Tonight is the Thursday before Easter--known on the Christian calendar of the Western church--most of the Protestant and Roman Catholic Church--as Maundy Thursday. Our bulletin and lesson insert all contain this unusual title--"Maundy Thursday". The inevitable question is what does the word "Maundy" mean? When I asked some of our younger Sunday school children they assumed the word meant something like it sounded. One little girl suggested the day was about God getting mad about what was going to happen on Friday when Jesus dies--"Maundy"--"mad day"--I thought that was very creative. One of the younger boys suggested that Maundy referred to Jesus meeting with his disciples--a men's day --"Maundy"--"Men's day"--and I guess the first disciples were men--although by Easter morning it will be the women who are the most important characters in our story.

Actually the word "Maundy" comes from the Latin mandatum which means "to command, or commandment." And like so many "titles" from the ancient world the reference is to the first word of a liturgical hymn used in Latin on this night. To command--this is a night when the faithful are called upon--commanded--to fulfill certain obligations if we would indeed be considered among the faithful.

To command--to tell someone what to do--a directive. People of faith are people who are striving to do what God would have them to do. The journey of Lent--the forty days leading up to Easter--is for most Christians a time of striving to come more closely in touch with our God and what God's will for our lives is.

What brought Jesus and His disciples to Jerusalem was the desire to fulfill God's ancient command to Moses to celebrate the Passover--to remember in ritual, story and prayer God's mighty act of deliverance of the People of Israel--out of slavery in Egypt--deliverance from the death angel who struck down all the first born of Egypt--deliverance to life and the promise of a new life of freedom. This was a command that became a center for the Jewish community as it moved through the centuries--God's command to remember God's power to deliver from slavery and death--the pesach--the Passover.

To command--to tell someone what to do. Sometimes the command is not in words but in the power of example. That night when Jesus gathered with his disciples to fulfill the command to observe the Passover, Jesus also took a towel and a basin of water--set aside his robes--and washed the disciples' feet. He served his disciples with the greatest humility--and when he finished he announced that they should do as he has done. This was not a command to wash feet--or even polish shoes--Jesus directed his disciples--those who would follow him by faith--to be people in service to others. And so the church continues to this day to be a place of service--often identified by those outside the community as duty bound to serve--to help--to feed, clothe, shelter.

But the service is not without purpose and meaning. For those who did not understand the picture Jesus provided in his actions he finally says it point blank--"I give you a new commandment, that you love one another." There are some who would argue there is nothing new in this commandment--love of neighbor is a guiding theme of most of the world's great religions--to give it more emphasis we often add phrases like "love your neighbor as yourself". But Jesus adds something new to this command by directing that we love one another "just as I have loved you"--to love one another as Jesus loves us. This is a challenging suggestion--to love one another as God loves us--unconditionally and sacrificially.

As we enter the tridium--the three days leading to Easter--we are challenged by a new commandment--to love our neighbor not as we love ourselves or even as we love our God but as Christ loved us. As we would think on that command we are drawn to consider yet one more command we received from our Lord--a command that also was given on the last Thursday Jesus shared with his disciples--"do this in remembrance of me". In the words of the communion liturgy--in the moment that we are offered the bread and the wine--here the mystery of these three days begins--"this is my body given for you"--"This cup is the new covenant in my blood"--and then the command--"Do this in remembrance of me"

The miracle of grace in the complete giving of Jesus' life for us--the power of love to transform that which is dead and meaningless into that which is filled with promise and possibility.

Tonight we begin the three days--we begin by following the command of our Lord--we begin by remembering the power of our God in ancient days to deliver people from that which oppressed and entrapped--we remember the command to love and we struggle to give that love shape and form by witnessing the example of service to others--and we fulfill the command this night when we again "do this"--taste of God's goodness to forgive us when we have failed--drink of God's fullness poured forth into empty moments and lives.

Maundy Thursday--the commanded night--the beginning of the story that reveals just how much Jesus loved us--loved us so much that this night after he blessed us with his Holy Sacrament He went forth to a garden where our sins and human failings betray him

(This night the worship service ends with the altar being stripped of all religious forms reminding us that Jesus gives himself up to the arresting authorities ultimately strip him of all earthly possessions and send him to the cross. Tomorrow evening, Good Friday, the service focuses exclusively on the seven last words spoken by Jesus from the cross. There is no sermon--the words of our Lord are left to speak without comment.)