Day 44 - Thursday, April 9
MAUNDY THURSDAY
Hymn for Holy Thursday: Receive me today, Son of God, as a partaker of Your mystical Supper. I will not reveal Your mystery to Your adversaries. Neither will I give You a kiss as did Judas. But as the thief I confess to You: Lord, remember me in Your Kingdom.
Scripture: 1 Corinthians 11:23-32
For I received from the Lord that which I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus in the night in which He was betrayed took bread; and when He had given thanks, He broke it and said, “This is My body, which is for you; do this in remembrance of Me.” In the same way He took the cup also after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in My blood; do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of Me.” For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until He comes.

Poetry: 
The Last Supper
By Rainer Maria Rilke
Translated by Albert Ernest Flemming

They are assembled, astonished and disturbed
round him, who like a sage resolved his fate,
and now leaves those to whom he most belonged,
leaving and passing by them like a stranger.
The loneliness of old comes over him
which helped mature him for his deepest acts;
now will he once again walk through the olive grove,
and those who love him still will flee before his sight.

To this last supper he has summoned them,
and (like a shot that scatters birds from trees)
their hands draw back from reaching for the loaves
upon his word: they fly across to him;
they flutter, frightened, round the supper table
searching for an escape. But he is present
everywhere like an all-pervading twilight-hour. 

[On seeing Leonardo da Vinci's Last Supper, Milan 1904.]

MAUNDY THURSDAY

As we reflect on the Passion of Christ each year during this Lenten season, we are invited to imagine what it might have been like to walk with our Lord in his suffering, death, and resurrection. And on this particular Maundy Thursday, as we find ourselves in the midst of a global pandemic unlike any this generation has experienced, we don’t need to work hard to enter into the fear and confusion of the disciples that night. We don’t need to work hard to taste the all-encompassing brokenness of this world the way Jesus did. 

As he recounts for the Corinthian churches the events of Jesus’ Last Supper with his disciples, Paul specifically chooses language of betrayal, sorrow, and death to counter a kind of spiritual triumphalism that had developed among the Corinthian churches. This spiritual triumphalism resulted in divisive status-seeking behaviors that leaked into their practice of the Lord’s Supper. Some in the community fostered an elitist concern for the pleasure of their own meal eaten exclusively with their friends, resulting in excess and drunkenness. This left the late-arriving working-class with nothing - hungry and humiliated (11:17-22).

This horrific behavior, says Paul, is entirely counter to this meal’s meaning; Jesus’ last meal with the disciples was far from a drunken party with close friends. Let me remind you what it was like, says Paul. This meal happened on the night that Jesus was betrayed. The bread and wine foreshadow Jesus’ broken body and shed blood. When we eat this broken bread and drink the cup, we proclaim Jesus’ death until his return. This meal, says Paul, is shadowed by betrayal, sorrow, and death.

Fairouz’s sacred song “Wa Habibi” and Rilke’s “The Last Supper” echo Paul’s somber tone and capture the melancholy of that night on which Jesus was betrayed. On this present Maundy Thursday, it is not difficult to understand the fear and confusion of the disciples as they “flutter, frightened, round the supper table / searching for an escape.” As we collectively seek to “slow the spread” through social distancing, we are betrayed by our God-given need and desire to be personally present with each other in this moment of crisis. As we think of those essential workers who are attending to our communities’ basic needs of food, health and safety, the sorrow of Jesus in Gethsemane as he faces death for the sake of those he loves seems all the more real. The grief of lost jobs, ravaged livelihoods, overrun medical facilities and uncertainty of how it will all end makes the overwhelming sorrow of Jesus and grief of the disciples that night all the more present.

On this Maundy Thursday, we are invited to sit in the somber reality of that night. We are invited to allow the collective global grief of our own time to come to the surface. We are invited to name the loneliness and distress that gives us a taste of Jesus’ own passion. We are invited into these very present emotions because when we can name the betrayal, sorrow and death of this present moment and of that night so long ago, the rejoicing of Sunday’s Salvation will be all the more profound.

Prayer:
Lord Jesus, on the night when you were betrayed, fear, confusion, sorrow and death seemed to reign. And so they seem to reign for us today. Thank you for this taste of the grief you embodied that night so long ago, and for this understanding of the disciples’ confusion and fear as they watched you head toward the cross. Do not let us forget the horror you willingly entered that night. And even as we name the fear, confusion, sorrow and death of this present moment, remind us that in the end, Lord, your death brought life.
Amen 

Lisa Igram
Dean of Student Wellness
Biola University

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