Maundy Thursday

“[Jesus said] 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.”

+In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.
           
Back in 2015, I had the opportunity to go to Ethiopia on a short-term mission. Our team was ministering in the city of Gambella, in the western part of the country, near the Sudan. As a priest, I was invited to attend one of the local Anglican congregations in the city and preach. What first struck me when I arrived at the church was that there was no church building. In fact, the Anglican Church in that part of Ethiopia was growing so rapidly that they didn’t wait to get a building before they started having Sunday worship. They simply started meeting under a large tree and continued to meet there until such a time that they had the money to either rent space or build their own church building. The second thing that happened impressed me even more: as soon as I arrived, they bid me to sit down in a chair, and the leaders of the church brought out a large wash basin and they began to wash my feet. I was deeply moved by this experience for several reasons: First, I understood it to be an act of love and service to me as a fellow Christian. They demonstrated their love and hospitality to me and honored me as their visitor. Second, they demonstrated their humility and love for Jesus Christ by literally following His command. Third, by humbling themselves to wash my feet, they demonstrated true holiness, and their holiness and obedience reminded me of my own sin and brokenness and their washing represented Jesus’ washing away of my sin and shame through His life, death, and resurrection.
           
On this holy night, we gather to worship God and to recall the great and mighty acts that Jesus accomplished for our salvation. Tonight, we remember and participate in two things that Jesus did for us and commands us to practice together. First, we remember Jesus instituting the Sacrament of His Body and Blood at the Last Supper. Using the Passover Feast as His backdrop, Jesus takes the bread and wine of the Passover meal and transforms it by the power of His Word. The Passover meal, which represents God’s deliverance of the people of Israel from slavery and death in Egypt, is now given a newer and deeper meaning. Through the Jesus’ words of institution, Jesus declares that the Bread and the Wine become His Body and Blood, and that His Body and Blood are now the food for the people of God, food for eternal life. Just as the people of Israel celebrate the Passover meal together to remember their deliverance from bondage, so at the Eucharist, the people of God eat the Body and Blood of Christ to celebrate and remember the salvation won by Jesus. Just as the Passover meal sustained the people of Israel during their journey out of Egypt to the Promised Land, so the Sacrament of Jesus’ Body and Blood is to sustain us on our journey to eternal life.
           
You may recall from a few weeks ago, I talked about how Jesus’ feeding of the five thousand with the five loaves and two fishes not only demonstrated love and compassion for the people in need but was also a sign that pointed to Jesus’ identity as the Son of God. This sign was a reference back to the Exodus when God fed His people with manna in the desert. Just as the manna in the desert was real food, just as the five loaves and two fish were real food, so the Body and Blood of Jesus is also real food for our souls and spirit. And just as God’s presence sustained the people of God on their journey through the wilderness to the Promised Land, so Jesus’ presence in the Eucharist sustains us on our journey toward eternity. God is at work, feeding and saving His people. When we read all of salvation history in the Bible, we understand that that the Exodus foreshadows the Life of Christ, so the Passover meal foreshadows the Eucharist. This understanding is best captured by the painter Marc Chagall, whose work Exodus shows the people of Israel walking through the wilderness to the Promised Land, overshadowed by Christ on the Cross.
           
At great an act as the institution of the Sacrament of His Body and Blood was, Jesus didn’t stop there. John tells us that during the Last Supper, Jesus performed another act of self-giving and humility. He washed the disciples’ feet. Now when we think back to what life was like back then, we know that most people didn’t have horses or wagons to ride on. They walked everywhere. Furthermore, many did not have shoes, so they walked everywhere barefoot. So, when you entered someone’s home, it was customary for a servant to wash your feet. This was considered a menial act, somewhat akin to cleaning garbage cans or bathrooms. Yet, at dinner, Jesus starts washing the disciples’ feet. Peter is offended at Jesus’ taking on of such a menial and degrading task, much like he was offended when Jesus started talking about His coming arrest and crucifixion. Peter declares to Jesus, ‘You shall never wash my feet!” And Jesus rebukes Peter, saying, “If I do not wash you, you have no part with Me.” Jesus declares to Peter that only by remaining in Him and by living Jesus’ life of humility and service, can Peter gain eternal life.
           
Through His washing of feet, Jesus demonstrates two things: First, His washing of feet is a physical reminder that Jesus cleans us from all our sin and unworthiness, and that we need this cleansing on a regular basis. Second, Jesus’ washing of feet is a demonstration of His humility and service toward each of us. By commanding us to do the same, Jesus is not declaring that we should literally wash each other’s feet; rather, Jesus is reminding us that we are called to imitate His life of humility and service. Just as Jesus gave all of Himself in service to you and me, so we are to do the same for each other. And just as Jesus’ washing of our feet represents His cleansing us from our sins, so when we serve one another in humility and love, we not only help another, but we ourselves are cleansed from the daily grime of our sin and shame. To “wash each other’s feet” is to be healed of our own pride and self-sufficiency and embrace humility. In so doing, we imitate the life of Christ, who came not to be served, but to serve, and to give His life as a ransom for many.

​+In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.