For Maundy Thursday

From Emanuel's Lenten Devotional project, Devoted:

Thursday, April 2

Lowell Hennigs

Maundy Thursday

Read 1 Corinthians 11:23-26

HANDING IT ON

“For I received from the Lord what I also handed on to you…” (Verse 23a)

Today we are privileged to be the next links in a great chain of faith.  Young people and their parents have been studying what we believe about the Lord’s Supper, Holy Communion.  They have experienced many dimensions of that Sacrament in class and activities. If you want to view the messages that have helped them prepare for First Communion, you can go to our youtube channel.

Today they will join our Eucharistic fellowship as full participants.  We get to be the people who hand on to them what we have received from the Lord.  We get to be the people who invite them to receive the benefits of the Sacrament—forgiveness, life and salvation.

Those young people first will experience the Rite of Footwashing.  We are not their masters.  We are their servants.  It is our privilege to wait on them in this way.  It is our privilege because we get to imitate our Lord Jesus in this rite.

We wrap ourselves with towels and kneel at their feet.  We wash their feet in part to remind them of their baptismal covenants.  And we dry their feet to prepare them for the journey of faith to come.

Perhaps you can remember your own First Communion celebration.  Think back and give thanks for those people who handed on to you what they also received from the Lord.

And then think back to that first Lord’s Supper.  We remember that meal in our thoughts.  We re-enact that meal in our worship.  We embody that meal in our witnessing and serving.  We get to be those who hand on what our Lord has given us.

But this isn’t a one-night thing.  Week in and week out we get to pass on the faith to the next generation.  If you aren’t teaching a class or mentoring a young person or encouraging a child, you are missing out on great opportunities in being a follower of Jesus. 

We get to hand on to others what the Lord first handed to us.  And in the handing on, it becomes most fully ours.

Let’s pray.  Lord God, thank you for those who handed on the faith to me.  Use me to hand that faith on to the next generation of believers.  In Jesus’ name.  Amen.