Green Thursday

Whenever Easter week arrives, and Thursday of that week, we always wrestle with the naming of the day. It takes a while before we re-remember that it is called Maundy Thursday. Not surprisingly, I’ve got a post on that subject going back some years (link). Today we discovered that in German the day is called Green Thursday. That religious day like that would carry a color (well at least since the 17th century and only in Germany) was another surprise and took some research to grasp.

It turns out that German etymologists are not in full agreement on how green came to be attached to Easter Thursday. The Biblical reference around which the discussion swirls is Luke 23:31. In the King James version it says:

For if they do these things [the abuse of Jesus on the way to the cross] in a green tree, what shall be done in the dry.

In German the word used for tree is wood (Holz); green wood is alive while dry wood is dead. 

The green wood here is Jesus himself, made clear in the full quotation, which I take from the Jerusalem Bible (Luke 23:26-32):

As they were leading him [Jesus] away, they seized on a man, Simon from Cyrene, who was coming in from the country, and made him shoulder the cross and carry it behind Jesus. Large numbers of people followed him, and of women too, who mourned and lamented for him. But Jesus turned to them and said, ‘Daughters of Jerusalem, do not weep for me; weep rather for yourselves and for your children. For the day will surely come when people will say, “Happy are those who are barren, the wombs that have never borne, the breasts that have never suckled!” Then they will begin to say unto the mountains, “Fall on us!”; to the hills, “Cover us!” For if men use the green wood like this, what will happen when it is dry?’ Now with him they were also leading out two other criminals to be executed.

Green, thus has multiple meanings here: life itself, youth, freshness, and, by implication, sinlessness. Green Thursday is thus a day of forgiveness of sin, the renewal of the soul, dry wood made green again. The other explanations offered by etymologists range to references of season, to eating habits on Maundy Thursday in Germany (heavy on vegetables in a fasting season) and other similar associations. But the biblical reference is used most often, and, it seems, rightly so. The words come from Jesus’ mouth as he is making his way to crucifixion—to be followed by Resurrection!

The Hungarians and the Poles (to mark Brigitte’s and my places of birth) call this day Great Thursday. The French call it Jeudi Saint; that Saint we would here render as Holy.

Brigitte, whose gift for words is very deep, correctly surmised, before any research took place, that the Green in that Thursday may hark back to the green palms seen just a few days before on Palm Sunday. That turned out to be one of the competing explanations the German etymologists mentioned as well!

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In the course of this venture we also looked up why the Germans call Good Friday Karfreitag. The meaning of that Kar escaped us. That word comes for Proto-Germanic karo or kara, sorrow, trouble, and care. The word care comes from kara. If we wished to follow the German model, we’d call Good Friday Care Friday.

Maundy?

I haven’t researched a word in a bit, and with Easter now looming ahead, Maundy Thursday tempted me. I’d never looked at that word before—nor have I ever seen it used except as a decoration of the Thursday before Easter Sunday. This year it will come on April 21. I learned from my trusted source (Online Etymology Dictionary) that the word derives from the Latin phrase Mandatum novum do vobis: “A new command I give you,” found in John 13:34. Jesus said this on the night of the Last Supper after washing the feet of the Apostles. In Middle English maunder meant “the Last Supper.” Thus from Hebrew to Greek to Latin to Old French, where it is mandé, to English. Our 1909 Webster, the oldest dictionary we own, adds another meaning, that of alms. Evidently alms were given on this Thursday, known as the maundy, and in England a “royal maundy” is still paid out. This formulation appears to be uniquely English. In Germany this Thursday is simply Osterdonnerstag, in French Jeudi saint.

For me this word is a nice example of how the mind interprets language it doesn’t understand precisely. I’d never looked up maundy because I assumed that it meant “sad,” probably an old meaning that stems from to maunder, to grumble, to wander about listlessly (which we do when we are sad), to speak in a mumbling, disconnected way—also a symptom of sadness. Turns out that that word, to maunder, is derived from the sixteenth century to maund, to beg; and that root from the French mendier, also to beg. It’s sad to be a beggar, of course. And Maudy Thursday is a sad sort of day, leading up to Good Friday as it does. The mind copes. But it’s more enlivening to look things up.