Holy Thursday, March 28, 2024

John 13, 1–15

Before the feast of Passover, Jesus knew that his hour had come to pass from this world to the Father. He loved his own in the world and he loved them to the end. The devil had already induced Judas, son of Simon the Iscariot, to hand him over. So, during supper, fully aware that the Father had put everything into his power and that he had come from God and was returning to God, he rose from supper and took off his outer garments. He took a towel and tied it around his waist. Then he poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples’ feet and dry them with the towel around his waist. He came to Simon Peter, who said to him, “Master, are you going to wash my feet?” Jesus answered and said to him, “What I am doing, you do not understand now, but you will understand later.” Peter said to him, “You will never wash my feet.” Jesus answered him, “Unless I wash you, you will have no inheritance with me.” Simon Peter said to him, “Master, then not only my feet, but my hands and head as well.” Jesus said to him, “Whoever has bathed has no need except to have his feet washed, for he is clean all over; so you are clean, but not all.” For he knew who would betray him; for this reason, he said, “Not all of you are clean.”   So when he had washed their feet and put his garments back on and reclined at table again, he said to them, “Do you realize what I have done for you? You call me ‘teacher’ and ‘master,’ and rightly so, for indeed I am. If I, therefore, the master and teacher, have washed your feet, you ought to wash one another’s feet. I have given you a model to follow, so that as I have done for you, you should also do.”

We may wonder that the Mass of the Lord’s Supper on Holy Thursday does not have for its Gospel Reading one of the accounts of how Jesus instituted the Sacrament of the Eucharist.  This, however, is commemorated on the Solemnity of the Body and Blood of Christ, which falls on June 2, this year.  On Holy Thursday night, the Gospel Reading presents to us the meaning of the Lord’s life in this world, which is that of humble service.  From the first moment of his life to its end on Golgotha, he served and was obedient.  St. Luke tells us very specifically that Jesus, as a boy, “was subject” to his parents (Luke 2, 51), whom he had created.  In this he is obedient to the Father: “He humbled himself, becoming obedient unto death” (Philippians 2, 8).  And this was no abstract service but that of a field slave: unrelenting, from sunrise till sundown in the heat of the day, on the road, preaching, healing, casting out demons, debating with the Pharisees.  And at night spending long hours in prayer.  We might think of his prayer as refreshing and restorative since it meant being along with his Father, but his prayer was intercessory.  Already he was beseeching mercy from the Father for each one of us by name, perhaps even sweating blood in the effort, as he would on Holy Thursday night.

His Apostles had not only witnessed his life of service; they had shared in it.  And yet they did not fully understand it.  For them, even at the Last Supper, all this was preliminary to overthrowing Roman rule and reestablishing the Davidic kingdom.  And so Jesus shows them that what they have seen and done does not pave the way to their own rule, but to greater opportunities for service.  And they would do this for him and in his name.  He makes the nature of the service painfully clear through washing their feet, taking the part of a slave.  They are dumbfounded and repulsed.  Peter objects, almost violently.  What Jesus does goes completely against what anyone had thought about authority.  Jesus teaches that this is exactly what authority is for: to have complete freedom for serving.

“Unless I wash you, you will have no inheritance with me.”  This washing is no mere symbol, but a sign to be fulfilled.  First, the one who would follow Christ and gain an inheritance with him must confess that he is in need of being washed, for in order to enter a house one must have clean feet.  Second, the person must allow the slave to wash his feet.  He cannot wash his own but must accept being washed.  In this sign the Lord teaches how he will forgive sins, but to be forgiven, a person must humble himself to acknowledge his sinfulness and that he must be “washed”, and that it is the Lord himself who will forgive him and make his soul clean, “whiter than snow” (Psalm 51, 9).  The one who clings to his dirt will be allowed to remain in his sin.  The effects of forgiveness are not received by one one refuses them: “You are clean, but not all.”  The Lord dies for all, but many will still reject his redemption and go the “wide way that leads to destruction” (Matthew 7, 13).

The Apostles still had to learn how each of them was meant to “wash the feet” of others, and we have to learn this too.  But it is clear that we should be looking for feet to wash, as it were, and not waiting for them to come to us.  Let us serve while we can.