It’s Maundy Thursday.
This day commemorates Jesus’ institution, on the night of His betrayal and arrest, of Holy Communion, the Sacrament in which He gives His body and blood to believers in Him. Through this gift, we receive what Jesus promises: the forgiveness of sin.
Maundy Thursday also recalls Jesus giving His Church a new commandment: that we love our sisters and brothers in Christ as He has loved us. The whole human race, of course, is commanded to love God with our whole being and to love others as we love ourselves. But in the new commandment, Jesus lays on believers in Him a higher calling, one that we can only fulfill, as we trust in Him and the Holy Spirit does God’s work in us: to love fellow believers with the same passion and commitment with which Jesus loves us during this Holy Week.
That’s what I believe we Christians are doing as we stay at home from worship and other church activities this year. We are refusing to be unwitting carriers of a novel virus which, if the elderly, the babies, or others in our church fellowships, were exposed to it, could mean their deaths.
Love of God and love of neighbor and love of fellow believers this year may well be measured by how willing we are to stay at home.
Some day, our churches will be able to gather together again.
Until then, we pray, we wait, and we prayerfully seek to find ways, even now, to love.
Have a blessed Maundy Thursday!
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