Maundy Thursday Service at Boronia Park Uniting Church

1 April 2021

 

 

1st Station

 

This day we have come together to spend time reflecting on Jesus’ journey from the Last Supper to his death. We shall do this with readings, both from the Bible and other sources and with some gentle singing and plenty of silence.

 

Reading        John 13:1-17 (NIV)

 

Jesus Washes His Disciples’ Feet

 

13 It was just before the Passover Festival. Jesus knew that the hour had come for him to leave this world and go to the Father. Having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end.

 

² The evening meal was in progress, and the devil had already prompted Judas, the son of Simon Iscariot, to betray Jesus. ³ Jesus knew that the Father had put all things under his power, and that he had come from God and was returning to God; ⁴ so he got up from the meal, took off his outer clothing, and wrapped a towel around his waist. ⁵ After that, he poured water into a basin and began to wash his disciples’ feet, drying them with the towel that was wrapped around him.

 

⁶ He came to Simon Peter, who said to him, “Lord, are you going to wash my feet?”

 

⁷ Jesus replied, “You do not realize now what I am doing, but later you will understand.”

 

⁸ “No,” said Peter, “you shall never wash my feet.”

 

Jesus answered, “Unless I wash you, you have no part with me.”

⁹ “Then, Lord,” Simon Peter replied, “not just my feet but my hands and my head as well!”

 

¹⁰ Jesus answered, “Those who have had a bath need only to wash their feet; their whole body is clean. And you are clean, though not every one of you.” ¹¹ For he knew who was going to betray him, and that was why he said not everyone was clean.

 

¹² When he had finished washing their feet, he put on his clothes and returned to his place. “Do you understand what I have done for you?” he asked them. ¹³ “You call me ‘Teacher’ and ‘Lord,’ and rightly so, for that is what I am. ¹⁴ Now that I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also should wash one another’s feet. ¹⁵ I have set you an example that you should do as I have done for you. ¹⁶ Very truly I tell you, no servant is greater than his master, nor is a messenger greater than the one who sent him. ¹⁷ Now that you know these things, you will be blessed if you do them.

 

Silence

 

During the silence the Minister washes each participant’s hands if wanted.

 

Song              Bless the Lord my soul (Taizé)

 

 

2nd Station

 

Reading        Matthew 26:17-30 (NIV)

 

The Last Supper

 

¹⁷ On the first day of the Festival of Unleavened Bread, the disciples came to Jesus and asked, “Where do you want us to make preparations for you to eat the Passover?”

 

¹⁸ He replied, “Go into the city to a certain man and tell him, ‘The Teacher says: My appointed time is near. I am going to celebrate the Passover with my disciples at your house.’” ¹⁹ So the disciples did as Jesus had directed them and prepared the Passover.

 

²⁰ When evening came, Jesus was reclining at the table with the Twelve. ²¹ And while they were eating, he said, “Truly I tell you, one of you will betray me.”

 

²² They were very sad and began to say to him one after the other, “Surely you don’t mean me, Lord?”

 

²³ Jesus replied, “The one who has dipped his hand into the bowl with me will betray me. ²⁴ The Son of Man will go just as it is written about him. But woe to that man who betrays the Son of Man! It would be better for him if he had not been born.”

 

²⁵ Then Judas, the one who would betray him, said, “Surely you don’t mean me, Rabbi?”

 

Jesus answered, “You have said so.”

 

²⁶ While they were eating, Jesus took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and gave it to his disciples, saying, “Take and eat; this is my body.”

 

²⁷ Then he took a cup, and when he had given thanks, he gave it to them, saying, “Drink from it, all of you. ²⁸ This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins. ²⁹ I tell you, I will not drink from this fruit of the vine from now on until that day when I drink it new with you in my Father’s kingdom.”

 

³⁰ When they had sung a hymn, they went out to the Mount of Olives.

 

Silence

 

During the silence the bread and the cup are served by the minister.

 

Song              Eat this bread (Taizé)

 

Reading        The One Bread by Jack Osbourn

 

They were all together in an upper room

Having supper

They all ate a bit off the same loaf

And the symbolism struck them

‘We are a gang of chaps, separate individuals

But now we have something in common

Because we all contain the same bread’

 

He said ‘Do this in remembrance of me’

So, whenever they ate bread together,

He would be there

In all their heads simultaneously.

Like parted lovers

Both looking at the moon

And holding close – in their minds

He passed round a cup of wine

They all drank from it

One after the other.

And the bread and the wine and the cup

Were symbols of unity forever.

 

Why don’t you try it?

Perhaps in Lent.

It’s not just bread and wine you know

There’s more to it than that

That’s what HE meant.

 

© Sally Fraser and Tessa Wilkinson

 

 

3rd Station

 

Reading        Matthew 26:36-39 (NIV)

 

Gethsemane

 

³⁶ Then Jesus went with his disciples to a place called Gethsemane, and he said to them, “Sit here while I go over there and pray.” ³⁷ He took Peter and the two sons of Zebedee along with him, and he began to be sorrowful and troubled.³⁸ Then he said to them, “My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death. Stay here and keep watch with me.”

 

³⁹ Going a little farther, he fell with his face to the ground and prayed, “My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me. Yet not as I will, but as you will.”

 

Reading       From Matthew for Everyone by Tom Wright

 

Jesus didn’t want to drink the cup. He badly didn’t want to. Jesus at this point was no here-figure, marching boldly towards his oncoming fate … He was a man, as we might say, in meltdown mode. He had looked into the darkness and seen the grinning faces of all the demons in the world looking back at him. And he begged and begged his father not to bring him to the point going through with it. He prayed the prayer he had taught them to pray: Don’t let us be brought into the time of testing, the time of deepest trial!

 

And the answer was No.

 

Actually, we can see the answer being given, more subtly than that implies, as the first frantic and panicky prayer turns into the second and then the third. To begin with, a straight request (‘Let the cup pass me by’), which a sad recognition that God has the right to say ’No’ if that’s the way it has to be. Then, a prayer which echoes another phrase in the Lord’s Prayer: if it has to be, ‘may your will be done’. The disciples probably didn’t realize that, when Jesus gave them the Lord’s Prayer, this much of it would be so directly relevant to him. He had to live what he taught. Indeed, the whole Sermon on the Mount seemed to be coming true in him, as he himself faced the suffering and sorrow of which he’d spoken, on his way to being struck on the cheek, to being cursed and responding with blessings. Here, for the second time in the gospel narrative … we see Jesus fighting in private the spiritual battle he needed to win if he was then to stand in public and speak, and live, and die for God’s kingdom.

 

The shocking lesson for the disciples can, of course, be turned to excellent use if we learn, in our own prayer, to wait with them, to keep awake and watch with Jesus. At any given moment, someone we know is facing darkness and horror: illness, death, bereavement, torture, catastrophe, loss. They ask us, perhaps silently, to stay with them, to watch and pray alongside them.

 

© Tom Wright 2002

 

Silence

 

Song              Stay with me (Taizé)

 

 

4th Station

 

A hammer, dice in a cup, a bag of split coins

and a piece of cloth ready to be split in two

are used as follows.

 

Reading       Luke 23:33-34 (NIV)

 

³³ When they came to the place called the Skull, they crucified him there, along with the criminals—one on his right, the other on his left. 

 

The leader acts like hammering nails on the wood cross.

 

³⁴ Jesus said, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.” And they divided up his clothes by casting lots.

 

Dice are shaken noisily in a cup and thrown into the centre.

The cup is placed in the centre with the dice.

 

Reading        Matthew 27:45 & 10-51 (NIV)

 

The Death of Jesus

 

⁴⁵ From noon until three in the afternoon darkness came over all the land.

 

The Christ candle is extinguished off.

 

⁵⁰ And when Jesus had cried out again in a loud voice, he gave up his spirit.

 

A large piece of cloth is split in half …

 

⁵¹ At that moment the curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom. The earth shook, the rocks split …

 

The congregated people stomp feet on the floor.

 

Song              Lord Jesus Christ, your light shines within us (Taizé)

 

 

5th Station

 

Reading        John 19:38-42 (NIV)

 

The Burial of Jesus

 

³⁸ Later, Joseph of Arimathea asked Pilate for the body of Jesus. Now Joseph was a disciple of Jesus, but secretly because he feared the Jewish leaders. With Pilate’s permission, he came and took the body away. ³⁹ He was accompanied by Nicodemus, the man who earlier had visited Jesus at night. Nicodemus brought a mixture of myrrh and aloes, about seventy-five pounds. ⁴⁰ Taking Jesus’ body, the two of them wrapped it, with the spices, in strips of linen. This was in accordance with Jewish burial customs. ⁴¹ At the place where Jesus was crucified, there was a garden, and in the garden a new tomb, in which no one had ever been laid. ⁴² Because it was the Jewish day of Preparation and since the tomb was nearby, they laid Jesus there.

 

Silence

 

Reading        There was no grave by Stewart Henderson

 

There was no grave grave enough
to ground me
to mound me
I broke the balm then slit the shroud
wound round me
that bound me.

There was no death dead enough
to dull me
to cull me
I snapped the snake and waned the
war
to lull me
to null me.

There was no cross cross enough
to nil me
to still me
I hung as gold that bled, and bloomed
a rose that rose and prised the tomb
away from Satan’s wilful doom

There was no cross, death, grave
or room
to hold me.

 

© Stewart Henderson – All rights reserved.

 

Song              Be Still (Taizé)

 

Everyone leaves quietly in their own time.