Maundy Thursday

Today is Maundy Thursday. Most Adventists would say, “Huh?” The word Maundy is derived from the Latin mandatum, meaning “command” (or “mandate”), which is the first word of the commandment (in Latin) in John 13:34 found in English as, “A new command I give you: that you love one another as I have loved you.” Maundy Thursday commemorates the Last Supper and the giving of this “new commandment.”

I attended the worship service at the Presbyterian Church. It was a nice, reflective service. The core of the service consisted of hypothetical reflections on this evening by seven of the disciples that were present. This was followed by communion around the table up front.

Now the reason I’m writing this post is that up until today I hadn’t thought much about the actual setting and how this Passover meal (because that is what it was) would have played out. Even if I had, I hadn’t given it much notice. But I realized how much my particular religious tradition colors how I view this event.

The gospel writers would have assumed their readers already understood, if not participated in, the Jewish Passover meal. So they had no reason to go into all the details, elements, and order of the various components. They only wrote about the key points in the meal where Jesus said or did something significant. (See the present-day Seder order for an idea of the Passover ritual.)

One of the big revelations for me is that the foot-washing was probably not the first thing that happened. Rather the first occurrence of the meal was a blessing offered for the wine. Hand washing then follows the initial blessing. According to one historical resource, The Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah, what Jesus did was instead of performing the ritual hand washing, he stood up to wash his disciples’ feet. Following this, the rest of the meal continues, including breaking the bread, additional drinking, and more blessings.

In my newly acquired copy of The Didache, what I found interesting in the instruction regarding the Eucharist is that rather than the bread followed by wine, it is wine followed by bread. This follows the traditional Jewish Seder order rather than the order given by Paul (1 Corinthians 11:23-26) and the one used by most present-day Christian traditions. What is interesting is Matthew and Mark only record the bread followed by the cup (Matthew 26:26-29; Mark 14:22-25) but Luke records the cup, followed by bread, followed by the cup again (Luke 22:14-21), giving weight to the impression that what is recorded is just a small part of the whole meal.

Another interesting item I discovered is found in Numbers 28 (particularly v. 7, “strong drink” for a daily drink offering; and v. 24, the daily drink offering is to be continued during Passover and the weeklong Feast of Unleavened Bread). All these years I thought that nothing fermented (with yeast, or leavened) was permitted during Passover, but what is this that I read…? Maybe with our modern-day scientific understanding, we’ve over-generalized the term “leaven” that is used in the Bible. Could it be that the Bible really only refers to bread and its associated dough when it says to clean out the leaven for Passover?

As for the idea that Communion is part of the church liturgy, where did that come from? From the picture we read in 1 Corinthians 11:17-34 and also from what the Didache describes, the early Christian community simply met together for meals. During that time, someone would take the bread and wine and bring to remembrance Jesus and the Last Supper. Communion or Eucharist (which simply means “Thanksgiving” – the other “baggage” associated with this term came much later) apparently came to be a ritual around the year 100 with Ignatius of Antioch and the associated strengthening of ecclesiastical authority (c.f, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Origin_of_the_Eucharist).

I’m not writing this to say that our interpretations and what we typically do in regards to Communion is wrong. I am writing this to show how our present-day traditions and and assumptions can color how we read Biblical accounts.

It is a revelation to realize that Communion was probably never intended to become a ritual. Rather, the interpretation I have now of Jesus’ words are to simply remember him and remind one another of him whenever we get together for a fellowship meal and share bread and wine (grape juice…).