a concert in the chapel each April. Founded in 1974, the choir represents not just music majors, but all classes and majors of Calvin students. In 1997, John D. Witvliet was appointed director of the Calvin Institute of Christian Worship and the Campus Choir. "My goal," said Witvliet, "is to build on the strength of the Calvin's choral tradition, and to focus our energy on exploring music that Christians use in public worship in many cultures and throughout the history of the church."
About the Poet:
Lisa Russ Spaar (b. 1956) received a BA from the University of Virginia in 1978 and an MFA in 1982. She is the author of several poetry collections, including Orexia (2017), Vanitas, Rough (2012), and Glass Town (1999). The Boston Review notes, “Lisa Russ Spaar’s intensely lyrical language—baroque, incantatory, provocative—enables her to reinvigorate perennial subject matter: desire, pursuit, and absence; intoxication and ecstasy; the transience of earthly experience; the uncertainties of god and grave; the dialectic between fertility and mortality.” She is also the author of The Hide-and-Seek Muse: Annotations of Contemporary Poetry (2013), a collection of poetry history and criticism, and she was a 2014 finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Citation for Excellence in Reviewing. She has edited multiple poetry anthologies, including Monticello in Mind: Fifty Contemporary Poets on Jefferson (2016). Spaar has received a Guggenheim Fellowship, the Library of Virginia Award for Poetry, and a Rona Jaffe Award, among other honors and awards. She is a professor of English and Creative Writing at the University of Virginia.
About the Devotional Writer:
Hannah Williamson is a recent alumna of Biola University and the Torrey Honors Institute. Currently, she works as Biola’s Admissions Marketing Copywriter, writing to give prospective students a glimpse of the university she has come to love.