Maundy Thursday is remember for the "Last Supper" meeting with the disciples with the footwashing, the foreshadowing of Judas betrayal and the movement into Gethsemane.
We had a traditional Seder supper which is described here. Seder means order and it was an instructional meal, remembering the Jewish passover – "death passing over the Jewish firstborns and striking the Egyptians and the Jewish people passing over from slavery to freedom."
We started with hand washing moved to wine and the other foods – the bitter greens representing slavery in Egypt, the unblemished lamb, unleavened bread, fruit and nuts for the charoset, wine, and all the spices and ingredients to prepare the special feast. Charoset was s made from dried fruit because the harvest of fresh fruit months away. Charoset came to symbolize the mortar used by the Israel when they were slaves.
The feast doubled as a classroom. Teaching the children about the exodus from Egypt was an essential aspect of the feast (Exodus 12:26). Children were encouraged to ask questions about the meal and what it meant. On that special night, the entire family ate, drank, asked questions, heard stories about their history and heritage and celebrated
We took all of that in plus afterwards we had special dishes – a wonderful fish dish by Andrea and other dishes – mushroom, rice
The seder was about sacrifice -the sacrifice of a lamb in Exodus which is part of the covenant relationship and smearing the blood on homes, marking their homes to be "passed over" and the sacrifice of Jesus as the paschal lamb and bringing forth of the new covenant in the New Testament.
The sermon alluded to this death and sacrifice but moved on to our covenant relationship. (The readings are here. The bulletin is here).
"Every time we receive the bread and wine, we remember—we are in a covenant relationship with God, who loves us so much that God would live and die as one of us. That God would experience betrayal, death, and burial because God is in covenant with us! —even when we are at our worst and most rotten—is nothing short of a miracle… Jesus, in covenant with his disciples, wants to leave them with a reminder of how they are to be in covenant, not only with him, but with one another after he has left them—because they are the ones who will become, as Fred Craddock puts it, “not merely ‘nice people,’ but agents of God’s love for the world revealed in Christ.
Most of the sermon was the results of this relationship. "What Jesus wants the disciples to remember is that their sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving, their covenant with God, is not just about receiving—but also about giving—giving in loving service to one another and to the world so that God’s love can be revealed through us."
The service featured the washing and anointing of hands. "And then I’m going to bless your hands as a reminder that God watches over us and blesses us because God loves us. And God wants us to go out from here to love and serve others , not just with our hands and our feet, but with all we have to give, as sacrifices that do not lead to death, but to praise and thanksgiving and life giving service. " The powerful story of Van Cliburn illustrated this point.
By the end of the service the altar is stripped in preparation for Good Friday.
26 were in attendance. The weather continued cool and most overcast though at key times closer to sunset the sun peaked through providing some interesting sky pictures.