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Maundy Thursday

April 17, 2025 - 6:30 p.m.

Readings

Exodus 12:1-4, 11-14
The passover of the Lord

Psalm 116:1-2, 12-19
I will lift the cup of salvation and call on the name of the Lord. (Psalm 116:13)

Luke 22:1-27
Instituting the Lord’s Supper

Music

Prelude: Improvisation on “Song 1”
Gospel Acclamation: Setting 10
Hymn of the Day: Lord, Who the Night You Were Betrayed (Song 1)
Offertory Song: Create in Me a Clean Heart (Freylinghausen)
Communion: Setting 10
Sending Song: O Lord, Now Let Your Servant (Kuortane)

The service continues on Good Friday at 6:30 p.m.
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Dirty, but Not Defined By Dirt

When Jesus approaches Peter to wash his feet, Peter’s reply is, “You will never wash my feet.” Many will feel the same tonight. We struggle to confess that we have dirty feet, that we live in dusty homes and have messy lives. We would like people to see us with our shoes and socks on, neatly wrapped and presented to the world. In private, though, we are painfully aware of our shortcomings. We can feel like miserable failures, hopeless cases, lost causes. We are none of the above. We are creatures of earth, living in earthy bodies and inspired with the breath of God. We are dirt, but we are not our dirtiness.

When Jesus knelt at Peter’s feet to wash them, it was Peter who was affronted by the seeming impropriety of the situation. But to Jesus, who sees with God’s eyes, it was a chance to wash the feet of a loved one—not unlike the feeling you might get touching the feet of an infant. We are children of God and, like any loving parent, God simply wants to give us a bath. Through the eyes of love, God looks at us the way we might choose to look at our church, at our lives, at our feet—as things redeemable.

Our feet—stinky with decay, wrinkled with age, ugly from infection, bruised by labor, signs of our march toward death—our feet are not scary to the one who has bound us up into a new body, a body of life, a body we entered into through baptismal waters. God, who is not afraid to draw close to the decaying portions of our world, sees our feet and loves them, and we are given the new commandment to love one another as we are loved.
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