Maundy Thursday of Holy Week 2011: Tenebrae

Prepare for the Tenebrae service and Good Friday Commemoration.

During services on Maundy Thursday, tonight, and tomorrow on Good Friday:
• Let us reflect and meditate on the last words of Christ spoken from that
cross: words of grace, love, hope, agony, suffering, finality, and rest.
• Let us remember the sacrifice of Jesus Christ for the atonement of our sins.
• Let us recognize the seriousness of our sin that caused him the agony.
• Let us repent and turn to God for forgiveness.
• Let us realize the greatness of the Holy Trinity, the one and only God who saves.
• Let us respond to the Lord in reverent worship, prayer, and obedience.
• And let us return on Easter Sunday in the glorious hope of the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

On Maundy Thursday you are asked to meditate on the fact that it was on the Thursday evening before Good Friday that Jesus and his disciples were together for the last time, when he and they stood in the shadow of the cross, when he washed their feet and instituted the Holy Supper.
It is to stand in the shadows within the darkness of Christ’s suffering.
The gradual extinguishing of the lights and candles is symbolic of the advancing darkness that came over Jesus as a result of the flight, the denial and betrayal of his disciples, the bitter hate of his enemies, the shadows of the cross.
The moments of total darkness in church recalls the time when he was in the tomb.
And the relighting of the central candle is a prophecy of Easter so soon to dawn.

The purpose of the service is to recreate the abandonment and agony of the events, and it is left unfinished, because the story isn’t over until Sunday – Resurrection Day. Today and Friday we do not hear a “happy ending story” but it speaks of love and divine commitment to us, God’s people.

Attending the Easter Service on Sunday without attending Maundy Thursday and Good Friday, is like watching the happy ending of a movie, without seeing the suspense of the beginning or the frightening, sad plot that develops in the middle. To experience only the end without feeling the middle is to rob one of the intense joy, faith and love at the end, that comes on the Lord’s Day, on the Resurrection day.

You see,
• There can be no faith through hearing the Word, without listening to what Jesus said on the cross.
• There can be no joy of atonement, without the death of the Sacrificial Lamb.
• There can be no joy of life, without the dreadful death of the Saviour.
• There can be no joy of Paradise, without the Redeemer’s forsakenness by God.
• There is no forgiveness without the bitter pain of repentance.
• There is no grace and mercy, without the wrath of God satisfied.
• There is no salvation, without God acting to redeem us by slaying his Son.
• There is no joy of thanksgiving, without reverent worship and prayer.

Experience the terror and the agony of Christ’s death, in order to return to the glorious hope and gladness of the resurrection of Jesus Christ on the Lord’s glorious Day of the celebration of life on Easter Sunday.