Liturgy: Maundy Thursday Lessons and Carols, Mark 13:1 - 14:42 (March 28, 2024)

*You are welcome to use or adapt any of my resources for free, but I ask that you provide proper citation AND comment on this post to let me know.*

Opening Words: Mark 13:1-2

Leader: Throughout Lent, we have been hearing the story of Jesus’ life through Mark’s gospel, and we’ve been learning about how we can encounter God through different Spiritual Practices. Tonight, we continue our journey: we will hear the story of Jesus’ final moments with his disciples as we encounter God through the Spiritual Practice of Meditative singing.

Sermon: “Recipe for Repentance: Empathy”, John 13:1-17, 33b-35 (April 1, 2021--Maundy Thursday)

(This is the Maundy Thursday sermon for our Lenten series, "Recipe for Repentance".
Previous sermons can be found here, here, here, here, and here,

and the Ash Wednesday message can be found here.)

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I think I’ve mentioned it in the past, but it bears repeating that the word “Maundy” (which we see almost exclusively in the context of Holy Week) comes from the Latin word for “command”. While this holy day is most often associated with the Last Supper or the foot washing that we just read about, it’s named for the “new commandment” that Jesus gives the disciples: “Love one another as I have loved you.” As an aside, I always imagine Jesus smiling wryly as he calls this a “new” commandment, since it’s the exact same message he’s been trying to get across since day one of his ministry. But on Maundy Thursday, he elevates it from a suggestion or an instruction to a genuine commandment, on par with the Torah: Love one another as I have loved you.

Sermon: “Recipe for Repentance: Looking Forward”, Mark 11:1-11 (March 28, 2021--Palm Sunday)

(This is the sixth sermon in our Lenten series, "Recipe for Repentance". Previous sermons can be found here, here, here, and here, and the Ash Wednesday message can be found here.)

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It’s so good to be back worshiping with you again. I wasn’t in worship last Sunday because, as many of you know, I’d just gotten my second COVID vaccine on Saturday and, given all the horror stories I’d heard about side effects, Session and I decided that it made the most sense for me to stay home the next day. As it turned out, my side effects weren’t all that bad—a headache was the worst of it—so I took the opportunity to look ahead and work on our worship videos for Holy Week.

Rock of Ages: Maundy Thursday 2019

For the last six weeks, our Lenten theme has been "Rock of Ages". One of the ways we explored this theme was by building a "Prayer Cairn" in the Narthex: people were invited to bring in stones from their homes, their sidewalks, the park, or wherever they found them and put them together in a pile. Each stone represented a particular prayer of the person who brought it in.

People got so creative with their rocks!

I had some stones available if folks forgot to bring theirs in, but I was impressed by how many people remembered, week after week. I also really enjoyed the fact that many people make a point to show me their stones before adding them to the cairn, saying, "Isn't this rock so cool?!?" Personally, I chose my stones based on what caught my eye as I was thinking about a person or situation. I feel like every time I had a prayer on my heart, there'd be a stone lying in the path right ahead of me. It was pretty incredible.

Life and Love out of Darkness (Maundy Thursday)

Each year, our community combines Holy Week services with another local church, Southminster Presbyterian Church. We alternate who takes point on Maundy Thursday and Good Friday--this year, we were up for Maundy Thursday. 

Now, Maundy Thursday is known as "the day when we wash each other's feet" in many communities, but in many others, the thought of touching another person's bare foot is enough to turn them atheist. You may recall that two years ago, we did a ritual involving broken pottery that was both beautiful and profound (from my perspective, at least). This year, since our Lenten focus was on symbols, I wanted to make sure we did something significant that tied into our theme.

For the Love of Symbols

So, in case you didn't know, today is (was) Maundy Thursday.

Traditionally, Maundy Thursday is the day during Holy Week that we commemorate Jesus washing his disciples' feet and commanding them to do the same to others ("Maundy" comes from the Latin word for "command"). Many churches do this by washing one another's feet.

My church does not.

Sermon: "Every Step", Exodus 15:1-7/Numbers 14:1-4/Luke 19:28-40 (March 20, 2016)

3/20/16

(Video of this sermon)

Andrew and I obviously had nothing to do with scheduling Palm Sunday where it sits in the liturgical calendar, but it fits so nicely with the themes we’ve had this year that I’m tempted to try and take credit. First we had the stewardship campaign, where we talked about being “all-in” as our community travels together into the future. Then the “Journey to Bethlehem” that we undertook in December, tracking the miles that we walked, biked, and swam so we could experience the distance trekked in order for our Messiah to be born. And now, during Lent, we’ve walked the path of our worship together, reminding ourselves why we do what we do every week, and where we go from there. Journeys, all of them. And now, today, we talk about yet another journey—a shorter one, perhaps, but one just as significant. All four gospels recount this story of Jesus’ triumphant journey into Jerusalem, during which he’s met with the cheers and jubilation of the people—and yes, of course, palms. There are some grumbles from the religious authorities—some of them even have the audacity to try and stifle the celebration—but nothing on earth can stop the holy procession.