What Is Maundy Thursday?

Maundy Thursday is an important, though often overlooked, part of Holy Week.

 

A lot of things happened on Maundy Thursday.

Among them:

Jesus celebrated the Passover in the Upper Room with His disciples.

We now call this meal the Last Supper because it was the last time He shared a meal with them before His crucifixion.

It was during this meal Jesus instituted Communion as a way of remembering Him.

 

At the end of the meal, Jesus washed the feet of the disciples as a show of humility and as an example of how He wanted them to humbly serve others.

 

Following the Last Supper meal, Jesus and the Disciples went to the Garden of Gethsemane, located at the Mount of Olives.

Here Jesus went off alone to pray.

He asked the Father to take this cup away if possible, meaning the Crucifixion He was about to experience, but immediately followed it up with, “Yet, not my will, Father, Yours be done.”

Jesus knew what was coming.

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What Is Passover?

Passover is a Jewish holiday that commemorates when the death angel passed over the Israelites’ houses.

The Israelites were slaves in Egypt.

At God’s prompting, Moses went to the Pharaoh and asked him to let the people go.

The Pharaoh refused and as a result God sent several plagues.

 

The 10th one was that the death angel would pass over each house and strike dead the first born of each family as well as that of their cattle.

To spare His own people, God instructed the Israelites to kill a lamb and to smear its blood around the outer door frame of their home. When the angel passed by it would not kill anyone inside a home with these markings.

This plague finally convinced the Pharaoh to let the Israelites go. He even told them they could take with them whatever they wanted, which allowed them to gather needed supplies for their journey.

 

To commemorate this event, God called the Israelites to yearly observe this Passing Over with a 7-day festival.

During this time no one may eat anything with leavening (yeast) in it. They must remove all yeast from their house.

On the first and seventh day of the festival they are to hold a solemn assembly. No one is to work on these days except to make food for the people to eat.  (Exodus 12:14-20)

This festival is to take place from the evening of the 14th day until the evening of the 21st day of the Hebrew month Nisan.

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The Last Supper

The night before He was crucified, Jesus celebrated the beginning of Passover with His disciples.

This meal is often called the Last Supper because it was the last meal Jesus shared with His followers.

 

During the Last Supper is when Jesus instituted the act of Communion (also called the Lord’s Supper).

He broke a loaf of bread and said it was a symbol of His body being broken for us.

He then poured a cup of wine and told them to drink, explaining it was a symbol of His blood being shed for the redemption of our sins.

Jesus instructed them to do this in remembrance of Him.

 

In churches today, we periodically celebrate Communion by drinking a small amount of wine or grape juice and eating a small piece of unleavened bread.*

This is to remind us that Jesus’ body was broken for our healing and that He paid a high price to ransom us. .

When we participate in Communion we are reminded of the great sacrifice Jesus made by dying for us and we are acknowledging we know He did it for us personally.

 

While Jesus and the disciples were at this meal, Jesus told them He knew one of them was a traitor who would betray Him.

He even went so far as to name Judas as the one.

Judas immediately left and went straight to the leaders and priests to tell them where to find Jesus.

This led to Jesus being arrested in the Garden of Gethsemane later that same night.

 

After the meal, they sang a hymn and left the Upper Room to go to the Garden of Gethsemane.

Judas knew that’s where they would be and that is where he brought the leaders and priests to arrest Jesus.

This arrest meant the end of Jesus’ ministry on earth.

It also meant the beginning of His trial, which led to His Crucifixion, death, and resurrection.

 

 

To learn more about what happened next, please read my post, Jesus Was Arrested.

 

*Because the bread used during Passover is unleavened, it is tradition to use unleavened bread during Communion.

To read about the Last Supper, please see Matthew 26:17-30, or Luke 22:7-23

To learn more about the Easter Season, please visit my Easter page, a compilation of previous Easter and Lent posts.

 

 

 

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