Parish of Leesfield: Maundy Thursday

Maundy Thursday

Our Maundy Thursday Eucharist is at St Thomas' Church at 7.30 pm, and we're pleased to welcome Revd Richard Hawkins to lead our service. If you can't be with us in person, you'll find everything you need to worship from home here on this page.

Our first hymn is "An Upper Room Did Our Lord Prepare"

A reading from 1 Corinthians, Chapter 11: verses 23-26

The Institution of the Lord’s Supper

For I received from the Lord what I also handed on to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took a loaf of bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, “This is my body that is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.” In the same way he took the cup also, after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.” For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.

Reflection

A bright young woman named Kate was at the height of her brilliant career, which had started in her mid-twenties when she was already in Downing Street working for Tony Blair. By thirty she was CEO of a charity working in Africa and married to the “best-looking man she’d ever kissed”, and the mother of twin boys.

But tragedy struck Kate at the age of thirty-four, with a sudden diagnosis of stage-four cancer, and only a six per cent chance of surviving the next five years. Indeed, Kate died on Christmas Day 2014, just a few weeks before her captivating memoir, which she wrote for her sons, was published — written so they would remember her, and also so they could capture something of her vision for how she had hoped to raise them.

“Even as I’m on the way out,” she wrote, “something new is being spawned. I die, but in doing so I leave myself in words on a page waiting to be brought alive by the two readers I care most about.” A compulsive list-maker, Kate spent her final months writing “how-tos”, to help the family navigate the practicalities: “My poor boys are the subject of the worst control-freak tendencies. Not only am I writing this book — a wordy me me me treasure map to follow when they want to - I am, according to my mum, doing some serious ‘advance mothering’.”

The apostle Paul’s description of the events at the Last Supper, which we heard in our first reading, is the earliest known account of what happened that night, written only approximately ten or fifteen years after Jesus died.

What he describes Jesus as doing with the bread and wine are known as the “four dominical acts”; namely that he took the bread, gave thanks, broke it and gave it to those gathered. This was entirely typical for a meal in first-century Palestine, but Jesus’ relating these acts was a conversation turning-point.

Jesus knew his future was inevitable, perhaps even as he prayed to his Father that it might not be so. But he knew that his conflict with the authorities would lead in one direction only, and he tells the disciples this explicitly: “I am with you only a little longer”. And so he prepares his disciples for a lifetime without him, which is to be characterised by humility, service and love. He lowers himself from the status of teacher and Lord to that of servant - he washes their feet — surely the filthiest part of them — and commands them to do the same and to love one another.

This Last Supper is often referred to as the Institution of the Eucharist, when Jesus gave us the sacrament of Holy Communion. Expressing it in these terms can seem anachronistic, as if he were writing out the liturgy of the Book of Common Prayer while he ate. But the act of celebrating the Eucharist certainly claims its authority directly from Jesus’ words. It is something he wanted us to do, and all Christians agree it is a moment of communion with the Lord and of spiritual strength and sustenance. “Do this in memory of me” was part-of Jesus’ advance parenting.

And when we share the Eucharist we are not just reminiscing, as we might about a birthday meal enjoyed in years gone by. We are putting something back together again. You’ll notice in the Eucharistic Prayer a lot of language about memory and memorial. These words stem from a Greek word, anamnesis, which doesn’t have a direct equivalent in English, but means not only memory but also “making present again”. Each time we celebrate the Eucharist we are re-membering.

The Eucharist is a gift to strengthen us for our mission, modelled for us in the person of Jesus, and characterised by submission and service. We are sent out as “living sacrifices”. This is Jesus’ will for our lives and our calling as apostles and as a Church, which we proclaim in the creed, before we re-member Jesus’ sacrifice together and remember that through the Body of Christ, God’s children on earth, he lives.

A Maundy Thursday Reflection by Bishop David -