What Is Maundy Thursday?
John 13:1-17,34-35
By Harold Dinsmore, M.Div.
© 2008 Harold Dinsmore

Maundy is quite an unfamiliar word in Baptist circles.  It is derived from the Latin word, “mandatum” which means a command or an order.  We get our word mandate from this word.  However, from there it went on to “maude” in the Middle English, then “royal Maunday” and finally “Maundy Thursday.”  But I’m not here to offer a class in English 101 or etymology.  English was not the best of my subjects.  I’m here to share my thoughts and what is on my heart about this night; a night that began the transformation of a band of followers into Christians.  This is the evening of mandates that changed the lives of everyone who followed Jesus.  During the Passover seder, Jesus shared that night with his friends and followers.  He took a meal that was highly symbolic in the Jewish culture of the sufferings and trials of the people of Israel and the power of God to deliver and simply transformed it into something new—Jesus made the simple meal a symbol of his own suffering and its power to deliver humanity from sin and death.