Maundy Thursday

A sermon preached on Maundy Thursday 2011 in St Columba's Parish Church at 1030 Holy Communion

May my words and our hearts be always acceptable in thy sight O Lord our strength and our redeemer.


Here we are on Maundy Thursday, a day when we remember what Jesus commanded, we follow his example as we celebrate communion.

Do you know where the word Maundy originates from? ... I didn’t, until I prepared for this sermon



It is a powerful statement - Loving one another as Jesus loves us. This speaks about a sacrifical love, a love which is reaches beyond what is expected, it is a love which goes the extra mile.

It is love that is at the very heart of our faith... When I was ordained as a deacon, The Bishop reminded us that Service and Love is at the very core of all ministries of the church ... we See Jesus modelling it and we are reminded in our reading today that we are all called to serve God and each other humbly and without regard for our status.

If we look carefully what Jesus did that day ... he took a towel, he took a basin and he washed his disciples feet ... now these I am sure were not previously washed feet, they were not feet which had socks and enclosed in comfortable clarkes breathable shoes ... but rather they were undoubtably dirty, smelly feet which had been on the go from early morning, they were dirty, walking through city streets which wouldn’t have had the benefits of Belfast City Street Cleaning, nor Northern Ireland Sewage System!

The great thing about Jesus is that he is not afraid to deal with the muck, with the dirty things of life, he was display a wonderful example for us.

It is so humbling, so amazing when we think ... here is the creator of the universe ... as a servant to all.

He is instructing us that we need to have the same attitude.

In our society we see people pushing themselves forward, fame, glamour, profit ... however our attitude has to be the same as that of Jesus ... Humble, Loving, service.

Over the past few days I have been sitting in Knock Methodist church at lunch time listening to people we may well recognise ... Paul Clark from UTV, Chief Constable Matt Baggott and ... from ... they were speaking on what the Cross means to them in their walk ... it was great to hear from people who have influence on all of us saying that they are humbly walking with their God day in and day out... and it was also great to see how they genuinely spoke to those leaving the church ... conversing with them as Brothers and Sisters in Christ

Isn’t that so true ... its not always what is said but what is done that counts

As a church we aim to try to display these characteristics love, joy kindness ... we try to show love by our welcome, by our concern for all parishioners, by our visiting ...all of us are called to display these characteristics as we go about our daily lives.

A few years ago I was in Africa, a similar custom to that of feet washing was in operation ... the lowest in the household ... a child, or the youngest would have got out a basin and a towel before every meal, they would have gone around and made sure that each of us were able to wash our hands before the meal, then they would have offered us a towel.

At one particular meal in a school the Bishop of the Diocese which we were visiting saw that the bowl and jug had not been passed around so he set about doing this... it was a wonderful illustration of this story. The idea of servant leadership. The idea that all of us are called to serve each other. After that illustration members of our team then began to ask the locals if they could bring the bowl around to serve them.

There is a challenge here for each one of us

Firstly ... what jobs do we not like doing?, what people do we not like speaking to? ... are there things we don’t think we should be doing? ... all of us are called to step out in humility and grace and go the extra mile!

Secondly ... are there areas where we don’t think God should be in our lives? he washed the dirtiest, the messiest, smelliest feet ... why not allow him into those areas of our lives to clean them up and to restore them to fullness