On Maundy Thursday, Christ explicitly gave his disciples the new command from which the day takes its name, for the Latin words novum mandatum are the Vulgate’s translation of “new command.”
Spy Wednesday asks us to look inward. It's the day the liturgical calendar acknowledges what we already know: we are not the best version of ourselves.
“Save us!” or “Deliver us!” That’s what “Hosanna” means. And that is exactly what Jesus did in the ER that dark Thanksgiving Day and every day for me.

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Blessedness comes to us camouflaged as simple earthly words, water, bread and wine.
Growing up, I dreaded the first Sunday of each quarter. Every time during the evening service, we would have Lord’s Supper after the sermon.
In the face of all the misunderstandings on the part of the world and all the errors which have arisen within Christendom, let us make this point absolutely clear: the task of the church in the world consists uniquely and alone in the preaching of the Word of God and in administering the Sacrament.
This is why a Christian must keep learning to forget himself so long as he lives.
The only churches that live are churches that have died. That still die. And that rise to newness of life in Christ’s life alone.
God's doing for us that gets done is Word and Sacrament stuff. Everything else flows from His speaking to us, baptizing us, bodying and bloodying us. Jesus sees our need.
The Christian Church is one of the last refuges in modern American society where people who have perpetrated or suffered trauma and violence can gather together to receive the truth about themselves.
If it's not Christ Jesus "for you" they're not delivering the Gospel to you.
As long as we hold tight to a life that was never ours to possess in the first place, so long as we refuse to lay down our life so others can live, Jesus can't do a thing for us.
Heaven is not our ultimate hope. Our promise is not to live forever riding on rainbows and soaring in the clouds.
If we are saved by faith, if it is by faith that we have life in His name, what do the sacraments have to do with it? The answer is: everything.
Even in our principled disagreements, we continue to pray for the unity of all, and invite the world to taste and see that the Lord is good.