The word “Maundy” comes to us as an Anglo-French word derived from the Latin “mandatum,” which means “commandment.” As we look back in the Scriptures surrounding the Lord’s Supper that Jesus shared with His disciples there are two commandments that were given to the disciples. The first one is found in Luke’s gospel account when Jesus instructs His disciples to eat the bread and to drink the cup in remembrance of Him and what He was about to do for them. There was a lot of what Jesus spoke of which the disciples didn’t understand. One of the things that they didn’t understand was what Jesus told them about His suffering, death, and resurrection. What Jesus was about to do was to lay down His life for them and for us and in so doing He would secure our salvation and right standing before God. I believe the point of Jesus commanding us to eat the bread and drink the cup in remembrance of Him is so that we wouldn’t forget the price that Jesus paid for us and for our salvation. While we may not readily admit that we have forgotten what Christ has done our actions prove otherwise. We engage in lifestyles that are not compatible with Scripture, we are critical of others, we lie and deceive others and are unwilling to repent of these and other sins. We must remember that the price of our sins was the suffering and death of Jesus Christ and we should live for Him as He has died for us.
The second commandment we see comes to us from the Gospel of John after Jesus washed the feet of the disciples. He sat back and asked if they had known what He had done for them? What He did was he had demonstrated an expression of the love that He has for them and for all people. The ultimate expression of His love was when Jesus hung on the cross for us and for our salvation. His command was for us to demonstrate that same kind of love to those that we encounter. This is something that is missing in our society today. We are very good at expressing the love that we have for others. We tell them we love them but we don’t demonstrate it. Let us follow the example of Jesus and show those around us that we love them by serving them and thus demonstrating the love of Christ.