Maundy Thursday with our Divine Story
(as told in Matthew 26:17–75; Luke 22:7–62; and John chapters 13-19)
Maundy Thursday is primarily known for the “Last Supper”, when Jesus celebrated his last Passover with the disciples. In the years that followed, this commonplace act of sharing a meal developed into the most defining ritual in Christianity, known also as the Eucharist and Communion.
Sadly and tragically, as Christianity “developed”, the Last Supper has been extracted and isolated from the events in Maundy Thursday that lead up to it and follow from it. But the Last Supper was not an isolated event, just like there was a lot more food on the table than just bread and wine.
If we put together the stories in all four Gospels, Maundy Thursday includes these aspects:
● The context was the Jewish Passover: remembering that salvation comes from God;
● Jesus washed everyone’s feet in humble, compassionate service;
● Jesus teaches that following him is ultimately about being in loving unity with God and each other;
● The last supper includes Judas, the betrayer;
● Praying in the garden of Gethsemane, Jesus prays alone and in agony;
● “Enemies” arrest Jesus
The originating genius of Maundy Thursday is that these events are not separate; they flow into and out of the Last Supper.
Together they show that Divine Communion involves every aspect of our existence, even the messy, distressing parts. This integral vision of our whole life in God is the very heart of the Divine Story.
Our Divine Story of Living, Messy Communion
The events of Maundy Thursday are the stuff of dramatic literature:
festival celebration,
surprising reversal of roles,
profound teaching,
intimate fellowship,
misunderstanding,
tragic betrayal,
agonizing self-doubt,
and even imprisonment and immense suffering.
The plot is riveting indeed. It is also shockingly messy, with conflict and confusion and tragedy all wrapped up and included in the communion of Jesus and the disciples.
This robust, expansive, and paradoxical reality of communion is exactly what we experience in our Divine Story! Our messy lives - filled with our own suffering and tragedy, as well as our joys and hopes - are an inextricable part of the Divine Story.
The Truth is that
all of our lives - including the parts we deny, or reject, or ignore - every aspect of who we are and what we do are held securely in the Divine Life. We are safe and secure even in our dying and death, even in our “Good Fridays”.
The Truth is that
our Divine Origin is also the Divine Ground of our Being every day, every moment: “Nothing can separate us from God!” [Romans 8]
The Transformative Power of Divine Communion
Communion - real, robust, expansive, messy unity - does not leave us in our present state. The unity we experience in God is powerfully transformative.
Dwelling deeper in Divine Communion,
dissipates lesser stories that limit and separate us.
Just as the tragedy and horror of Holy Week culminates in Easter Resurrection,
so too our communion in God -
even in the midst of our own dying and death -
raises us in new life.
Letting Go and Going Deeper:
Daily Examen and Meditation
To practice letting go and going deeper, we offer a daily (or perhaps even more often 😉) discipline of reflection and meditation to journey through Holy Week and into Easter.
Our discipline this week involves 2 questions for us to reflect on, and a recorded meditation to guide us through the process. This is a way we can step into a dedicated habitualizing of letting go of things to which we grasp and abiding more deeply in the two-fold Truth of our being:
a) that we are always in God and God is always in us;
b) that we are always and forever beloved.
Holy Week Examen and Meditation
To accompany our journey of Passion this Holy Week, you are encouraged to practice this reflective and meditative discipline regularly. The questions are modeled after the Ignatian examen, and are oriented toward an evening setting. Take a couple minutes to ponder and write your reflections on these questions in a journal or tablet. No need to over-think; all reflections are welcome. Then when ready, start the recorded meditation.
What lesser story did I experience today?
How did I experience being centered and grounded in God today?
This is the Christ Logos, the universal pattern of God’s creativity still coming into being, every and always.
And it is our divine WeCreating invitation.
To sing the song of love in the world, composed from nothing less than the Living Origin of eternal wholeness and union in God.
Statement of WeCreating Authorship
This article was WeCreated with authoring by Robert Martin and Beth Biery, with editing support by Luke Healy.
All of the wisdom, creativity, and spiritual emergence in ICN comes from the communal field of wisdom and spirit speaking in and through the “We.”
All text in this article is human-authored without the use of AI beyond light editing, according to our AI policy: 1 out of 10
All Images are open-source, used with permission, or created by ICN with the use of AI