Today is Maundy Thursday, the Thursday before Easter Sunday, named from the Latin "mandatum" which means commandment. It is named to commemorate Jesus’ command to his disciples to "love one another". On this day church services will focus on two acts: washing the feet(or hands) of one another and the celebration of communion, The Last Supper.

Last Supper….there are last suppers happening every day….we are just not aware of them. Whether or not Jesus and his friends were aware that this would be their true last supper together or not is unknown and not really important. What was important was that they gathered, remembered who they were, what they had experienced together, and marked the moment…… knowing sometime, very soon, things would be very different.I imagine they told stories of the places they’d been, the people they had come to know….I imagine there was laughter, gratitude, friendship, competition……all the things that are present at any family dinner. But there was for them, the scriptures tell us, an under current of knowledge that soon things would be different for them.

I wonder….if we knew the supper tonight, or tomorrow or next week might be the last supper with a friend or loved one, would we behave differently? Would we be more likely to take up the "mandatum" to tell those gathered how much we love them? I also wonder how many meals are remembered with the words "if only"…if only I’d said this…..or that……and not something else.

The poet Jane Kenyon, who knew she was dying of cancer wrote these words:"I got out of bed on two strong legs. It might have been otherwise. I ate cereal, sweet milk, ripe, flawless peach. It might have been otherwise. I took the dog uphill to the birch wood. All morning I did the work I love. At noon I lay down with my mate. It might have been otherwise. We ate dinner together at a table with silver candlesticks. It might have been otherwise. I slept in a bed in a room with paintings on the walls, and planned another day just like this day. But one day, I know, it will be otherwise."

Maundy Thursday…..a day to follow the commandment of Jesus to "love one another"…..to celebrate our supper as if it might be our last. For one day, indeed, it will be otherwise.