Meekness and Majesty - a reflection for Maundy Thursday Morning Prayer

For me one of the most striking things which crops up again and again in the readings of Maundy Thursday is Jesus humility. Our gospel reading today takes us to the trial of Jesus and what is really striking about this reading is the quietness of Jesus. He is a man of few words. In all of this, there is no protest. He knew his fate and yet Jesus stands as the accused: measured, dignified, humble and meek.

The journey of Maundy Thursday reveals to us a man who loved the most, yet served the most. The servant king shows us his humble heart, where humility and service are constituent parts of love.

Yet our world is a place that tells us that we will find our soul’s satisfaction in being in charge. The world is a place where there are huge pressures to always be in control, a world where connections matter – often the case of not what you know but who you know, a world where the measure of success is being at the top of your game. Yet often those who manage to get to where they want to be, often find it is not quite as satisfying as they imagined. The truth is that the deepest satisfaction is to be found in gentleness and in humility, The only reputation we should be worried about loosing is the reputation for being Christ like.

The virtue of humility is somewhat of a rarity today. And when we come across it, it stops us in our tracks. Humility is where real strength lies. As St Paul reminds us “my strength is made perfect in weakness”.

Some one told me a story the other week about a senior Churchman who spoke about the day he was ordained deacon. He spent it, obviously, in all his finery, set apart for his new ministry, the focus of attention, vested with new power and influence. He enjoyed the splendour and the lavishness of it all, and the grandeur of his new position. At the end of the day, after the ‘do' following his welcome service, he found himself alone in the church hall, stacking brown plastic chairs and felt indignant. ‘I shouldn't be doing this, I wasn't ordained to stack plastic chairs'. Then he suddenly said to himself, ‘no, actually, this is precisely what you were ordained to do. To be a humble servant.

Humility was brought even more to the forefront of my mind in a recent book I read about the life of Mother Teresa of Calcutta and whilst reading it I became acutely aware of how she changed the criteria of the world without words but through imitating Christ. Her life was a lesson in love. As she personally tended the sick and the dying in Calcutta's slums, she helped people there and beyond see the material and spiritual poverty that confronts modern society. She taught all through humility and simplicity. As small and soft-spoken as she was, her reach was large and her message heard around the world. She saw Jesus in everyone. She had a profound realization that anyone she was with was first of all a Child of God and intrinsically worthy of respect.

In the silence of contemplation, Mother Teresa of Calcutta could hear the cry of Christ on the cross, 'I thirst'. This cry gathered in the depths of her heart, forcing her journey on the streets of Calcutta and of all the margins of the world, to find Jesus among the poor, among the abandoned, the dying, with generous dedication. She served all human needs with dignity and respect : she made those destroyed by life feel the tenderness of God the Father. This remarkable woman is a model to us of both humility and service. When she died she left no possessions.  It was not her words that spoke to the wider world but her silent acts of love.  Her understanding of being a disciple of Jesus was in seeking holiness of life in the ordinary, in the sick and the suffering, surrendering in humility to God.

So as we encounter Jesus standing before Pilate, in  meekness and majesty, he teaches us not by word in this passage, but by example. As we walk the journey with Jesus to the cross and the empty tomb, I pray that nothing may distract us from kneeling before Christ and abandoning ourselves to him, so that we might follow him, immersed in the light of humility and love.