Broadway will host a Maundy Thursday Worship and Communion Service on March 28 at 7 p.m. We will be joined by brothers and sisters from other Northern Illinois Covenant churches, continuing our tradition of shared worship during Holy Week.
Maundy Thursday commemorates Jesus’ final meal with His disciples before going to the cross. That evening, He washed their feet and gave them the command to “love one another” (John 13:34). Jesus also told His followers to share a special meal together to remind them that His body was broken and His blood was shed for our redemption.
When we gather on Maundy Thursday with believers from other Covenant churches, we will sing and pray together, we will read the Biblical account of Jesus preparing for His life-giving death, and we will celebrate Communion.
During the Communion service, we read the words of institution from 1 Corinthians 11:23-26 that conclude with this extraordinary declaration: “For as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.” I usually substitute “we” for “you” to help us appreciate our participation in this sacred act of remembrance.
In the Communion meal, we join with the disciples in the upper room who shared the bread and cup with Jesus. We join also with believers down through the generations remembering what Jesus did at the cross. We find strength in knowing that what we believe today is the same faith so many before us have held to and even died for.
The Communion meal is also a proclamation, a public declaration of who we are and what we believe. We proclaim Jesus’ death, announcing in the church and to the world around us that Jesus died for a reason. He died to give us life. His death came about by God’s design, motivated by His love for humanity and His desire to save us from our sins. Jesus went to the cross willingly to sacrifice Himself in our place. His body was broken and His blood was shed as the atoning payment that sets us free.
Just as the Communion meal connects us with believers who came before, it also points ahead, through the generations that will come after us, until Jesus returns. We proclaim His death until He comes again. We believe that Jesus will come again – maybe tomorrow, maybe in 1,000 years – and we hold to that great hope, just as His first disciples did. The church will continue sharing Communion and proclaiming Jesus’ death until the end of this age.
We consider Communion a sacrament, a sacred ritual that connects us spiritually to Jesus. By eating and drinking, we symbolize our participation with our Savior in His death and resurrection. We lay down our sins, confessing and putting to death our sinful nature. We rise again in faith with the hopeful assurance of eternal life. In the bread and the cup, we remember Jesus’ death and we celebrate His resurrection.
So, I hope you will join us on Maundy Thursday as we welcome our sister churches to Broadway. I also hope you will take time between now and then to read the Gospel accounts of Jesus’ walk to the cross. His story is the centerpiece of our faith and the hope of a world in need. We proclaim the Lord’s death until He comes again.
