Maundy Thursday - March 28

The Stripping of the Altar

Depending upon your personal preference or parish custom Maundy Thursday is either about a meal or a bath (well, maybe, a sponge bath). Just an ordinary meal and a bath.

The first letter to the Corinthians, actually written before John’s Gospel, tells about the meal. A meal that Jesus shared with his disciples.

John tells how, presumably at that same meal, Jesus bathed the feet of his disciples. It was a servants’ task, but not an unfamiliar one. It was an act of hospitality and everyday cleansing in a land where roads were dusty and much travel was done on foot.

From our vantage point in history we can say that that night and the events of that night had unimaginable significance for all human kind.

But really it was just a meal and a bath. It may be helpful to remember that in many ways it was an ordinary night. The meal maybe was not quite as ordinary as fast food on the run, but it was just that year’s Passover meal shared with good friends. Surely, many other rooms in Jerusalem were filled with shared meals that night. All that was unique about this particular meal was Jesus’ presence.

And in the foot washing, Jesus was teaching his disciples. He was teaching them about servanthood. But it was really just an ordinary act of hospitality. Except that it was Jesus who served.

The readings and the chronology of Jesus’ last days determine that this night shall be about a meal and a bath. But I have had many, many people tell me over the years that the most meaningful and powerful part of this service for them is not something the Gospels or Paul say anything about. It is the much later tradition of the stripping of the altar.

Bit by bit, as all of the trappings of worship are removed, it’s as though all beauty and grace are sucked out of the world. The horror of Jesus’ death becomes inevitable. Only darkness, sadness and loss are left. God is snuffed out. All is barren.

That is what a life without Jesus looks like and feels like.

It was the presence of Christ in ordinary events that made them miraculous, wondrous, full of meaning and grace. Then and now.

When we strip Christ from our daily lives, they are as stark and desolate as this altar will be in an hour or so.

Jesus is or can be just as real, just as much a part of the ordinary events of our daily lives as he is real in the vestments and fancy trappings of the altar. Actually, of course, we all know he isn’t in the trappings at all. But he is at our daily breakfast tables and our family holy-day dinners. He is with us on the thresholds of our homes as we welcome guests. He sits beside us on the shower seat as we sponge bathe an elderly or infirm relative.

If we turn away from or neglect Jesus at our everyday meals, in the midst of our everyday tasks, or in the encounters we have with one another in our daily lives, then our lives will be stripped barren indeed.