Maundy Thursday, All the World is still











Maundy Thursday, all the world is still
The planes wait, grounded by departure gates
The street is empty and the shopping mall
Deserted. Padlocked, the playground waits
Against the day that children play again
Till then our sad refrain is just refrain

Maundy Thursday, all the world is still
And Jesus is at supper with his friends
No longer in the upper room, that hall
In Zion where the story starts and ends,
For he descended from it long ago
To find his new friends in the here and now

Maundy Thursday, all the world is still
And Jesus is at supper with his friends
Our doors are locked for fear, but he has skill
In breaking barriers. With ease he bends
Our prison bars, slips past the sentry post
And joins us as the guest who is our host.

Maundy Thursday All the world is still
But in cramped quarters on the fifteenth floor,
In lonely towers made of glass and steel,
And in the fierce favelas of the poor,
Touching with wounded hands the wounds he tends
Christ Jesus is at supper with his friends.

Malcolm Guite