Today’s Lesson (04/02/2026)

Today begins the Triduum, the holiest days of the year for Christians. Today is Holy Thursday, the day we recall Jesus’ gathering with His disciples for the last time, a special shared meal during which He gave His own body and blood for the life of His beloved in the Eucharist, and the night he spent teaching them and in prayer before his arrest. While Good Friday is held by many as the most holy because of Christ’s sacrifice on Calvary, for me Holy Thursday is the most informative because of what Jesus did and said knowing He was about to die.

For years, I have focused on final discourse of Jesus with His disciples found in the Gospel of John. I find great lessons in those chapters (John 13-17), the example Jesus wants us to take forward and His teachings about love. If I knew I was going to die within the next 24 hours, what would I want my loved one to see and hear from me? And I look at Jesus’ actions and words and better understand all that came before and all that came after and I find the faith, the hope and the love He wanted us to have.

Jesus begins by washing the feet of the disciples, He puts on an apron humbly and serves others. And then He teaches His disciples that as He has done, so are we to do. He calls us to take our love for Him and act on it – not just talk about it – but live it as He lived His mission – in service. One cannot miss the lesson in the foot washing, an activity that the disciples themselves didn’t understand at first, but one that is repeated every year at the services in church – Jesus’ call to us to put on the apron of humility and to serve the LORD and one another with love.

Speaking of love, in those four chapters of John, Jesus uses the word “love” over 30 times. It is important – the repetition tells us so. Jesus doesn’t want us to think that our creeds are our only test. He wants to see us be the sermons not just speak them. He calls us to actively love Him, love the Father, love one another. He calls us to do so in such a manner that no one can miss.

Last of all, He speaks to us several times about faithfulness – “remain in me.” In those chapters, He uses the word “meno” or a form of it 16 times in His final discourse and prayer. Remaining with Christ and allowing Christ to remain with us, in us, is paramount to being about to live as Christ’s and to bring Christ to others and others to Christ.

This morning as I read the four chapters and allowed the lessons to once again sink in, I felt renewed in my understanding of the depth of Christ’s love for the Father and for us, each of us. I felt blessed. And I felt called to not set down the love of Christ but to take it with me into the next moment, the next day, the next encounter.

Until tomorrow, let us all love well.