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Water Washed
Most of the time, we don’t let other people wash us, once we’ve grown out of diapers.
Cool, flowing water, warm hands gently stroking our skin, soft towels drying our feet. It’s a very intimate act of love and of caring. We don’t usually let strangers touch us with water and a towel. When we choose to bear a part of our body to another, even if it is something as common as and pedestrian as our feet, we become vulnerable – vulnerable to feelings of joy or of shame, vulnerable to waves of great pain or great peace, vulnerable to taking on a new way of life.
This picture of Jesus washing his disciples’ feet is unique to John. The other three Gospels give us an account of the Passover meal Jesus ate with his friends, where he blessed the bread and the wine and gave us the meal we call the Lord’s Supper. But in the Gospel of John, which is so focused on the mystery of God’s love for us in Jesus, we are given this story of intimacy, of love, of service.
Holy Thursday is also known as Maundy Thursday, which comes from the Latin word mandatum, which means commandment. Jesus gives his disciples, and us, a new commandment tonight: that we love one another, just as Jesus has loved us.
What does it mean to love as Jesus loves? What do we learn about Jesus and his way of loving from this picture in John?
· First, we see that Jesus loves his own to the end. Even when death was knocking at the door, Jesus chose love over fear. When he could have eaten his last meal with gluttony and greed, he spent it washing and wiping. In his last hours, Jesus chose to teach and to serve, rather than find a way to weasel out of pain that was to come.
· Second, we see that he took on the form of a slave. When Jesus took off his outer coat, he was taking off a visible sign of power and authority. When he put the towel on his waist, he put on a visible sign of a servant. He turned the meaning of master on its head and showed those whom he loved that they served a servant.
· Third, loving sacrificially and loving through serving is contagious. Others will see Jesus when they see us loving one another. It may bring stares, it may bring fear, it may bring confusion, all emotions we saw on the faces of those who walked by the man offering foot washings in the video, but it also brings curiosity: why would we love so freely? What prompts such love? Who prompts such love?
Tonight, we come to the table that love set. We come with mixed emotions, because we remember that this was the last time Jesus ate with his closest companions. It was the last time they would sit together in peace. It was the last time they would touch one another in loving, gentle ways.
But it also was a night of firsts: the first time Jesus offered his body to be broken and his blood to be shed for us out of love. The first time he gave us a new commandment, to love. The first time he showed us what servant leadership looked like, when he wrapped that towel on his waist and poured that water over the feet of his beloved.
So tonight, my brothers and sisters, come in love. Come to be washed. In the act of washing, Jesus wipes away fear and doubt. Jesus forgives sin and guilt. Jesus banishes death. Jesus heals brokenness. Come to the bowl and feel the cool water of Jesus’ love flowing over your hands, and by extension, over your soul. Let it heal the broken places, let it bind the unloved places, let it renew the dead places. Come and be washed. Come and be embraced by love. Come, and experience the newness of Jesus. Amen.