This is the mandate from Mandate (Maundy) Thursday.

“I give you a new command: Love one another. Just as I have loved you, you must also love one another.” [John 13:34 HCSB]

Tonight is the celebration of Jesus’ Last Supper with his students. Tomorrow night is the Good Friday service where the recitation of his arrest, trial, flogging, mocking, and crucifixion will occur as candles are extinguished allowing darkness to fill the room.

Find a church to experience this service if you have never been – especially if you are a college student away from home and seeking community in your college town. If you are near Huntsville, TX, then join us at Faith Lutheran Church at 6:30 PM, Friday, March 25, 2016.

Nothing will bond you to other individuals more than attending a funeral with them. Tomorrow night is Jesus’ funeral for lack of a better term.

A funeral is required if there is to be a resurrection. There is no empty tomb without a full tomb.

What is Holy Week all about? I know of no better answer than Hymn 430 in the LSB.

1 My song is love unknown, my Savior’s love to me,
Love to the loveless shown that they might lovely be.
O who am I
That for my sake
My Lord should take
Frail flesh, and die?

2 He came from His blest throne salvation to bestow;
But men made strange, and none the longed-for Christ would know.
But, oh, my friend,
My Friend indeed,
Who at my need
His life did spend!

3 Sometimes they strew His way, and His sweet praises sing;
Resounding all the day hosannas to their King.
Then “Crucify!”
Is all their breath,
And for His death
They thirst and cry.

4 Why, what hath my Lord done? What makes this rage and spite?
He made the lame to run, he gave the blind their sight.
Sweet injuries!
Yet they at these
Themselves displease
And ‘gainst Him rise.

5 They rise and needs will have my dear Lord made away;
A murderer they save, the Prince of Life they slay.
Yet steadfast He
To suff’ring goes,
That He His foes
From thence might free.

6 In life no house, no home my Lord on earth might have;
In death no friendly tomb but what a stranger gave.
What my I say?
Heav’n was His home
But mine the tomb
Wherein He lay.

7 Here might I stay and sing, no story so divine!
Never was love, dear King, never was grief like Thine.
This is my Friend,
In whose sweet praise
I all my days
Could gladly spend!

Amen,

-Darren