Maundy Thursday

Mark 14:12-72
 
Three major stories happen here on Thursday:

1. The Last Supper
The Festival of Thin Bread (Passover) begins at sundown on Thursday. Jesus and his disciples gather in an upper room in Jerusalem for the Passover meal and the traditional Jewish liturgy that goes along with the meal. During the meal Jesus changed the meaning of Passover for his followers and established a new agreement between God and God’s people. We call this new agreement Holy Communion, Eucharist, or the Lord’s Supper. It is, for us, a sharing in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus by making his sacrificed body and blood part of our body and blood, together. We do this together to show that we are also binding ourselves to one another as the living, breathing, working, and loving body of Christ.

2. The Prayer, Betrayal, Arrest, and Questioning of Jesus
Jesus leads his disciples to the Mount of Olives and the Garden of Gethsemane where he wrestles in prayer with the sacrifice that God is asking him to make. Jesus comes to the same conclusion that his mother reached some thirty years earlier when God asked her to sacrifice her life: “I will do whatever God wants me to do.”

​Judas comes with a mob of men armed with swords and clubs and betrays Jesus with a kiss. Jesus is arrested and all of his disciples ran off and left him.

Jesus was led off to the house of the high priest and Peter followed at a distance. Jesus is put on trial and questioned before the Jewish council. Finally, the high priest asks Jesus, “Are you the Messiah, the Son of the glorious God?” “Yes, I am!” Jesus answered.

3. Peter’s Denial
Peter and all the disciples had sworn that they would never deny knowing Jesus even if it meant they would be killed. But now none are left except Peter and he is keeping his distance from Jesus. A servant girl asserts to Peter, “You were with Jesus from Nazareth!” Peter replied, “That’s not true!” Later she tells others, “This man is one of them!” “No, I’m not!” Peter replied. Later some of the people said to Peter, “You certainly are one of them. You’re a Galilean!” Peter cursed and swore, “I don’t even know the man you’re talking about!” Then the rooster crowed a second time.

​Three times – because you can’t claim that it was a slip of the tongue, or a mistake, or a moment of weakness. Three times because that is who you are deep down in a place you cannot control and cannot hide. And Peter cried – and we cry with him.

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