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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
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Scripture citation(s): John 13:1-15
A Sermon by
Fr. Austin
on
John 13:1-15
✛
Christ's Humiliation and Love
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It surprised me, the first time I was on the receiving end of the ceremonial foot washing, how pleasant and cool it felt. Our feet endure a lot down there, as the ditty puts it, “from your ankles to your toes, at the bottom of your clothes.” [1] Feet carry our weight through the day, squeezed into shoes much of the time, sweating, ignored. They benefit us continually, yet we tend to take them for granted. So although it was slightly embarrassing (I don’t normally take off my shoes in church), I found foot washing to be relaxing, and tender, and just plain good.
When Jesus refreshes his disciples’ feet, the scene is intimate. It is also unusual: feet were not washed in the midst of a meal, but upon arrival in a home. And they were washed by their owner: a thoughtful host would present you with water to wash your own feet. No one would be expected to wash another’s feet; even slaves, or at least Hebrew slaves, could not be commanded to do as much. [2] But here is Jesus himself performing the act, humble service, humiliating service, unexpectedly.
It is, he tells them afterwards, an example for all his followers to follow, that we should serve one another with humility, loving one another as he has loved us. Disciples of Jesus should treat each other with the same tender care that Jesus gave to the apostles’ feet. Your neighbor may be something like the “feet” that support a heavy burden, some burden she has to carry; others may take her for granted. She may find herself, as it were, squeezed into a situation that’s tight and difficult much of the day. Don’t ignore her, and don’t be rough on her. Find the cool water that will refresh her, Jesus says; love her as I have loved you.
Yet the love of Christians for each other is not the end of the meaning of the foot washing, nor is it even the most important thing to say. And the reason is that Jesus is never merely an example for us. Christianity is not first about what we do or should do, but about what God does. Jesus washing the disciples’ feet is a prophetic action.
The prophetic action begins when he takes off his outer garments. The scripture uses the verb, lays aside. He laid aside his garments, John writes. And when Jesus is done, he takes them up again: When he had washed their feet, [he took] his garments. Please think with me here of how Jesus speaks about his death. It is the same verb: I lay down my life. And after he has died: I take it up again (Jn 10:17 etc). Jesus removing his garments in order to wash their feet in the middle of the meal is a prophecy in deeds, not in words, that points to his death very soon to come. And it is a sign also of the humiliating character of his death. The baseness of washing feet prefigures the humiliation of exposure on the cross.
In other gospels, when Jesus utters prophetic words and tells his disciples that he will die, Peter brusquely refuses to accept it. God forbid it, Lord, he says. Similarly here in John, Peter refuses to accept the prophetic action of Jesus washing his feet. You shall never wash my feet, Peter says, which means, being interpreted, you shall not die, you shall not be so humiliated. To which Jesus answers: If I do not [do this], you have no part in me. The humiliation of Jesus even unto death is necessary if he is to be our savior, if we are to have any “part” in him. Tonight, in the intimacy of the upper room, it is a pageant of symbol and mystery. Tomorrow on the cross it is brutally real.
He lays aside his life for us, and he will take it up again. But it is no light thing for Jesus to lay aside his garments. It puts him down there, down below us, down at our feet, doing something that is so degrading it makes him almost subhuman. But then he puts on his garments, and he is lifted up, and we have a part in him.
Tomorrow we confront the pain, nails pounded into nerves, asphyxiation, abandonment, the cruciform reduction of a human being to just so much flesh. And it is important to face that, to see how far he was willing to go. But let us remember—will you remember with me?—that painful as it is for him, at the same time that our hearts break for him, we simultaneously feel the unexpected coolness and gentleness, like water on the feet, the touch that washes away our tiredness and despair, and gives us hope for life. He is dying, and we are being tenderly held. Having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them—he loved us—to the end.
__________
Notes
(1) From an “ad” for Guys’ Shoes on “A Prairie Home Companion.”
(2) Also, disciples might, as an act of free devotion, occasionally wash the feet of their master. For all this see Raymond Brown, The Gospel According to John, vol. 2, p. 564.
