a journey through five years of Maundy Thursdays

Maundy Thursday 2016 - London, England

I slip into Westminster Abbey - late. Much too late to have a seat where I can see the celebrant and the speaker. I walk down the side of the ancient building - one of my favorite holy spaces in the world - and take a seat on a folding chair in Poets' Corner. 

A boys' choir sings through the service. Clergy kneel to wash twelve congregants' feet. I rejoice in my favorite line of the liturgy - "Lift up your hearts! We lift them to the Lord!"

Returning to my seat after receiving Eucharist, I step over the memorial flagstone for C.S. Lewis - "I believe in Christianity as I believe the sun has risen: not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else."

Suddenly I am in awe. I feel the weight of glory - the cloud of witnesses. A statue of Handel - who wrote his Messiah oratorio in a bare three weeks - looks down on the scene. William Wilberforce sits in a tucked-away corner. According to the plaque beneath his statue, he added "to high and various talents, to warm benevolence and universal candour . . . the abiding eloquence of a Christian life." 

It is not just the witness of these great men that overwhelms me. It is the witness of the hundreds upon hundreds of faithful believers commemorated in this space. It is the witness of the thousands upon thousands who have worshipped in this space every Maundy Thursday for more than seven hundred years. It is the witness of the millions upon millions of Christians gathering today to remember - to remember Our Lord Who knelt with a basin and towel, Who broke His body and shed His blood to heal us, Who remained faithful when we were faithless, Who is the source of our unity and strength. 

Maundy Thursday 2017 - Wheaton, IL

It is the start of Holy Week services at Church of the Resurrection in Wheaton. I see my friend Karis across the sanctuary and slide into the pew beside her. During the time for the foot washing, she washes my feet so tenderly. I wash hers. 

We receive communion for the final time before the cross is shrouded. I will spend many hours in this space between now and Resurrection Sunday, but for all the many services, there will be no communion until the declaration of His resurrection is made. 

I don't know it yet - though I suppose I have an inkling - that those few days will be life-altering. 

Maundy Thursday 2018 - Großgmain, Austria

I live in Munich, and my college roommates Angela and Bryn are spending Easter weekend with me and my parents in a tiny town split by the Austria/Germany border. 

We read excerpts from T.S. Eliot's "Little Gidding:"

What we call the beginning is often the end
And to make and end is to make a beginning.
The end is where we start from. 
[. . .]
We die with the dying:
See, they depart, and we go with them.
We are born with the dead:
See, they return, and bring us with them.
The moment of the rose and the moment of the yew-tree
Are of equal duration. A people without history
Is not redeemed from time, for history is a pattern
Of timeless moments. 
[. . .]

With the drawing of this Love and the voice of this Calling

We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time. 
[. . .]

Not known, because not looked for
But heard, half-heard, in the stillness
Between two waves of the sea.
Quick now, here, now, always--
A condition of complete simplicity
(Costing not less than everything)
And all shall be well and
All manner of thing shall be well
When the tongues of flames are in-folded
Into the crowned knot of fire
And the fire and the rose are one.

Maundy Thursday 2019 - Winnweiler, Germany

I am working my way through the Ignatian Exercises, part of which involves imaginatively exploring the gospel accounts. 

In the evening, there is laughing and banter, good conversation and good food. Jesus is a little subdued, but we barely notice. It is a night for celebrating. Someone asks, "Why do we keep this feast every year?"

A shouted response: "To remember how the Lord God led our ancestors out of Egypt with a mighty hand and outstretched arm and brought them to the Promised Land."

Simon the Zealot asks Jesus: "Lord, is the time soon coming when You will restore the Kingdom to Israel?"

There is a lull in the conversation - people waiting for Jesus' answer. My heart beats faster.

But Jesus seems not to have heard the question. He rises and leaves the room. 

There is a confused pause. The conversation slowly picks up again, people asking one another why He is in such a strange mood.

I notice Him come back in, a towel wrapped around His waist. He fills a basin with water, kneels down behind John, and starts washing his feet. John starts, but says nothing, going quiet and trying to take it in. I glance around the table. Most people haven't noticed anything amiss - conversation continues.

Jesus dries John's feet and moves to Peter. Peter startles violently at Jesus' touch, clattering against crockery and bringing all conversation to a halt. Jesus smiles and reaches again for Peter's foot. Peter pulls away.

"Lord! Do you wash my feet??"

Jesus sits back on the balls of His feet and looks at Peter. "What I am doing you do not understand now, but afterward you will understand."

"You shall never wash my feet!"

Jesus continues to gaze at Peter. "If I do not wash you, you have no share with Me."

Peter looks at Jesus, stupefied, jaw dropped. He does not resist again, but looks on in a daze. He has seen those hands heal the sick, multiply loaves, cast merchants from the temple, calm a storm. And now those hands are washing his filthy, callused feet.

As Jesus begins drying his feet, Peter blurts out: "Lord, not only my feet but also my hands and my head!"

Jesus smiles - oh, impetuous Peter. "The one who has bathed does not need to wash, except for his feet, but is completely clean. And you are clean, but not every one of you."

He moves on to Andrew.

I am next.

I look at Him as He began to wash my feet, hands tender and firm. The water is cool and refreshing after a long day of preparing and no time to sit down. I don't understand, but I feel His love and care - and also sorrow.

"Lord," I ask, "Who is going to wash Your feet?"

He looks at my face, but gives no answer.

After He finishes washing everyone's feet, He goes back to His seat. "Do you understand what I have done to you? You call me Teacher and Lord, and you are right, for so I am. If I then, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another's feet. For I have given you an example, that you also should do just as I have done to you. Truly, truly, I say to you, a servant is not greater than his master, nor is a messenger greater than the one who sent him. If you know these things, blessed are you if you do them."

I have been debating ever since it was my turn. Now I decide. As Jesus speaks, I get up as quietly as I can. I wrap the discarded towel around my waist, take up the basin, and kneel down behind Jesus. I take a deep breath, then I gently take His feet and start pouring water over them, spongeing them off. He turns toward me, and I am startled to see tears in His eyes. My own brim. 

Maundy Thursday 2020 - Montreat, NC - Church of the Resurrection, Wheaton, IL

Tonight I am in the guest room at my grandparents' house in Montreat, North Carolina. For the first time in three years, I join the Church of the Resurrection Maundy Thursday service - one silver lining of a pandemic is that I am able to worship with the Rez community even though I'm hundreds of miles away.

The service is bittersweet - as the bishop asked, "Who would have imagined a Maundy Thursday in which we cannot gather around the Table?"

And yet, I am reminded of the clouds of witnesses I felt so overwhelmingly four years ago in Westminster Abbey. I may be alone in this bedroom, but I am joining in community with over 400 people tuning in to this livestream, and with hundreds of thousands who are celebrating Maundy Thursday from the shelter of their own homes.

The longing for kingdom community is real - and it is a reminder that even we can gather together in churches, we are still waiting for the time when all things are made new and we feast at the wedding supper of the Lamb - with Jesus in His Kingdom.

But for now I ponder the words of the sermon-

He gives us provision in the wilderness.

He places us in a family.

He prepares for us a feast.

He plans for us a future. 

Jesus' suffering on the cross is so that His Father can be our Father. He places us in His family with His Father, because He knows the wildernesses we will walk through, and He gives us one another to wash each other's feet and love one another to the end. 

He gives us Himself. 

This is Jesus' Story. This is why He came. Jesus longs for the fulfillment of the Passover Feast in the Kingdom of God. 

He waits for us and He waits with us. 

"Let not your hearts be troubled. Believe in God; believe also in Me. In My Father's house are many rooms. . . And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also . . .Peace I leave with you; My peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid. . .This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. . . .I have said these things to you, that in Me you may have peace. In the world you will have trouble. But take heart; I have overcome the world" (John 14:1, 3, 27; 15:12; 16:33). 

We rehearse the story of Jesus, Who has overcome. 

Though we are quarantined, the Power of Jesus is not. The Holy Spirit is not on lockdown. We shelter at home, but we shelter under the wings of Jesus. 

We have been shaken, but we hold fast to a kingdom that is unshakeable.

***

Every night for three weeks I have read a poem on my instagram stories. Tonight's poem is "Judas, Peter," by Lucy Shaw.

because we are all
betrayers, taking
silver and eating
body and blood and asking
(guilty) is it I and hearing
him say yes
it would be simple for us all
to rush out
and hang ourselves
but if we find grace
to cry and wait
after the voice of morning
has crowed in our ears
clearly enough
to break our hearts
he will be there
to ask us each again
do you love me?