Our Maundy Thursday service begins with prayer and the serving of communion. The lights are then turned off and the candles are extinguished as scriptures are read by Deacons. There is no benediction or postlude; the service concludes with our Easter celebration on the following Sunday.
A Maundy Thursday service was first introduced in our church in 1924 by Rev. Wilmer Johnson. “Maundy” comes from the same root as “mandate” and this holy day is the day we remember Jesus’s commandment at the Last Supper to love and serve one another. On Maundy Thursday, we partake in Communion in remebrance of Jesus's last meal with his disciples. The Tenebrae Service was added by Rev. Gerald J. Jud; it interprets the devotional significance of the Passion story. The gradual extinguishing of the lights is symbolic of the betrayal, abandonment, and agony of the events, and is left unfinished, because the story is not over until Easter Day.