Why Is Holy Thursday Holy?
--by Lisa Phillips

�����Started out the day as usual at Simon�s house. It was a beautiful morning. Jesus seemed preoccupied that morning. Two days before he had said, �You know that in two days the Son of Man will be handed over to be crucified.� (Mt 26:2). This just kept running over and over in my mind. Surely He was the king of the Jews. He will take His rightful place on the throne. I felt a strange sadness that day preparing for the Seder. It did not feel like any other year. John and I were sent by the Master to prepare the room for the meal. We were to go to Jerusalem to a certain man and say to him, �My appointed time draws near, in your house I will celebrate the Passover with my disciples� (Mt. 26:18). He had a room prepared for us. It was a quiet day in the city because it was a custom to do no work on that day. Work stopped by noon. Even the priests offered their daily sacrifice for the evening by 2:30, so they were prepared to take care of their duties, to kill the sacrificial lambs for everyone�s meal. By 11, John and I had our candles lit and we were silently searching every inch and corner of the house so that there was no leaven to be found. There could be no leaven in the house. I went to buy the lamb and John went to get the rest of the supplies for the dinner that night. I stood in line at the temple with thousands of people outside the temple, so that the priest could kill the lamb. We were singing again the �Hallel� (Ps 113-118). I thought about last Sunday when the Master entered the city. What a different feel this day has.

�����Once the room was ready and the meal was prepared, we sent word to Jesus and the other disciples that everything was ready. While we were waiting, John and I bought a couple of swords (Lk 22:38). We had this feeling there would be trouble, we wanted to protect Jesus from whoever would try to harm him. After all, hadn�t He said that he would be handed over to be crucified? When we all gathered together, there was some discussion about who of us would be greatest when Jesus took his throne. We figured we should be seated in that order at the table with Him. Jesus told us we should be servants. �For who is greater, the one seated at the table or the one who serves? Is it not the one seated at the table: I am among you as the one who serves� (Lk 22:27)

�����At sunset, people all over the city were observing the same feast. But it is different for us. This would be our last meal with our master and our friend. Jesus took the first cup and gave thanks and drank it. Then he did something that was truly amazing. Traditionally, we have a hands washing ceremony at this point. But, Jesus got up, got a pitcher of water and a basin, took off his garments, and wrapped a towel around his waist. He began washing our feet and drying them with that towel. That was almost too much for me to handle. That was a job even the servants did not want to do. It was saved for the lowliest servant in the house, and yet Jesus our Lord and Master was washing our feet. It made me uncomfortable. The closer he got to me the more uncomfortable I became. I asked Him if he was going to wash my feet. He told me yes but that I would not understand until later. I told him He would never wash my feet. Jesus answered unless I wash you, you will have no inheritance with me.� Then I said, �Then not only my feet but my hands and head as well.� Jesus said: �Whoever has bathed had no need except to have his feet washed, for he is clean all over, so you are clean, but not all� (Jn 13:6-11). This was a puzzling statement. He finished and came back to the table and reclined with us. As usual during the Passover feast we reclined to be comfortable, to remind us that once we were slaves and now we are free. Jesus explained to us what was meant by his washing our feet. He knew it would be hard for us to understand why Jesus, the Master and King, would do something so lowly. �If I then, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another�s� (Jn 13:14). That message was a beginning, but, did not become clear. Later, I would write that we should �be clothed in humility� (1 Peter 5:5). We could tell He was troubled in spirit� throughout the meal.(Jn 13:21) we ate the Haroseth, which is a mixture of chopped walnuts, wine, cinnamon, and apples, which represent the mortar the Jewish slaves used to make the Pharaoh�s bricks. We ate Parsley, which symbolizes springtime, we dipped it in salt water to remind us of the tears of the Jewish slaves and eggs, which also remind us of springtime. We ate the sacrificial lamb, and bitter herbs, which reflected the bitter affliction of slavery. Sometime during that part of the meal Jesus made a statement that was too unbelievable to any of us. �Most assuredly, I say to you, one of you will betray me� (Jn 13:21) when Judas left the meal we had no idea that this is what he was going to do. How could he have betrayed our Lord? Of course, little did I know at the time what I would do later. I could not believe it when Jesus turned to me and said �I say to you the cock will not crow before you deny me three times� (Jn 13:38). There was no way I would do that! I was stunned, and for the first time in a long time I could say nothing in reply.

�����After drinking the second cup of wine, it was customary to break the bread and give thanks. Jesus �took the bread, said the blessing, broke it,�gave it to us saying �this is my body, which will be given up for you, do this in memory of me.� And likewise the cup� after we had eaten saying ��this is the cup of the new covenant in my blood, which will be shed for you� (Lk 22:19-20). It was like he was giving us a new Passover tradition, something we could do to keep Him alive in our memories like we remember God delivering his people from Egypt.

�����After the meal, we relaxed and talked for a little while. Jesus began teaching. He left us the new commandment �that you love on another; as I have loved you� (Jn 13:34). As He was teaching we were able to participate and ask questions. It was wonderful being able to do that. Most teachers I have learned under did not tolerate that and made me feel stupid when I asked a question.

�����I asked Him where he was going. �Do not let your hearts be troubled. You have faith in God, have also faith in Me. In my house there are many dwelling places. If there were not, would I have told you that I am going to prepare a place for you?�(Jn 14:1-2) Thomas asked how to get to the Father�s house. Jesus said �I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me� (Jn 14:6). Philip asked Him to show us the Father. He said: �He who has seen me has seen the Father�(Jn 14:12-14). He talked about not abandoning us , but instead sending us a comforter. �And he who loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I will love him and manifest Myself to him�(Jn 14:21) Judas (not Iscariot) asked Him how He would show himself to us and �not to the world� (Jn 14:22) He said it would be done through the fellowship of the believers. He and the Father would send the Holy Spirit to give us peace that only He could give and that we should rejoice because He was going to be with the Father. (Jn 24:23-31) As He glanced out the window He saw a vine, which reminded Him that He wanted to tell us that He is close to us and we are a part of Him. �I am the vine, you are the branches. Whoever remains in Me and I in him will bear much fruit, because without Me you can do nothing� (Jn 15:5). �If you remain in Me and My words remain in you, ask for whatever you want and it will be done for you�(Jn15:7). He told us He loved us as the Father loved Him. (Jn 15:9) he warned us that it was going to be rough out there and that whoever kills us �will think he offers God service� (Jn 16:2). He told us that the sorrow of living with opposition and rejection would be intense. (Jn 16:21), but that we would have a comforter (Jn 16:7-15), and that God would turn our sorrow into joy (Jn 16:2022), to remember we had prayer on our side (Jn:16:23-24), and He would be leaving us with his victorious peace (Jn 16:25-33). He told us to get ready to leave. As we walked past the temple he stopped. He prayed for us. He petitioned the Father for the glorification of Him as the Son (Jn 17:1-5). He prayed for us and asked God the Father to watch over us while he was gone (Jn 17:6-9). He prayed for those who would become believers later (Jn 17:20-26). After He finished praying, we walked over the Brook Kidron to the garden of Gethsemane.

�����We would have a long night ahead of us. There was so much to think about and store in our memories and to ponder and later to come to understand.
(To be continued in the next article, Why is Good Friday so good?)


�:�������---Lisa

�2000 Lisa Marie Phillips all rights reserved
*No portion of this article may be used without written permission from the author

Holy Thursday 2000
--by Fr. Lester Smith

����� What was the original meaning of the washing of the feet? What was Jesus actually saying by that deed? By the second century, Christians saw it as a symbol of Baptism. �Unless I wash you, you will have no part with me.� Later they also saw it as a symbol of the Sacrament of Reconciliation. �He who has bathed does not need to wash, except for his feet". There are even different interpretations in the Gospel itself. For instance, it is seen as an incitement to humble service- �I have given you an example, that you should do as I have done.� All these interpretations, are legitimate, especially the last one, since it is found right in the Gospel. But by digging deeper, scholars can get closer to the actual thing that happened. And what they have found is surprising! For what Jesus did was actually quite strange- to get up during the middle of the meal and begin to wash the feet of the other people at the meal. The disciples must have felt very uncomfortable. Peter was the only one who spoke up: �Are you going to wash my feet?" Jesus answered: �What I am doing, you do not understand now, but you will understand later.� If it was humble service he was illustrating, they could have easily understood that. So it must have been something else he was saying. What was it?

����� The washing of the feet, I think, was a prophetic action, like the prophetic actions of Jermiah, Ezekiel and other of the prophets of old. For instance, In Jeremiah 19, the Lord tells Jeremiah to take an earthen flask, and, in front of the elders of the people, to smash it to pieces and say: �This will happen to the nation of Israel.� And in Chapter 13, the Lord tells Jeremiah to buy a linen cloth and wear it around his loins, and then to take it off and bury it. And the Lord says, through Jeremiah, �Just as a linen cloth clings to a person�s loins, so I made the House of Israel and the House of Judah cling to me, but they left me�. The washing of the feet was, I believe, a prophetic action like that. It was saying something almost too deep for words. By the time of that Supper, Jesus knew he was going to be killed. He had even come to see his death as part of God�s plan. He had surely read Isaiah 53, where it says:�He was pierced for our offenses, crushed for our sins...He shall take away the sins of many and win pardon for their offenses.� Jesus had come to see it all as part of God�s plan. But he was in great dread. Remember, He was completely human, as well as divine, and he was in great sadness and fear-dread! Yet he wanted the disciples to know the purpose of what was going to happen. So he shocked them by getting up and washing their feet. He was saying �I love you from the bottom of your feet to the top of your head. Your whole body, your flesh and blood, is to share in my glory. I�m going to wash you with my blood." Jesus washed their feet to prophecy symbolically that he was about to die for them. It�s interesting that, on another occasion when Jesus spoke of his death, it was Peter then too, who objected, saying:�Lord, that shall never happen to you.� On this occasion, however, Jesus says: �Unless I wash you, you will have no part with me�. In other words, �Unless I die for you, there will be no eternal life for you�.

�����We gain eternal life by being united to Jesus, through faith and through the sacraments, Baptism, Confirmation, Holy Communion etc. He said in John 6:�Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man, and drink his blood, you have no life in you.� And if we fall away through sin, or if even we grow weak through small sins, there is the Sacrament of Reconciliation, by which we are united more firmly to the Body of Christ and to the Lord, himself. Then as Jesus washed the feet of the disciples and gave them his Body and Blood, expressing his imminent death, let us as we share the Holy Eucharist, resolve to die for one another and for Him.


�:�������---Father Lester Smith

�2000 Rev Lester Smith all rights reserved
*No portion of this article may be used without written permission from the author

Palm Sunday, What Does It Mean To You?
--by Lisa Marie Phillips

�����Let�s take a trip back to Old Jerusalem. It is a bright and beautiful day. There is an air of celebration, all around you a sense of excitement. You are a Jew and for you this is a wonderful time of the year for you. You have come to Jerusalem to purify yourself ceremonially for the upcoming Passover Feast. This is a time to reflect on what God has done for the Nation of Israel. But this year there is something else in the air. It is not like all the other years you have come. There is a murmur in the crowd of a man named Jesus. Some people are saying He is the messiah that He just raised this fellow Lazarus from the dead after three days. You are hearing that the authorities are not liking this man because He claims to be the Son of God. Perhaps He is after all. Didn�t He heal alot of people? Didn�t He raise people from the dead? Didn�t the prophets talk about the coming of the Messiah? Could this indeed be Him?
�����The rabbis had been talking about this being the end of the sixty-ninth week that Daniel had prophesied. This was a day of great anticipation and the crowd in Jerusalem was overwhelming. Some had estimated around two million people in Jerusalem for the Passover celebration and perhaps even more due to the prophesy of Daniel.
�����You hear people singing. You turn your head in the direction of the noise. Your heart swells because you know that song. It is sung at every Passover time. It is part of the great Hallel. It celebrated the time of the Messiah. It is a Hymn of Thanksgiving:

Open the gates of victory
�����I will enter and thank the Lord
�����This is the Lord�s own gate,
�������Where the victors will enter.
�����I thank you for you answered me.
�������You have been my savior
�����The stone the builders rejected
�������Has become the cornerstone.
�����By the Lord has this been done.
�������It is wonderful in his eyes.
�����This is the day that the Lord has made.
�������Let us rejoice and be glad
�����Lord, grant salvation
�������Lord, grant great good fortune

�����Blessed is he
�������Who comes in the name of the Lord
�����We bless you from the Lord�s house.
�������The Lord is God and has given us light.
�����Join in procession with leafy branches
�������Up to the horns of the altar.

�����You are my God, I give you thanks
�������My God I offer you praise
�����Give thanks to the Lord who is good,
�������Whose love endures forever. (Psalms 118:19-29)

�����You look through the massive crowd that has gathered on the streets and there on a white ass covered with cloaks, you see a man. He is not dressed as a king. He does not appear to be different than any other man, and yet there is something different about him. There is a sense of peace about him. He is not haughty or proud. But He has a royal air about him. People are placing their cloaks on the ground and palm branches so that he might pass. Can all these people be wrong? Aren�t the palm branches a sign of Messianic power and the national independence movement of the Maccabees? What a wonderful day this is. The Messiah has come. He will release you from the control of the Romans. He will be your king. A thrill of hope runs through your veins. Your excitement level is high. This is it. Wow. What it must have been like for a person to be standing on the streets of Jerusalem that day.

�����But what about the Pharisees and the Chief Priests? How discouraging this must have been for them. Had they not a couple of days ago decided that this man had to be stopped? He could not continue to go on calling himself the Son of God. How dare He come into Jerusalem on this day? He was just trying to incite a riot. Was it not their job to keep the peace? The Roman government had put that job in their hands. If this crowd gets out of control then the soldiers will come in. They had to stop this nonsense, but how? They asked Him to stop his disciples from singing. He replied �I tell you that if these should keep silence, the stones would immediately cry out.� (Luke 19:40) They would have to work harder to figure out a way to stop this man. This must have only served to incite their hatred even more. They had already put a price on his head. Both of the religious factions of the day came together on this issue. �The Chief Priests and the Pharisees had given a command, that if anyone knew where He was, he should report it, that they might seize him.�(John 11:57) Judas had probably already begun to set Jesus up. According to the Jewish custom the Lamb was chosen for sacrifice four days before final selection for Passover. The religious leaders knew that they would get Jesus, they just did not know when. They were frustrated on this day, they said to themselves: �So the Pharisees said to one another, �You see that you are gaining nothing. Look, the whole world has gone after him.�(John 12:19) And with that many people in town, it must have seemed like the whole world to them. What a frustrating and disappointing day it must have been for the religious leaders that day.

�����What must Jesus have been thinking about? Jesus' day started in Bethany where he had just said good-bye to one of his good friends Lazarus. It had to be a very emotional good-bye as Jesus had just brought Lazarus back from the dead a few days before that. It had to be a very tearful good-bye. It was probably more so for Him as He knew He would not be seeing Lazarus again. He began his long journey into Jerusalem but, He stopped on the Mount of Olives and sent two of His disciples to Bethphage to get a colt. He knew what the prophesies said. "Rejoice heartily, O daughter of Zion. Shout for joy, O daughter of Jerusalem! See your king shall come to you, a just savior is he, Meek, and riding on an ass, on a colt, the foul of an ass." (Zechariah 9:9) A colt He knew would be waiting for Him because the Father had told Him, along with the colt�s mother. What could Jesus have been thinking as he waited for his disciples to return, looking down on the city that would hold both triumph and death all in one week for Him? When the disciples came back with the colt they put their cloaks on its back and put them on the road in front of the donkey. It was a way of celebration. Jesus was surrounded by people who loved Him, and who were proclaiming His kingship. What a thrill that must have brought Him. As they continued into Jerusalem the singing grew loader as the crowd got bigger. Jesus was aware of the significance of the day. He knew that this was the day that Daniel prophesied of. He knew the significance of the donkey, which he rode into town. He knew that the people believed that He was going to take up His earthly throne. He knew the religious leaders of the day would not like it at all. How many different feelings must have been going through His head. As the city grew closer and He could see it well, He knew that the people were not ready for Him. "As He drew near, He saw the city and wept over it, saying, "If this day you only knew what makes for peace- but now it is hidden from your eyes." (Luke 41-42) He knew that these same people within a week would clamor for his death and yet He still came in peace. How marvelous a Savior who would allow them to celebrate now, knowing that they would turn on Him. But He loved them and knew that these were the people whom He had come to save. They were like little children. He would allow them to be happy this day. He would give them one more chance to make Him king of their hearts. When they arrived at His Father's House He was angry. There in the part of the temple that was known as the Court of the Gentiles where anyone could come, the vendors had opened up shop. Jesus was not angry because they were selling their wares but because of where they were selling them. How dare they take up that space so that the Gentiles could not go in and worship? Not to mention the fact that they were cheating the people. They were charging far more inside of the temple than they did outside of it. Not everyone was banished. Only those whose conscience was guilty fled from the Lord. He turned and saw a blind man and healed him. That, He knew would anger the religious men. He had children running around the temple area laughing and singing and praising Him. This had to please Him. There must have been a smile on His face as He watched them play. He must have been eager for the challenge of the Chief Priests as they came up and confronted Him on what the children were saying. "Hosanna, the Son of David!" They were angry. "Do you hear what these are saying?" they said. Jesus said to them, "Yes! Have you never read: 'Out of the mouths of babes and sucklings you have perfect praise'?" (Matt 21: 15-16) and then He left town and went back to Bethany to spend the night. What a day that had to have been for Jesus.

�����When you are thinking about your Palm Sunday consider this one. What would you have thought? Where would you have been? Jesus is the King. The King of Glory. He wants to be the King of your hearts. Open your heart to Him and sing with that crowd in Jerusalem, Hosanna in the highest!


�:�������---Lisa

�2000 Lisa Marie Phillips all rights reserved
*No portion of this article may be used without written permission from the author