Holy Thursday 2021
St. Augustine of Canterbury Parish
Theme:
“So if I, your Lord and Teacher,
have washed your feet,
you also ought to wash one another’s feet.
For I have set you an example,
that you also should do as I have done to you.” (John 13:14-15)
During Holy Thursday, we celebrate the Institution of the Eucharist and the Institution of
the Hospitality. Jesus Christ instituted the Eucharist in order to serve us spiritual food.
Jesus Christ instituted the ministry of hospitality so that members of the church will
continue to support and help each other:
“So if I, your Lord and Teacher,
have washed your feet,
you also ought to wash one another’s feet.
For I have set you an example,
that you also should do as I have done to you.” (John 13:14-15)
The world will be a better place when everyone tries to serve others first. But whenever
people try to serve their interest before considering the need of others, then the hospitality
that makes us humane is reduced or even eliminated. Whenever people put their interest
ahead of others, then the evil one takes over their hearts of generosity:
“Now before the festival of the Passover,
Jesus knew that his hour had come
to depart from this world and go to the Father.
Having loved his own who were in the world,
he loved them to the end.
The devil had already put it into the heart of Judas, son of Simon Iscariot,
to betray him.
And during supper
Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands,
and that he had come from God and was going to God,
got up from the table,
took off his outer robe,
and tied a towel around himself.
Then he poured water into a basin
and began to wash the disciples’ feet
and to wipe them with the towel that was tied around him.
He came to Simon Peter, who said to him,
‘Lord, are you going to wash my feet?’
Jesus answered,
‘You do not know now what I am doing,
but later you will understand.’” (John 13:1-7)
Jesus called us to serve each other so that we might not betray the goodness of God in us.
Jesus called us to serve each other so that we might not betray the mission of God he
entrusted to us. Jesus called us to serve each other so that the goodness of God might
remain clean in us:
“Peter said to him, ‘You will never wash my feet.’ Jesus answered,
‘Unless I wash you, you have no share with me.’
Simon Peter said to him,
‘Lord, not my feet only but also my hands and my head!’
Jesus said to him,
‘One who has bathed does not need to wash,
except for the feet, but is entirely clean.
And you are clean, though not all of you.’
For he knew who was to betray him;
for this reason he said,
‘Not all of you are clean.;” (John 13:8-11)
The celebration of Holy Thursday is an occasion to reset the course of our imitation of
the example of Jesus Christ:
“After he had washed their feet, put on his robe,
and returned to the table,
Jesus said to them,
‘Do you know what I have done to you?
You call me Teacher and Lord—
and you are right, for that is what I am.
So if I, your Lord and Teacher,
have washed your feet,
you also ought to wash one another’s feet.
For I have set you an example,
that you also should do as I have done to you.’” (John 13:12-15)
Jesus called us to celebrate the Eucharist so that we might remember all his works,
teachings and life. Jesus called us to celebrate the Eucharist so that we might proclaim his
death and resurrection until he returns in glory:
“Beloved:
I received from the Lord what I also handed on to you,
that the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed
took a loaf of bread,
and when he had given thanks,
he broke it and said,
‘This is my body that is for you.
Do this in remembrance of me.’
In the same way he took the cup also, after supper, saying,
‘This cup is the new covenant in my blood.
Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.’
For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup,
you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.” (1 Corinthians 11.23-26)
God himself called us to celebrate the Eucharist, foreshadowed in the Passover, so that
we might remember how he spares us from all harm. God asked us to celebrate in the
Eucharist a perpetual ordinance of how he saved the people from bondage:
“The Lord said to Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt:
This month shall mark for you the beginning of months;
it shall be the first month of the year for you.
Tell the whole congregation of Israel
that on the tenth of this month
they are to take a lamb for each family,
a lamb for each household.
If a household is too small for a whole lamb,
it shall join its closest neighbour in obtaining one;
the lamb shall be divided
in proportion to the number of people who eat of it.
Your lamb shall be without blemish, a year-old male;
you may take it from the sheep or from the goats.
You shall keep it until the fourteenth day of this month;
then the whole assembled congregation of Israel
shall slaughter it at twilight.
They shall take some of the blood
and put it on the two doorposts and the lintel
of the houses in which they eat it.
They shall eat the lamb that same night;
they shall eat it roasted over the fire
with unleavened bread and bitter herbs.
This is how you shall eat it:
your loins girded, your sandals on your feet,
and your staff in your hand;
and you shall eat it hurriedly.
It is the Passover of the Lord.
For I will pass through the land of Egypt that night,
and I will strike down every firstborn in the land of Egypt,
both human beings and animals;
on all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgments:
I am the Lord.
The blood shall be a sign for you on the houses where you live:
when I see the blood, I will pass over you,
and no plague shall destroy you
when I strike the land of Egypt.
This day shall be a day of remembrance for you.
You shall celebrate it as a festival to the Lord;
throughout your generations
you shall observe it as a perpetual ordinance.” (Exodus 12.1-8, 11-14)
During this Holy Thursday, let us renew the ministry of hospitality of Christ by putting
the needs of others first. Let our celebration of the Eucharist help us to carry out the
mission of Christ. Let the celebration of the Eucharist spare humanity from the influences
of evil.