Easter

My thought for today
It has been my recent observation that  Easter is becoming understood by many as a Spring Holiday involving eating chocolate eggs and having family outings. In a recent poll, only 10% of people identified Easter to be important as a religious event for them. 
This shouldn’t come as a surprise as the 2021 UK census revealed that less than half of respondents identified as Christian, a decline from 60% a decade previously. The quarter of people who registered “no religion” in 2011 rose to over a third in 2021. 
There is a corresponding deficit in religious literacy. As a result, things we once took for granted as common knowledge about the Christian story are at best remembered dimly from Sunday school lessons of long ago or recalled from Religious education classes in primary school. 
So, today, Maundy Thursday is probably best known as the time of the year when the Monarch dispenses Maundy coins, at a chosen cathedral to a number of local pensioners. Although money has been distributed since the reign of Edward 1, up to 1689 the Monarch also washed the feet of the poor on that day in Westminster Abbey (the said feet having been pre washed by the yeomanry of course to stop potential contamination of the monarch), which somewhat diluted the gesture, although Food and clothing was also distributed., which maybe made up for that
As a boy I collected coins, using my pocket money to buy a variety of potential treasures at Smithfield market.  I recall hoping to find a piece of Maundy money particularly the groat - probably because some rare Maundy groats can fetch a few thousand pounds at auction.
There is, of course, as I hinted, a core religious element to this event. The feet washing ritual is a clue. Christians traditionally remember today for two reasons. First, it was on this day that Jesus broke bread with his disciples at the last Supper. Secondly, before this gathering, Jesus washed the disciples’ feet – the King becoming a servant. 
I would personally prefer to attend a family meal or get together to washing someone’s feet, particularly if that person is someone I didn’t know or didn’t particularly like.  I’m sure that Jesus didn’t find it easy washing the feet of his betrayer.
In the same way that the notional value of the Maundy groat (4 old pence) is not an indicator of its potential worth, our current social situation , the usual basis by which people value us, is no measure of our true worth to God.
Sadly, on many occasions the church, as an institution, equates social standing with value and worth. But this is to view people through fallen, human eyes.  My prayer this Easter time is that we view people through the lens of the resurrection, a divine reminder that Jesus love reaches out to all of humanity and not just the chosen few.