Welcome to our Maundy Thursday worship service. The Thursday of Holy Week is a remembrance of Jesus’s celebration of the Passover meal with His disciples. Unbeknownst to His disciples, later that evening Jesus would be arrested and on the next day crucified. At this meal Jesus calls His disciples to love one another even as He has loved them—His holy mandate to the church. Would you join with us as we allow God’s Word to call us to Him in worship?

Open in prayer and/or use the suggested prayer below.

“Almighty Father, whose dear Son, on the night before He suffered, commanded His people to love one another even as He loved us. Help us by your Holy Spirit to live in His love, so that we might be strengthened to fulfill His command. We love, because we are so loved by your dear Son; who now lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.”

• Read Exodus 12:1-15 and John 13:12-17, 34-35 and spend 5-10 minutes sharing what you learned from this passage. Perhaps each person can point out one verse that was particularly meaningful to them.
• Alternate Option: Perhaps for those with small children, read the story of “God to the Rescue!” (pp. 84-91) from The Jesus Storybook Bible by Sally Lloyd-Jones.

Exodus 12 (ESV)

¹ The Lord said to Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt, ² “This month shall be for you the beginning of months. It shall be the first month of the year for you. ³ Tell all the congregation of Israel that on the tenth day of this month every man shall take a lamb according to their fathers’ houses, a lamb for a household. ⁴ And if the household is too small for a lamb, then he and his nearest neighbor shall take according to the number of persons; according to what each can eat you shall make your count for the lamb. ⁵ Your lamb shall be without blemish, a male a year old. You may take it from the sheep or from the goats, ⁶ and you shall keep it until the fourteenth day of this month, when the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel shall kill their lambs at twilight.

⁷ “Then they shall take some of the blood and put it on the two doorposts and the lintel of the houses in which they eat it. ⁸ They shall eat the flesh that night, roasted on the fire; with unleavened bread and bitter herbs they shall eat it. ⁹ Do not eat any of it raw or boiled in water, but roasted, its head with its legs and its inner parts. ¹⁰ And you shall let none of it remain until the morning; anything that remains until the morning you shall burn. ¹¹ In this manner you shall eat it: with your belt fastened, your sandals on your feet, and your staff in your hand. And you shall eat it in haste. It is the Lord’s Passover. ¹² For I will pass through the land of Egypt that night, and I will strike all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, both man and beast; and on all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgments: I am the Lord. ¹³ The blood shall be a sign for you, on the houses where you are. And when I see the blood, I will pass over you, and no plague will befall you to destroy you, when I strike the land of Egypt.

¹⁴ “This day shall be for you a memorial day, and you shall keep it as a feast to the Lord; throughout your generations, as a statute forever, you shall keep it as a feast.

John 13:12-17, 34-35 (ESV)

¹² When he had washed their feet and put on his outer garments and resumed his place, he said to them, “Do you understand what I have done to you? ¹³ You call me Teacher and Lord, and you are right, for so I am. ¹⁴ If I then, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet. ¹⁵ For I have given you an example, that you also should do just as I have done to you. ¹⁶ Truly, truly, I say to you, a servant is not greater than his master, nor is a messenger greater than the one who sent him. ¹⁷ If you know these things, blessed are you if you do them...

³⁴ A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. ³⁵ By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”

Sing or meditate on the words of this song.

HIS MERCY IS MORE
(Matt Papa, Matt Boswell)

What love could remember no wrongs we have done?
Omniscient, all knowing, he counts not their sum.
Thrown into a sea without bottom or shore.
Our sins, they are many, his mercy is more.

 What patience would wait as we constantly roam?
What father, so tender, is calling us home?
He welcomes the weakest, the vilest, the poor.
Our sins they are many, his mercy is more.

CHORUS:
Praise the Lord, His mercy is more.
Stronger than darkness, new every morn.
Our sins they are many, his mercy is more.

 What riches of kindness he lavished on us.
His blood was the payment, his life was the cost.
We stood ‘neath a debt we could never afford.
Our sins, they are many, his mercy is more.
(CHORUS)
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