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The Eve of the Feast of the Annunciation
Maundy Thursday
Almighty Father, whose dear Son, on the night before he suffered, instituted the Sacrament of his Body and Blood: Mercifully grant that we may thankfully receive the same in remembrance of him who in these holy mysteries giveth us a pledge of life eternal, the same thy Son Jesus Christ our Lord; who now liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit ever, one God, world without end. Amen.
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Maundy Thursday
The Eve of the Feast of the Annunciation
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Scripture citation(s): John 13:1-17, 31b-35
A Sermon by
Fr. Austin
on
John 13:1-17, 31b-35
✛
The Tenderness of Jesus
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Let’s be honest: feet are tender. They endure a lot of abuse down there, shoe-horned into footwear, holding us up through the day, ignored, taken for granted, yet capable of much weariness. Feet are tender, and it is tender of Jesus to care for them. In the arid climate of his time, where sandals were ordinary footwear and walking was the normal means of transportation, a gracious host would give you a bowl of water so that, upon your arrival, you could bathe your feet. You would bathe your own. To wash someone else’s feet was more than could be required, even of a slave (or at least of a Hebrew slave). Even the lowliest servant would not be asked to wash your feet; the servant might be lowly, but he was never that low.
Jesus put himself that low. Having come down from heaven to be one of us, on the night before he submitted himself to death, he took towel and basin and, without prior explanation, silently washed his disciples’ feet. That was humble service exceeding all humility. That was Jesus coming all the way down. That was Jesus being tender.
Jesus’ character was always to be tender, although as we know that did not keep him from being firm or truthful, or from opposing cruelty. The two—opposing cruelty and being tender—often went together in Jesus. Saint Matthew, after telling us of an act of mercy that Jesus performed in the teeth of opposition to him doing such on the Sabbath, lifts up a verse from Isaiah, a prophecy that he saw Jesus fulfilling: A bruised reed shall he not break, and a smoking flax shall he not quench [Mt 12:20]. If a reed is bruised, a careless person might just break it off; and if the flax is smoking or smoldering rather than burning, a thoughtless person might just extinguish it. But Jesus is tender always. He doesn’t make things worse for people who are “bruised reeds.”
In fact, the way for Jesus’ coming into the world was prepared by tenderness. When John the Baptist was born—about six months before Jesus’ birth—his father, Zechariah, prophesied that John would go before Jesus, the Lord, to prepare his way. The coming of Jesus, heralded by John, is “the dayspring from on high” that “hath visited us,”—how?—“[t]hrough the tender mercy of our God.” God himself is tender to us, the very sending of Jesus was a tender mercy of the Father, coming down upon us from on high, to bring us light and truth in the midst of darkness.
When he washes his disciples’ feet, Jesus is going all the way down. It is a place of humiliation, of humility in the extreme. Why does he go there? Because he would not break a bruised reed; because he has compassion on us.
The tender compassion of Jesus is written throughout the Gospel. Consider: “[W]hen he saw the multitudes, [Jesus] was moved with compassion on them, because [they were like] sheep having no shepherd” [Mt 9:36]. And this: “Jesus went forth, and saw a great multitude, and was moved with compassion toward them, and he healed their sick” [Mt 14.14]. Another time, when he had been performing miracles for three days, he said to his disciples, “I have compassion on the multitude, because they . . . have nothing to eat: and I will not send them away fasting, lest they faint in the way” [Mt 15:32].
Compassion features in Jesus’ teaching. A parable with a point: A servant, who owed his king ten thousand talents, begged his Lord to have patience with him, and, Jesus says, “the lord of that servant was moved with compassion . . . and forgave him the debt.” But the servant turned around and would not forgive another man a tiny debt; he did not show compassion, and when the lord learned of that, he “delivered him to the tormentors,” saying “Shouldest not thou also have had compassion on thy fellow servant?” [Mt 18:27-34]
Compassion runs through everything with Jesus. Two blind men asked him for mercy, to open their eyes; Matthew says, “Jesus had compassion on them, and touched their eyes,” and they could see [Mt 20:34]. A leper came and knelt before him, asking him to make him clean; “Jesus, moved with compassion, put forth his hand, and touched him,” and he was made clean [Mk 1:41]. Jesus explained his healings as God’s compassion: The so-called Gaderene demoniac, out of whom Jesus drove a legion of devils (who then entered into a herd of swine, which then leapt into the sea and were drowned), was told to go tell his friends “how great things the Lord hath done for thee, and hath had compassion on thee” [Mk 5:19].
The most moving stories, I think, are in Saint Luke’s Gospel. There was a dead man, “the only son of his mother,” being carried out to his grave; Jesus, seeing the mother, “had compassion on her,” and told her not to weep, and went to the bier, and said “Young man, I say to thee, arise” [Lk 7:14]. And Jesus told about a man on the road down to Jericho, who was beaten by robbers and left for dead, and a Samaritan came by and had compassion on him [Lk 10:33]. And he told about a son who took his inheritance early and went off and squandered his living, and then, with nowhere else in the world to go, returned home; and his father, who saw him when he was yet a great way off, had compassion on him, “and ran, and fell on his neck, and kissed him” [Lk 15:20].
This is Jesus. He came down from heaven by God’s tender mercy. He showed tenderness by compassion throughout his life. He taught his disciples to be merciful, compassionate, tender themselves.
And now, tonight, at the end, he is at their feet, washing them.
To get down there, down to the feet, Saint John says Jesus “laid aside” his outer garments. He laid aside his garments. These garments symbolize his life. When Jesus spoke of himself as the Good Shepherd, he said, I lay down my life, that I might take it again. . . . I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again [10:17f.]. When Jesus lays down his garments and washes their feet, that is a pantomime of his dying for their sake. And when he rises and puts back on his outer garments, that is a prefiguring of his resurrection.
But here we see it—tonight we see it, the death, the resurrection—with infinite tenderness. Jesus does not want us to think about the pain of the cross, the agony, the brutality of the nails, the asphyxiation, the shame. Jesus wants us to see it as the culmination of a life of unspeakable tenderness, a life that originated in the Father’s tender mercy that he be with us, that he show us how ourselves to live tenderly. Do not forget this tenderness. This is the deepest truth of reality, and it is the all-surrounding truth of the cosmos. Jesus has gone all the way down. He has washed our feet. He has died for us and risen again. And the one word that describes it all is tenderness.
