Jesus Washes His Disciples' Feet

A Reflection on Maundy Thursday

Welcome to Holy Week. We are in the middle of the most liturgically intense and liturgically beautiful and liturgically rich week of the Christian Calendar. Holy Week started this past Sunday on Palm Sunday. Holy Week may be new for some of you. Holy Week is a full week in which we walk the path of Jesus’ last days, from his triumphal entry, to his last night with his disciples, to his execution, and ultimately to his resurrection.

Tonight we enter into the Triduum: the three days. The Triduum is a three day story. It starts tonight, continues with Good Friday, Holy Saturday, and crescendos with the Resurrection (through an Easter Vigil late Saturday night, or an Easter service on Sunday morning).

This Triduum is not three separate services. Instead, what you’ll see as we journey together through the Triduum is that it is one service that continues. There is no dismissal tonight. There is no opening acclamation of gathering tomorrow at the Good Friday service. Instead, we pick right up where we left off the day before. The Triduum is immersive, it’s intense, and it’s communal.

Every Sunday when we celebrate communion, we tell a story that starts: “on the night that Jesus was betrayed…” Today is Maundy Thursday. Maundy Thursday is the day that we immerse ourselves in the story of those seven words: “On the night that Jesus was betrayed.” In our New Testament readings, we see that, on this night that he was betrayed, Jesus invited his disciples to participate in two significant practices: the Lord’s Supper and Footwashing.

Readings For Maundy Thursday:

Exodus 12:1-14

Psalm 78:15-26

1 Corinthians 11:23-26

John 13:1-15