Why is this “Maundy” all about?
Commandment Thursday
“Maundy” is from the Latin word “mandatum” which means “command.” Jesus gave a new command on the Thursday before Good Friday. So we could call today “Commandment Thursday,” because of John 13:34,
“A new commandment (Latin: mandatum) I give to you that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another.”
But what is amazing to me this Maundy Thursday is when this new mandate came. It came during supper (John 13:2-4), during the Last Supper.
And it came between two epic disappointments.
We could say it was a Maundy Thursday love sandwich.
A Most Surprising Time to Love
Sometimes when my kids let me down, I say three surprising words:
“I love you.”
When they make a bad choice or do an unkind deed, I say it, and especially when pair it with a smile, my sons get confused.
But my words are not a bit sarcastic. In fact, I think I feel the weighty reality of my love for them more in my disappointment than at any other time.
Smack dab between news of Judas’s betrayal and Peter’s denial, Jesus gives this new command.
The faithful love of Jesus is sandwiched between the unfaithfulness of those he loved. The beloved disciple was loving us too when he prepared this food for us in John 13:
🥪 TOP SLICE: “After receiving the morsel of bread, [Judas] immediately went out. And it was night.” (v. 30)
🥪 MEAT: “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another.” (v. 34)
🥪 BOTTOM SLICE: “Truly, truly, I say to you, the rooster will not crow till you have denied me three times.” (v. 38)
It is between news of Judas’s betrayal and Peter’s denial—in the midst of that heavy darkness—that Jesus gives this new command.
A New Commandment?
But maybe you’re asking,
“What’s so new about this command?”
After all, some 1,500 years before through Moses, God had commanded his people to love:
- Deuteronomy 6:5: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, and strength.”
- Leviticus 19:8: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”
Jesus summed up the whole law with these two commandments, and the Jews knew them well (Mark 12:28-34). So how is it new?
3 Ways the Mandate is New
Bible scholars suggest this command to love is “new” in at least three ways.
It is new because:
1) it initiates the NEW covenant,
2) with a NEW power to obey (the Holy Spirit), and
3) a NEW example to follow.
Let’s look briefly at the third NEW in John 13:34.
“A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another.”
John 13:34 (ESV)
The disciples had heard “love your neighbor.” But they had never seen it lived out this way,
“Just as I have loved you.”
How did Jesus love ?
Humbly.
That first Maundy Thursday night, Jesus stripped down to wash his disciples’ feet—all his disciples, including the betrayer and the denier. He took the form of a servant and humbled himself. He washed all 24 dirty feet.
Footwashing was a key piece of hospitality in the ancient world, in a dusty country where people walked in sandals. The task was usually performed by the lowliest member of the household—often by a servant, or slave.
There are other mentions of footwashing in Scripture (see Genesis 19, 24, 43). But they only time we find of a superior washing the feet of an inferior is found here in John 13.
This is brand new.
That Thursday night Jesus took the form of a servant. Jesus bore with them, and washed their feet.
Maundy Thursday = Humble Love
It was far more humbling for the perfect Lord to wash feet than it would is for you and me. It was condescension to the extreme.
Unrobing in an act of almost scandalous vulnerability, stooping to wash their feet, the One through whom their very feet were created, the One who for eternity and ages never beginning and never ending knew all the glories of splendor Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and trinitarian love and communion. This Son of God stooped to wash their feet.
Kevin DeYoung, “A New Commandment“
Maybe it’s because we wear socks and shoes and take more showers, but foot washing seems much easier than following Jesus’ example of faithful, forbearing love. Which, in fact, is what we are called to. “Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love” (Ephesians 4:2).
Our Lord Jesus bore with with Peter and Judas and the other fallen 10 in love, and he bears with us still. For He is patient, not wanting any to perish. He bore with the 12 in the upper room that first Maundy Thursday.
Then on Good Friday, “he himself bore our sins in his body on the tree,” (1 Peter 2:24a).
Jesus died on the tree, that we might die to sin and live for righteousness.
Which is to say, that we might love one another.
And here He shows the full extent of love
To us whose love is always incomplete,
In vain we search the heavens high above,
The God of love is kneeling at our feet.
Though we betray Him, though it is the night.
He meets us here and loves us into light.
—From "Maundy Thursday," by Malcolm Guite
