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Wednesday 1 April 2015

Maundy Thursday New Communion Service

This is a service I have put together for Maundy Thursday based on the studies I have done on the subject over the last few years. It is the first full service I have written based on my studies and in that sense is a bit of a prototype.

Maundy Thursday Communion Service (with meal)

At the beginning of the meal the person leading the service says;
Jesus and his disciples had come to Jerusalem to celebrate the festival of the Passover.

The Passover was a weeklong celebration in the capital city, where they remembered the time when, through God's guidance, Moses brought them out of captivity in Egypt, the sacrificial lambs were brought to the temple, because, in the time of the Exodus, the blood of lambs was used as a marker on the doors so that the angel of death would pass over those houses.  

As part of the celebration Jesus and his disciples joined together in a traditional meal in an upper room that they had hired for the occasion. A meal of thanksgiving for their freedom

Let us raise a cup to freedom; to freedom
We raise our thanks to the father of creation; Thanks be to God, amen.

Song: STF 410/H&P 774 Lord Thy/Your Church on Earth is Seeking
©Hugh Sherlock (1905-1998)

But their freedom was not complete; it was temporary and rooted in earthly promises.

A new promise was to be made here in this room by Jesus. Moses, great though he was, was only a man, speaking the words of God. But Jesus was God in human form;

And on the night before Jesus died, in that upper room he took the bread and broke it and gave it to his disciples saying something like this, take this and eat it, imagine that this is my body which is being broken for you.

And as we share this bread we may share these words;
 
In the breaking of this bread we are broken;
Like the body of Christ; we are broken
As we share in his self sacrifice; So we are remade in the image of God

We share together in the meal and the bread shared out becomes part of that meal

During the meal the following readings are read by various people;

Exodus 12:1-14 (NIV)

Psalm 116:13-14 (NIV)

1 Corinthians 11:23-26 (NIV)

Mark 14:23-26 (NIV)

John 13:3-11, 15-17, 34  (NIV)
At the end of the meal the person leading the service says;
In the days of Leviticus when the priests made animal sacrifices, the priests would say that no one should drink the blood, because it contained the spirit of the animal. The spirit of the animal was poured out for the sins of the people. When Jesus offered himself as sacrifice on the cross, he declared an end to the sacrifice because his spirit was poured out for the forgiveness of all sins for all time. For this was not the spirit of one of God's creatures, but the spirit of God himself being poured out for all people.

Knowing what was about to happen, at the end of the meal he took the cup and gave it to his disciples saying something on the lines of; drink from it all of you and as you do, imagine that this is my blood which is about to be poured out for you, to seal the new promise which God is making with all people.

The wine is poured from a central cup into small cups which are passed around the table

This is God's spirit poured out. It is freely poured out for all. Amen

We all drink from the cups

And Jesus told them to do this whenever they met to remember him. Do what, I wonder?

Well John tells us that after the meal Jesus washed their feet, and insisted that they washed each other's feet, a humble act of service. It is above all things our call to serve each other as Christ has served us and to serve those who have not yet known Christ, just as once we did not know Christ.

We serve each other and the world in the breaking and in the pouring.

We do this in remembrance of Jesus

Song: CMP162/STF272 From heaven you came
© Graham Kendrick 1983

It may well have been customary to end such a meal with the agreement to meet again in Jerusalem next year at the Passover, but having previously told them that he was the vine and they were his branches, he simply said 'I won't have the chance to share in the fruits of this vine until I see you again in the Kingdom.' amen

We all leave in silence

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