Great, Holy Thursday or Maundy Thursday or Covenant Thursday or Pessaha (Passover/Pascha)

There is an array of events that are clustered on this last day before Jesus was arrested that are commemorated in various ways in of worship services. These include the washing of the disciples’ feet by Jesus, the last meal together, which was the Passover meal, the institution of Eucharist or Communion, Jesus praying in the Garden of Gethsemane while the disciples fell asleep and the betrayal by Judas. Most liturgies, however, focus on the Passover Meal and Communion as a way to commemorate this day.

Traditionally in the Christian Church, this day is known as Maundy Thursday. The term Maundy comes from the Latin word mandatum (from which we get our English word mandate), from a verb that means ‘to give’, or ‘to entrust’ or ‘to command’.” Holy Thursday is called Maundy Thursday from the old Latin name for the day, “Dies Mandatum novum,” i.e. “the Day of the New Commandment.”

According to the Fourth Gospel, as Jesus and the Disciples were eating their final meal together before Jesus’ arrest, He washed the disciples’ feet to illustrate humility and the spirit of servanthood. By washing the feet of His disciples, He summarized the meaning of His ministry, manifested His perfect love and revealed His profound humility. The washing of the feet signifies His intense love and the giving of Himself to each person according to that person’s ability to receive Him (Jn 13: 6-9).

At the Mystical Supper in the Upper Room Jesus gave a radically new meaning to the food and drink of the sacred meal. He identified Himself with the bread and wine: “Take, eat; this is my Body. Drink of it all of you; for this is my Blood of the New Covenant” (Matt. 26: 26-28). The Eucharist is at the center of the Church’s life and is the pre-eminent sacrament. Consecrated and sanctified, the bread and wine become the Body and Blood of Christ. The Eucharist imparts life and the life it gives is the life of God and we receive and partake of the resurrected Christ. By establishing the Eucharist, He enshrines to perfection God’s most intimate purposes for our salvation, offering Himself as Communion and life. The Last Supper is the restoration of the paradise of bliss, of life as Eucharist and Communion.

After they had finished the meal, as they walked into the night toward Gethsemane, Jesus taught his disciples a “new” commandment (John 13: 34-35) “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; even as I have loved you, you also ought to love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another”. Hence this day is also called Covenant Thursday.

Pascha is the Hebrew word for “Passover”, but its meaning is much deeper and intense, than this. St. Paul describes the life of Christianity as one that passes over “from glory to glory.” In a similar way, the story of the Passover increases in intensity, meaning, and holiness throughout the ages, the fulfillment of God’s promise to save His people, allowing them to pass over from death to life. There are many shadows and precursors of Passovers in the scriptures. Each of them are symbols of the final forgiveness of sins through the Holy Cross and the Lamb crucified upon its wood. These laws and commandments of the Old Testament were always “a shadow of the good things to come” (Heb 10: 1.)

The First Passover: Baptism through Faith
Righteous, Faithful, Patriarch Noah and his family were saved by the Great Flood, that recreated a new earth, devoid of evil . The world passed over from evil to good, sinful to sin-free, faithless to faithful – a precursor of Salvation of the world.  ²⁰ to those who were disobedient long ago when God waited patiently in the days of Noah while the ark was being built. In it only a few people, eight in all, were saved through water, ²¹ and this water symbolizes baptism that now saves you also—not the removal of dirt from the body but the pledge of a clear conscience toward God (1 Pet. 3: 20-21).

The Israelites crossed the Red Sea under the leadership of Moses. Just as God through Moses and his staff parted its waters and crushed the evil Pharaoh’s soldier, s at the bottom of the sea, Christ had destroyed and crushed the Satan and his soldiers to the bottom of the earth, using the Cross. In our lives, this Passover is of prime importance fore viewing baptism. Just as the waters saved the Israelites from the evil army of Pharaoh, so does the baptismal waters save us from Satan’s forces. Just as the new life began for Israelites, we to commemorate that new beginning, our Christian Journey through baptism, seeking for eternal rest in Jesus in Heavenly Jerusalem.

The Second Passover: Victory and Passing over from Temptation to Sin
The commandment of the Lord given to Moses, to smear the blood of the lamb on the doorposts of the houses of the Israelites in Egypt, to roast the sacrificial lamb, and eat unleavened bread, with bitter herbs, with their loins girded, their sandals on their feet, their staff in their hand (Exodus 12). It continued that through the shedding of blood of the lamb, there came forgiveness. “And according to the law almost all things are purified with blood, and without shedding of blood there is no remission.” (Hebrews 9:22).

The meat that the Jews would feast upon was not raw or unbaked, but cooked in fire. The lamb had to suffer through fire; it had to suffer. This meat had a sweet smell, but a bitter taste. This is a reminder of sin – however pleasing and smelling it may seem to our senses, alluring it may be to us, we must never forget the bitter sadness of its consequences. This bitterness lies within the cross: “¹⁵He has filled me with bitter herbs and given me gall to drink.” (Lamentations 3:15, – Ps. 69: 29, Matt. 27: 34; Mk. 15: 23; Jn 19: 29). Our Christian life is full of such sinful bitter herbs will Passover and bring forth a sweet, saintly aroma of Christ, through our fast, we get rid of the taste of such bitter herbs, by experiencing the sufferings of the Cross of Christ. We should prefer to select, the this narrow and difficult path, by submitting saying “we are to God the fragrance of Christ among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing” (2 Cor. 2: 15).

Christ, Himself became the true and ultimate Passover Lamb, the fulfillment of this prophecy, Our Lord and Savior Who perfected the Passover meal by offering His Body and Blood in the form of bread and wine. . “For indeed, Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us” (1 Cor. 5:7).

In our Church traditions, all of the altar coverings and decorations are removed after the Eucharist is served on Maundy Thursday. Since the altar in these traditions symbolize the Christ, the “stripping of the altar” symbolizes the abandonment of Jesus by his disciples and the stripping of Jesus by the soldiers prior to his crucifixion. This, like the darkness often incorporated into a Good Friday service, represents the humiliation of Jesus and the consequences of sin as a preparation for the celebration of new life and hope that is to come on Resurrection Day.