MAUNDY THURSDAY

“A NEW COMMANDMENT”

  

Today the Queen will be entering Blackburn Cathedral for the Royal Maundy ceremony. It’s a ritual dating back centuries where the monarch, remembering whose servant she is (as the Prayer Book tells us), gives out little bags of silver coins to pensioners – one for every year of her age and to the same number of recipients. The word “Maundy” derives from the Latin “Novum Mandatum”, a new commandment I give unto you... that you love one another as I have loved you.

So remembering the warning of Jesus to James and John when they ask for thrones in the kingdom, that “the rulers of the heathen lord it over them and make their authority felt, but it must not be so among you”, the Queen will act out symbolically what Jesus tells his disciples: “for the Son of Man came not to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many”.

If the disciples didn’t hear that the first time, then now, in the Upper Room, they must. Here the king of kings lays divinity aside, takes up the towel and washes feet. He offers the hospitality of his love, the hospitality of God, the washing of feet for the weary guest, the honoured guest, the beloved guest. The guest who is Peter. The guest who is you and me.

Brushing all protestations aside Jesus insists it must be like this. Because by this maybe they’ll finally understand just what kind of king he is, and what he asks of them and of us as well. I have left you an example that you should do for others as I have done for you.

Just imagine how it must have been in that Upper Room, the intensity of it – an atmosphere of fear and love, and it’s been building up for days, even weeks. From the moment Jesus set his face towards Jerusalem it’s all been leading to this night and what lies beyond. In the house of Martha, Mary and Lazarus, earlier in the week Jesus has had his feet anointed by Mary, and Judas has pretty much revealed himself for what he is: “What a waste. This ointment should have been sold and the money given to the poor!” But Jesus rebukes him: “This anointing is for my burial”.

So by now who could possibly doubt that Jesus is set on a collision course with the powers of this world, the powers of darkness? And beyond this Upper Room darkness waits, the anguish of Gethsemane, arrest, torture, Pilate and Herod and Caiaphas – the scene is set and the cast are waiting to play their parts.

Only what takes place in this room will be remembered and celebrated for ever. Before Jesus falls into Pilate’s hands he shows what real power looks like – the power that turns itself inside out to become a slave and washes the feet of the poor. For a world obsessed with the body, preserving its perfection, health and beauty, he takes simple bread and breaks it and says: this is what will happen to me, to my body, for you – and for you for all time. This God holds nothing back. As the writer to the Hebrews says: "he did not cling to his equality with God, but emptied himself..." He empties himself and gives himself. And he did it, does it, in such a way that this meal is offered, celebrated, loved and reverenced, even adored, at all times in all places. Somewhere in the world in every moment, a priest, a minister, lifts bread and offers it to God and says those words: "This is my body".

Last year the Pope memorably washed the feet of prisoners, including the feet of a woman and a Muslim, washed them and kissed them. Today the Queen, who knows the cost of service in a very different way, makes her own act of humility, again, "remembering whose servant she is". Because this is the service of love in which we are all included and to which we're all invited. God serves me today, and you – then asks us to do the same for each other.