I always wondered where the term Maunday Thursday came from. It seemed like it should be Maunday Monday, right? I struggled to get that discrepancy when I was a little girl. However, this is an appropriate title for Holy-Week-Thursday. Maunday comes from a Latin word, “mandatum” (from where we get our English word, mandatory). Obviously, it means “commandment.” Jesus, as he orchestrated the events of the Last Supper, not only asked that his death be remembered and celebrated, but that they would continue to commemorate it. He also instituted a new commandment (only John records it):
Think about it for a minute. In that day, there were social classes for people. Let’s start at the top and work our way down the Jewish ladder. If you were somebody, then you were one of the Jewish religious leaders (a Pharisee or Saducee). Next came the wealthy, followed by the blue collar workers. Lower on the ladder came the poor, then the sick…on down to the leprous…the women came next, followed by the animals (however, this is debatable, since both were considered property); then came the children & slaves/servants; the Canaanites & the Samaritans shared a rung; and all these were followed by the sinners, and last and least, the tax collectors (yes, the sinners were separated in class from the tax collectors!)…
BUT JESUS…Jesus entered the world in poverty, and on down to the bottom of the rung he went. One of the first disciples he called was a tax collector (unbelievable!). Then, he had the audacity to go home with said tax collector and fellowship with him and with his sinner friends. His first introduction as Messiah was to a woman, and of all the women he could have picked, he chose a Samaritan. He honored women, elevating them by giving them a place in his ministry. He loved on children, and made time for them in his busy, demanding schedule. He honored them, by explaining how they had an important role to play in the Kingdom of God. Jesus touched the untouchables, the leprous, and he healed them. He healed the blind, the sick, the paralyzed, and, yes, even raised the dead (one of these infirm happened to be the servant of an important Roman soldier, and the child of a Canaanite woman!). He was received by the middle class, who followed him by the multitudes. When it came to outreach, it was the religious leaders who were on the bottom rung of his ladder. Yet, as we’ve discussed already this week, he still had great compassion for them! Woe! The important lesson in all this is that when it came to loving people, Jesus turned the social ladder upside down!
Then, Jesus demonstrated love even further by pulling aside his disciples, wrapping himself in a towel, lowering himself to a servant status, and doing one more unthinkable act – he washed their feet! It’s all recorded in John 13. As he washed, he taught. If you want to be great…you have to serve. In my Kingdom, if you want status, you have to lower yourself to the least of these. The lesson Jesus taught, went further. Not only do you need to serve, you need to stoop down, and wash feet. Then he said, “If you do these things, you are blessed…”
Whereas the Religious Upper Class would have desired Jesus to wage a little war against the out-of-place-lower-rung-people, by putting them in their place, Jesus chose to wash feet. Jesus chose to go-out-of-his-way to stoop as low as he could for The Other. Then he chose to die on a cross for EVERY ONE, which in theory demolished any status-ladder. However, in reality, it hasn’t…
We still have our ladder today; but, we’ve been given a mandate from our Lord: love. Love one another…by this all men will know you are my followers. Love one another…by this all men will know me. Here’s the truth of Maunday Thursday: if we are going to be Jesus-followers, we need to do as Jesus did – make our way down the social ladder of our society and wash the feet of the unlovable, untouchable, and unthinkably awful people of this world. Just like Jesus did.