The most common question I get asked during Holy Week is about this night, the Thursday before Easter. People get Palm Sunday, and Good Friday, and Easter, but tonight, Maundy Thursday, is unclear. And the one thing people want to know the most, is this: What does "Maundy" mean?
It's a good question. Who uses the term "maundy" in their daily life? For those on the outside of the church, and even for those of us inside, it might just sound like a church service where we know we should want to go to it, but we have no idea why.
But before I talk about what the word means, I want to go back to that story we read from the Gospel. In it Jesus has gone to Jerusalem for the Passover. He's gathered his 12 disciples there at the table. And he knows what is going to happen. He knows that by the end of the night one of them will betray him to the authorities. One will deny him three times. And all of them will leave him alone in his hour of greatest pain.
And yet, there he is. Breaking the bread and pouring the cup. Eating with them. Blessing them. Getting down on his knees and washing their feet, showing them his love and grace and compassion, in a time when we might have better understood his wrath or anger.
In a world where we are often surrounded by messages of retaliation, or vengeance, or an eye for an eye cries for justice, it's a different message. Jesus had done nothing wrong. He'd lived a life of nonviolence, he'd healed the sick, raised the dead and freed the captives. He'd brought hope and life to those who needed it the most.
And in the end, he knew that he was not about to be thanked. He was about to be killed. Because in the end, the goodness and the kindness and the compassion he had brought were more of a threat to the Roman authorities, and clergy of his day, than any weapon or any army. He so radically upset the status quo that they decided their only choice was to kill him.
The night before, he wasn't running away. He wasn't preparing for a battle. He wasn't plotting his revenge. Instead, he was with the ones he loved most. The ones who loved him, but who weren't perfect. The ones who knew who he was, and what he had done, and who would be the witnesses to his life after he was gone.
And that's where that word "maundy" comes in. Because what do you do if you're Jesus? What do you do if you know you are not going to be around much longer, and you have to tell the people you love the most, the ones who followed you, the ones who sometimes make big mistakes, how to keep moving in the right direction after you're gone?
The word "maundy" comes from a Latin word: mandatum. And mandatum means "mandate" or a "commandment". And when we talk about "Maundy Thursday" we're talking about "mandate Thursday." We're talking about the night that Christ told his disciples exactly what he expected of them.
And if you read a book or watch a movie about almost anyone else, you might think the lead character right about now would be saying something like "avenge my death" or "make sure there's payback" or "don't let them get away with this ... strike back."
But this isn't any other story. This is a story that turns everything on its head. The mandate, the mandatory thing Jesus tells us to do in this passage is this:
"I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another."
It probably wouldn't do well at the box office. It wouldn't get Nielsen ratings. The story wouldn't soar to the top of the New York Times best-sellers list today. But it's a story that transcends all of those things. Because it's the beginning of a story about what happens when the world does its worst through violence and hatred and fear, and yet love wins anyway. It's a story of love that was rejected and buried, and yet was still too strong to stay in the ground.
It's not my job to rename Christian holy days. But if it were, I might change the name of Maundy Thursday. I might change it from this word that none of us really know anymore to something we would all understand. Something like "Love One Another Thursday" or "The Last Thing Christ Really Wanted Us to Know Thursday."
Because this is a message we Christians all need to hear. We don't need to hide it behind fancy terms. We don't need to just check it off as another night in holy week. We need to hear that this is how Christ said other people would know us: by how we love one another.
Maybe it would help us remember. Maybe it would help us remember not just what this night is about, but maybe it would help us remember what it means to be Christians. And maybe if we always had that reminder, if we always had that commandment to love in the front of our head, Christ's dream for us would come true.
Maybe we wouldn't be known as Christ's disciples by the fact we put a Christian fish sticker on our car. Or wore a cross around our necks. Maybe we wouldn't be know by what we said about what we believed. Maybe we wouldn't be known by our what we voted for, or against. Maybe we wouldn't be known by the anger some Christians express on the evening news, or the mean-spiritedness others show in their day-to-day lives. Maybe instead we would just be known by the one thing Christ wanted us to be known for: by how we love.
In a few minutes we will be celebrating Communion together, and you'll hear me repeat the words of institution, the phrases we are told Christ used as he broke bread and gave it to his disciples for the first time, on this same night many years ago. I'll say to you that "on the night Christ was betrayed he took bread, and blessed it, and gave it to his disciples."
You hear that all the time here, and if you are like me, you are uplifted by it.
But what if you heard this just as often too? "On the night Christ was betrayed he turned to his disciples and said, 'I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.'"
We don't say that often in service. Not in so many words. But I think we try to say it in the breaking of the bread and the sharing of the cup. It's no coincidence Christ said these things on the night of his last supper, but we sometimes forget the say the words.
This year, let's not forget. Between this Maundy Thursday and the one next year, let's not forget what the mandate is. It's so simple, and yet it demands our whole lives and our whole attentions. But here in the church, we can give Christ nothing less. Tonight, as we eat this bread and drink this cup, as simple as it seems on the outside, know that we are choosing no less than to feast upon Christ's love for us, and to bring that feast out to others. If every Christian would do that, no one would ever have to ask us who we follow. By our love, they would already know. Amen.