In our Holy Week services, we are no longer spectators but participants. Tonight, we sit with the disciples eating and drinking at a solemn and haunting meal with Jesus in the Upper Room. As Jesus invites us to share in bread and wine, he says those mysterious words that have become central to our celebration of the Holy Eucharist: ‘this is my body, this is my blood’. And soon afterwards, that trusted disciple, Judas, makes a hasty exit.

At the end of the Eucharist, the altar is stripped. Why? The altar represents Christ, and the stripping of the altar reminds us how he was stripped of his garments and was exposed naked to the insults of his persecutors.

After supper we go to the garden of Gethsemane to pray. Or in our case, at the end of our Eucharist, we go to the cemetery garden to watch and pray. Jesus didn’t sleep that night, and his disciples slept only fitfully. In fact he didn’t hesitate to rouse them….as if perhaps he wanted companionship during those late night hours. So let us give him ours.

And then, suddenly, Judas returns, the disciple now turned betrayer, and we share the shock and fear of the disciples as he is accompanied by armed soldiers, and Jesus is arrested. And so Maundy Thursday ends ... in chaos.