He Loves Us to the End: How to Observe Maundy Thursday
It is Jesus’s agape, sacrificial love that Christ Our Hope will be embodying — separately but together — with our observation of this important day of Holy Week this year.
Maundy Thursday calls us to remember several significant events in the last hours of Jesus’s life. The Last Supper institutes Holy Communion. Jesus invites three disciples to watch and pray with Him in the Garden of Gethsemane before His arrest. But it is also when He gives us His example of servanthood when He washed the feet of His disciples. Then he gave them a new commandment or mandate to “. . . love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love on another” (John 13:34).
It is this agape, this sacrificial love, that Christ Our Hope will be embodying — separately but together — with our observation of this important day of Holy Week this year.
We’ve put together a simple but helpful guide for Maundy Thursday to help you practice self-sacrificial love and worship the One who wants to wash our feet. You can download it here.
Additionally, we hope the following prompts for reflection and prayer will lead you to moments beside the still, quiet waters and green pastures that Jesus graciously offers all of us.
Reflect today on “self-giving love, Christ’s for us and ours for others.”
As you sit before the Lord, pray: “Here are my feet, Lord to receive your washing and here are my hands to receive your bread and wine.” Wait before Him and let Him speak to your heart.
Pray: “Help me to love and serve those around me as you have loved and served us all.”
Reflect: Are you facing anxious situations? Let the example of Jesus on the night He was betrayed shape the way you pray in your current situation.
Scriptures to ponder: Matthew 26:17-46.
Renew your commitment to the new covenant by which you were made clean and promised a seat at the great banquet to come.
Christ Our Hope’s online Holy Week services will continue tomorrow, and all those details can be found here.