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‘A Reflection For Maundy Thursday by a Welland Foss Lay Worship Leader’

Maundy Thursday Benefice Service at Barrowden 2026

Do this!

Maundy Thursday’s episode of the Passion story gives a vivid account of Jesus’ final night in Jerusalem. He knows he must spend it with his friends and perhaps some of his family. But towards the end of the evening it will look to those present as if he’s lost all control.

They gather together for supper. All the arrangements have been made exactly as directed. Maybe everyone, including Jesus, enjoys this last meal for a while because it feels normal and safe, eating together as they’ve done many times before.

Many notable painters from Leonardo da Vinci to Salvador Dali have represented the scene. They tend to focus on the evidence indicating that Jesus knew Judas was about to betray him. A lengthy Wikipedia page gives an account of this uniquely important art historical subject. Vince and I haven’t yet managed to see the Leonardo original in Milan, where there’s apparently very little of his actual paint still remaining. However, more than 40 years ago we got to view the Dali version in Washington D.C.. It made a lasting impact.

This evening’s reflection isn’t about that shocking betrayal. Nor is it about John’s account of how Jesus washed the disciple’s feet before they ate together. Instead, this evening I’ll focus on the ‘last supper’, at which Jesus told us how he should be remembered, in a simple meal, with his friends around the table.

Let’s pick up the story with Saint Luke’s account of what Jesus said and did….

Holding a cup, he said: (Luke 22 vv. 17-18)

‘Take this and share it among yourselves, for I tell you that from this moment, I shall not drink of the fruit of the vine until the time when the Kingdom of God comes….’

Then he took a loaf of bread, and according to St. Paul, when he had given thanks, he broke it and gave it to them saying: (1 Corinthians 11 v.24)

‘This is my body, which is given for you. Do this in memory of me…’

Then again, after supper, he said:

‘This cup is the new covenant sealed by my blood…’

Some of these words, or ones taken from the other synoptic gospel accounts, are included in our eucharistic prayers. They are uniquely important to Anglicans all round the world. This Thursday night, we too will hear the words and ‘do this’ as he requires.

But before I consider what we do together whenever we gather for Holy Communion, let’s stay with the disciples for a minute or two. I wonder, what did those who were there make of it?

· Did they have any idea that this was the moment when it would all start to change in the most devastating ways for them?

 

· How did he look as he spoke to them? What tone of voice did he use?

 

· How clearly would they remember it, as individuals and as a group?

Whatever they thought, they continued with the meal. Whether they heard Jesus to be directing, suggesting, or warmly encouraging his friends to draw strength from sharing bread and wine together, they ate and drank (and ensured that others knew they had done so) or we would not continue to follow their example.

The gospel accounts record significant detail, but naturally they differ from each other slightly. What might have got lost in translation? Of course, they focus on what Jesus said. It may be that an artist’s imagination can help us to reflect on what it was like for the disciples? That artist’s vision may help us to enter into the scene and better consider how Jesus looked. How did he say those words? How did they each react to what they heard? And so we may be able to reconsider what we do together, when we share in this act of obedient remembrance.

 

Personal significance

This essential element in the rhythm of my life was suddenly lost in the spring of 2020. The shock of lockdown caused by the Covid pandemic was profound. Watching a distant priest on a screen, instead of being present to do this in the company of other people, was unbearable. Living as I had for all those years in urban settings, there was never a time when my parish church didn’t have at least one service of Holy Communion every Sunday. All the festivals and many

weddings, funerals and baptisms were also set within eucharistic liturgy. Even when the parish was in vacancy, local priests ensured the pattern was sustained for us, as our clergy did for others in the same position.

In retrospect, perhaps the experience of lockdown made it possible to risk moving to Rutland in November 2020. None of us would resume collective worship for the next few months. As normality slowly returned, I realised that rural parishes were not at all like the suburban one in which I’d lived for 35 years. Here we wouldn’t be meeting in our parish church for Communion each week. Doing this together with friends and family every Sunday wasn’t coming back for me. I asked myself whether I’d simply have to learn to do without. Since then, I’ve been puzzling over this change in my life.

The final section of this reflection is about where I am now, still wondering about Jesus’ advice to do this in remembrance of him.

 

Jesus said: “Do this… in remembrance of me.”

Doing such a simple everyday thing, in a uniquely special way, can make it possible to establish a direct and personal relationship with Jesus. I realise it works for me in several particular ways.

Firstly, it always helps me when I can be active rather than passive, and the same is true when I’m in church. While we are able, we get up and gather at the table. In normal life we eat and drink because we are hungry and thirsty. We can’t be healthy if we don’t. During Covid, when we were unable to share Communion together, I felt an acute spiritual hunger and thirst for the first time in my life. Even now, when Rutland has insufficient priests and licensed lay ministers, each Sunday many parishioners may be experiencing such hunger.

Secondly, Jesus requires us to do this together. That ensures that we share mutual comfort and encouragement with those well known to us. It also requires that we’re hospitable to strangers, recognising that everyone gets hungry and thirsty. The Church isn’t a club or a team. This is a family meal where all are welcome. We may find ourselves standing alongside people we find it hard to get on with. Here we are challenged to seek forgiveness for ourselves or to learn to forgive other people for our mutual benefit.

Each time we do this, we are also in communion with the billions of people, worldwide, who also do this in remembrance of him as a part of many different Christian traditions.

Thirdly, we do this gathered together in sacred spaces… or ones which are sanctified by the sacrament which is taking place.

I’ve taken part in communion services in Jerusalem, in college chapels, an open churchyard during the pandemic, on a beach by the Sea of Galilee, in vast cathedrals, in a prison on Good Friday and from a hospital bed. All made me more aware of the presence and love of God.

Fourthly, we do this as a free and personal response to an invitation from a much loved but sometimes distant friend to share a meal with Him. We are neither compelled nor entitled to be there. “We are not worthy…” but we are warmly welcomed. We can’t buy a ticket or earn the right to gather at the holy table: we just have to turn up.

Even that act of turning up will be easier at certain times than at others. We can come out of desperation. When grief becomes unbearable, I return to Jesus’ words to his friends. From that night everything they relied on would unravel. Sometimes the only hope is found in this one thing. Jesus told us … ‘Do this in remembrance of me’ and so I make the short journey to the table and once more do this.

But this isn’t just spiritual first aid. We also place our most joyful moments within services of Holy Communion including weddings, anniversaries, baptisms and confirmations,

The most memorable of all such occasions for me was three days after our son was born by caesarean section. It was Pentecost. Our priest and friend Michael brought his family to the hospital room to celebrate Communion as a new family. I think we were all awake for at least some of the time and nobody cried!

Such landmark times of inexpressible joy and hope are grounded in the sacramental liturgy which also reminds me of my total dependence on God and the glory of His creation. Doing this in remembrance of Him, guards us against feeling we’re somehow entitled to such blessings or that they come to us free of cost. The costs are often borne by others.

To conclude

When we gather together to do this in remembrance of Him, we join together in hope for peace in a dangerous world. We are grateful once again for the boundless love of God our Father. We belong in communion with our brothers and sisters around the world, all the saints who preceded us and all those yet to come.