Holy Week: Maundy Thursday
Maundy Thursday holds so many implications for modern Christianity. Today we honor The Last Supper. Today we honor the establishment of Holy Communion. Today we honor the day Jesus revealed who would betray him in the coming hours after that final meal before Jesus died.
The Last Supper took place on the first day of Passover, also called the Feast of Unleavened Bread. So already, this situation is stuffed with symbolism (unlike the bread, see: unleavened).
Passover was a celebration of the Lord delivering the Hebrew people from their Egyptian slavery. There were plagues God sent to Egypt because Pharaoh wouldn’t let God’s people go. And Pharaoh kept pulling a bait and switch - “Okay, you can go... oh wait, never mind.” And despite the bloody Nile, the frogs, the warts, the fire, there was nothing God sent that would soften Pharaoh’s hardened heart. So God sent the last plague, and this one was a big one. For the homes that weren’t covered with blood from the unspotted lamb sacrificed for the lives of the Hebrews, the first born son would be killed by God.
At The Last Supper, the Bread of Life “took bread, and after blessing it broke it, and gave it to the disciples, and said, ‘Take, eat; this is my body.’ And he took a cup, and when he had given thanks he gave it to them, saying, ‘Drink of it, all of you, for this is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins,” (Matthew 26:26-28).
Jesus was the unspotted lamb whose body was broken, and whose blood was poured out and then painted over the door posts of our soul to protect us from the destruction of God’s wrath. And whenever we take communion, we are remembering this Last Supper Jesus shared with his disciples. We are remembering how God the Son’s body was broken and given up and how his blood was poured out as a new covenant made with many for the forgiveness of sins.
It was after this final plague that Pharaoh released the Hebrew people to their freedom (until, of course, he decided that was a bad idea and got his soldiers together and tracked them down, God split the sea, the Hebrews passed through safely, and God crashed the waters on top of the Egyptian soldiers.
It was after the death of Christ, his trip to Hell to redeem us, and being raised to life showing that the saving work was done. We are alive because he is alive. We are resurrected because while we were still sinners, Jesus Christ died for us, the unspotted lamb, the sinless one, the only propitiation for our sins that would satisfy the cost of our depravity.
Praise be to God, for He is great! He has saved us from our sin. May we be aware of the deep gravity of The Last Supper each time we take communion.
