“What a strange holiday!” I thought.

MONDAY Thursday!

Is it Monday celebrated on Thursday, or Thursday on Monday? And if we have Monday Thursday, why not Tuesday Saturday? Or Sunday Wednesday?

Christianity seen through the eyes of a child can be so confusing!

So I – along with others, I suspect – spent the better part of my growing up years going to church on MONDAY Thursday. And the service was always so strange! We did not light candles, we blew them out! There were seven of them, burning brightly, in an inverted v-shaped candelabra. The minister would read a Bible passage about the last moments of Jesus’ life and after each reading a black-robed deacon standing in the darkness beside the candelabra would reach out with a long brass candle snuffer and extinguish one candle. This was repeated over and over again until only one candle was left burning.

Long pause.

One last passage read.

Then the one last candle snuffed out.

Total creepy darkness.

And then the choir led the singing of “The Lord’s Prayer.” A cappella. In the dark.

As strange as MONDAY Thursday was, the service was hauntingly beautiful and deeply moving.

Until I learned it wasn’t MONDAY Thursday at all.

It was MAUNDY Thursday.

MAUNDY: Middle English maunde, from Old French mandé, from Latin mandatum command, order; from the words spoken by Jesus to his disciples after washing their feet at the Last Supper, “a new commandment I give unto you, that ye love one another” (John 13:34)

MANDATE Thursday!

The heart and soul of Maundy Thursday is Love – God’s Love for the world, and our MANDATE to Love one another in response. In the face of darkness and death, the looming shadow of evil’s destructive intent, Christ commands us to Love one another.

MAUNDY Thursday.

I think about this today, just a few days after the terrorist bombings in Brussels.

As it was in Jesus’ time, evil is prowling the world in our day, wreaking chaos and killing the innocents. Humanity certainly must respond in protective ways, defending people from those seeking to terrorize them and defeating those who perpetrate injustice. Sometimes political, economic, social and even military strength are needed to fend off evil.

But let us not forget the Mandate.

Let us not forget or minimize the power of God’s Love at work through God’s people. Force may be required to stop evil. But only Love can heal.

One without the other is futile.

MAUNDY Thursday.

MAUNDY every day.

Friends, let us love one another as Jesus loved us.