Do You Feel Like Singing?

Maundy Thursday is usually when things turn dark and somber. We try to create a space of quiet and heaviness as we enter into Christ’s betrayal, arrest, and agonizing death. We traditionally leave Maundy Thursday in silence. But the apostles left in song. 

On Thursday morning, (most of) the apostles still had no idea of what was to come. They had watched Jesus enter Jerusalem in welcomed glory just days earlier and speak in the Temple. They were celebrating the Passover, a holiday of survival. They probably entered that upper room in good spirits. 

Then things got strange. Jesus insisted on washing their feet. But he was always trying to teach lessons they didn’t fully understand. Then he announced that one of them was going to betray him—what a shocking discovery! But then the Passover meal continues. 

Their world has just been turned upside down, in ways they don’t understand. There is fear and confusion. Their heads are probably swirling. But there is the Passover feast, an annual tradition of rituals. The holiday has prescribed steps, prescribed words. Internally everything is a mess; externally they can hold on to the familiar motions. Are these rote holiday traditions grounding, comforting? Are they taking on new meaning in light of sitting there with what Jesus has said? 

Matthew writes that after before they went out to the Mount of Olives, they sang a hymn (Matthew 26:30). There are several hymns that are part of the Passover feast. One is the Eliyahu HaNavi, which is sung after the meal, with the opening of the door for the guest Elijah and the pouring of the fourth cup. The song asks Elijah to soon return with the messiah. 

But Matthew is most likely referring to the Great Hallel, the psalms (113-118, 134-136) sung during the Sabbath and festivals. The Hallel are psalms of celebration and thanksgiving. In particular, psalm 118 is the traditional conclusion of the Passover meal, the hymn of thanksgiving (“Give thank to the Lord, for he is good, his mercy endures forever.”)

Imagine the inward confusion and fear of Jesus’ announcement of betrayal and death and then singing with him joy and thanksgiving to God. Would it feel contradictory? Jesus certainly knew what he was doing in every movement, every word at the Last Supper. But he was the only one going in knowing it was the last supper. The apostles were faithful, but that doesn’t mean they understood at once or that their minds weren’t reeling. How do we sing praise God when everything is going wrong?

But that’s the point. Jesus knew that this was God’s will; praise to God does not cease when life gets confusing and bleak. And sometimes when our interior is in chaos, it is the exterior rituals that can prop us up and guide us through. The holy days give us a common ground, a familiar space. The rituals move our bodies in comforting ways, pulling us back into the physical and the present. The ancient hymns give us the words we cannot find and the answers to questions we didn’t know to ask. Sometimes it feels contradictory; sometimes it feels like a good distraction; but at the best times, it feels like the dichotomy fits together perfectly.

“Join in procession with leafy branches up to the horns of the altar.” -Psalm 118:27