Holy Thursday

[I started writing this Thursday but then didn’t finalize it until Friday morning.]

With it being Holy Thursday and the beginning of the end of Lent, so to speak, I wanted to first share a passage from John 13 during the Last Supper.

Now before the Feast of the Passover, when Jesus knew that his hour had come to depart out of this world to the Father, having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end. During supper, when the devil had already put it into the heart of Judas Iscariot, Simon’s son, to betray him, Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands, and that he had come from God and was going back to God, rose from supper. He laid aside his outer garments, and taking a towel, tied it around his waist. Then he poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples’ feet and to wipe them with the towel that was wrapped around him. He came to Simon Peter, who said to him, “Lord, do you wash my feet?” Jesus answered him, “What I am doing you do not understand now, but afterward you will understand.” Peter said to him, “You shall never wash my feet.” Jesus answered him, “If I do not wash you, you have no share with me.” Simon Peter said to him, “Lord, not my feet only but also my hands and my head!” Jesus said to him, “The one who has bathed does not need to wash, except for his feet, but is completely clean. And you are clean, but not every one of you.” For he knew who was to betray him; that was why he said, “Not all of you are clean.”

When he had washed their feet and put on his outer garments and resumed his place, he said to them, “Do you understand what I have done to you? You call me Teacher and Lord, and you are right, for so I am. If I then, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet. For I have given you an example, that you also should do just as I have done to you. Truly, truly, I say to you, a servant is not greater than his master, nor is a messenger greater than the one who sent him. If you know these things, blessed are you if you do them. I am not speaking of all of you; I know whom I have chosen. But the Scripture will be fulfilled, ‘He who ate my bread has lifted his heel against me.’ I am telling you this now, before it takes place, that when it does take place you may believe that I am he. Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever receives the one I send receives me, and whoever receives me receives the one who sent me.” John 13:1-20 ESV

The emphasis is mine.

I think that Holy Thursday is one of my favorite days of the year. I’ve never been able to explain why this is- it has always just sat well in my heart. Many churches have a special service on this day that includes a foot washing ritual where they replicate what Jesus did before they ate the Last Supper. It seems like a strange thing to do. Why pretend to wash each other’s feet, of all the things that Jesus did? What is so important about that?

Many people see rituals and traditions as a cop-out faith, or easy way to just go through the motions and not truly engage in faith. I agree- it can be like that. And if it is like this for you, there are other ways in which you can honor the Lord and grow in your faith. 

Personally, I really love this foot washing tradition, and the Scripture that goes along with it. Participating in it allows me to form a better idea of what happened that night at the Last Supper, and it lets me see the people around me not as strangers but as extensions of the Jesus. As I sat semi-awkwardly in a chair waiting for this stranger to pour water on my feet, this image flashed into my mind that this was Jesus. This is what Jesus does. He finds the [arguably] dirtiest part of us, holds it in His hands, and cleanses it. Humbly on His knees before us.

What a beautiful image. Also what a slightly uncomfortable image. Simon Peter’s response to Jesus is completely relatable. Feet are gross; I think the only people who have washed my feet (besides people on Holy Thursday) are my parents when I was a child, and people who have given me pedicures. I don’t think I have particularly dirty feet, but I don’t want most people to closely examine them, let alone the Lord of all. 

I’m not even sure what to do with the image of Jesus kneeling before me

Yet here is this image of the Son of God, kneeling and washing the disciples’ feet, in one last act of humility before He is taken to the cross. And in this replicative tradition, we have a way for us to imagine even more accurately what it must have felt for Peter to sit and have his feet washed by Jesus.

I think what I love most about Holy Thursday is the beauty of Jesus’ humility. We talk a lot in Christian circles about the sacrifice made at the cross, and I don’t want to discount that- it is the foundation for our faith. Still, I think we have a tendency to overlook this act of Jesus, and His call to “wash one another’s feet.” 

I’m not entirely certain what the spiritual equivalent to “washing feet” is. What I do know is that this is not a call for us to only address the easy, mostly clean parts of the people around us (the head and hands, if you will.)  We are called to hold those more difficult parts in our hands and let them become clean again through Christ. If Jesus is not “too good” for these parts, then we certainly aren’t.