Holy Thursday (also called Maundy Thursday) is the beginning of the Triduum, the celebration of the holy three days of Jesus’ Passover. The Lenten preparations conclude with this service as it leads into recounting Jesus’ Passion (suffering and sacrifice) for us as well as His Resurrection.
Holy Thursday, then, recounts the events that occurred that day, especially those during the evening and night that Jesus shared the Passover with His disciples before He was arrested. What Jesus said and did at that meal along with the preparations for that meal and the events that followed that meal are recorded in Matthew 22:17-26:75; Mark 14:12-72; Luke 22:7-65; and John 13:1-18:27.
In remembering the events of that night, there are three main focuses of this service. The first focus is that it is the night that Jesus instituted the Lord’s Supper. As such, many churches, including ours celebrate the Lord’s Supper, recalling how the ancient celebration of Passover is replaced by Jesus’ own Passover. For as God delivered the Israelites out of slavery and Pharaoh’s hand, so He delivers us out of the grasp of the devil and the slavery to sin and death (Exodus 12-14; Hebrew 2:14-15; Romans 8:12-17). In giving His Supper, Jesus provides us with something new as we wait for Him to make all things new (Isaiah 65:17-25; Revelation 21:5). There is both the joy of Jesus’ work for us and the somberness of the cost, reflected in how this service ends.
The second focus is the reason for the name “Maundy Thursday.” It comes from the Latin word mandatum, which means commandment. It is taken from Jesus’ words 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” (ESV). Jesus Himself lives out this commandment by laying down His life for all people. He also demonstrates and symbolizes that servant action by taking on the role of servant at this meal and washing His disciples’ feet. The teacher serves His students by cleansing their feet and ultimately, cleansing them wholly by the sacrificial servant act of dying in their place—a servant act that He continues with His Supper, which is the culmination of the Maundy Thursday church service.
The final focus of this service is how the Lord is handed over into the hands of men that night. Betrayed by one of His own, abandoned by the rest, and even denied by the spokesman of the disciples, Jesus is arrested, charged with blasphemy, and beaten. The Son is handed over by the Father for men to do what they want with the Creator of the Universe. Since Jesus willingly allows Himself to be handed over (Luke 22:41-42; Matthew 26:47-56), we see how committed He is to serving the Father and us. His servant attitude is demonstrated at the end of the service as the altar is stripped and we hear Psalm 22. This stripping of the altar reminds us how He will be stripped not only of clothes but dignity as He takes our place on the cross. Jesus is not above being humiliated for the sake of saving His creation.
The Maundy Thursday portion of the service ends in silence and people depart in silence. Because the Maundy Thursday service is seen as the beginning of the Triduum (the three day long service), there is no Benediction to end the service. The Benediction for this 3-day service will be either at the Easter Vigil or at the Easter morning service.