Holy Thursday
John 13:1-17, 31b-35
by Isaac S. Villegas
March 28, 2013
Ash Wednesday and Holy Thursday go together. Both turn our eyes, they turn our lives, to the basics, the fundamentals of earthly life: dirt and water. On Ash Wednesday, at the beginning of Lent, we are marked by ashes, by dirt, and we remember that God has made us from the earth, we remember that our lives of dust are held together with God’s love.
On Holy Thursday, at the end of Lent, we focus on water, the water in these pitchers, the water that you will pour on someone’s feet, the water that will wash over your feet.
In these last days of Lent, we are ready for renewal, for new life; we are ready for water, life-giving water. With this water, God’s love washes over us. With the hands of our sisters and brothers, Christ’s love holds us.
“I give you a new commandment,” Jesus says to his disciples after he washes their feet. “A new commandment I give to, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”
Jesus gives his new commandment of love as he washes feet. For Jesus, footwashing is what love looks like; footwashing is what God’s love feels like. Christian love has everything to do with the gentle way we hold each other’s feet, with all the ways we care for one another, with generosity, with kindness, with tenderness. God’s love has everything to do with ashes and water, with the dirty feet we will take in our hands, and the hands we will trust to hold our feet, to uphold our lives.
When Jesus tells us to love one another, he gives us something to do, footwashing, because love is more than a feeling; it’s a commitment to sustain one another, to walk side by side, to work together, to serve with humility, to trust someone with your lives.
Footwashing is how we practice this love, how we learn how to love as God does. Footwashing makes our love visible, tangible, palpable — as physical as ashes and water, as flesh and blood, as washing and drying.
When we wash feet, we find ourselves resting into Jesus’ love for us — a love that flows with the water, a love that reaches out to us with hands. When we wash feet, we learn again how to practice love — we make a profession of our love, a public confession that we believe, that we trust, that we have faith in the God who is love, the God who is here, at our fingertips, between our hands and feet.
You make this confession with your feet and hands as you surrender yourself to the body of Christ, as you let someone take your feet and wash them. You make this confession with your body as you bow into the form of Jesus, as you become a servant, kneeling before your sister, your brother. With these movements, we come to know God’s life among us, God’s restoration, as God renews us with life-giving water.
It’s one thing to know that God loves you. It’s another to feel it. I know that God loves me; the bible tells me so. But I’m here tonight because I need to feel it.
Benediction:
We have worshiped God through footwashing. We have invited God into our hands and feet, into our lives. Go now, washed and renewed with the love of Christ.
And as you go, may the life of Jesus flow through you life, may God’s love flow through your love. Amen.