Finding Joy: Devotionals for Lent 2023
Finding Joy: Devotionals for Lent MAUNDY THURSDAY: The Bread of Life PREPARE Quiet your heart. Ask God to open your ears to his Word. READ: MATTHEW 26:17–75 On the night of the Passover feast, Jesus institutes the Holy Communion during his last meal with the disciples. After the meal, Jesus and the disciples go to the Garden of Gethsemane. In great anguish, Jesus prays fervently to his Father as he anticipates the suffering he will endure in a few hours. Following this time of prayer, Judas betrays Jesus with a kiss, and Jesus is arrested. REFLECT The word “Maundy” comes from the Latin word mandatum, meaning command, and refers to Jesus’s command to his disciples to love one another (see John 13:34–35). When the disciples heard these words, it’s unlikely that they could have imagined the great act of love they would witness: Jesus’s willing death on the cross for our sin. In his final hours with his disciples, Jesus administered what we now refer to as the Holy Communion, or the Lord’s...