Maundy Thursday Reflection: 2 April 2015, Jerusalem

This reflection was preached for the joint Arabic/English/German Maundy Thursday Service at 
Lutheran Church of the Redeemer, Jerusalem. 

Children attend the Maundy Thursday service
at Lutheran Church of the Redeemer, Jerusalem.
Photo by Danae Hudson, ELCJHL

Maundy Thursday Reflection

2 April 2015

Lutheran Church of the Redeemer, Jerusalem

Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

Early tomorrow morning, Redeemer Church members will join their sisters and brothers in Christ to walk the Via Dolorosa. Slowly, deliberately, and prayerfully, we will retrace the movements Our Lord Jesus made on his way to the cross, where, having loved his own who were in the world, he loved us to the end.

But tonight, we hear the story of the Last Supper, in which Jesus makes his way not to the cross, but to the washbasin. This short journey is a foreshadowing of the longer, sorrowful walk to Golgotha. If we were to mark the journey by stations, as we do the Way of the Cross, it might look something like this:

Station 1: Jesus gets up from the table.

Station 2: Jesus takes off his outer robe.

Station 3: Jesus ties a towel around himself and pours water into the basin.

Station 4: Jesus washes the feet of his disciples.

By this walk from the table to the washbasin, Jesus demonstrated for his disciples what was to come next. He gave them (and us) a sneak preview of the events of Good Friday, when again he would humble himself, taking on the role of a servant, and love us to the end.

“You do not know what I am doing, but later you will understand,” Jesus said. To be fair, we’re still trying to understand, so many years, so many Good Fridays, so many Easters later. We still struggle to comprehend the significance of the radical, subversive, self-emptying love Jesus showed for us. And…we’re still working on living the command he gave us on the night in which he was betrayed.

“I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another.”

Just as Jesus loved us, so are we to love one another. It seems a simple request, really, and fairly easy to interpret, especially since we’re given this helpful object lesson: Love = feet, water, and towels.

But living this command is harder than it sounds, and the difficulty has nothing to do with our dislike of feet.

The author's feet in the Sea of Galilee
Photo by Carrie Smith

If you’ve ever participated in a foot-washing liturgy, you know the anxiety produced by the mere mention of taking off shoes in church. In anticipation of Holy Thursday, church members will head to the nail salon for a pedicure, or they will buy new socks…or they will skip the service entirely. Most people will point to their dislike of feet –theirs and their neighbors’—as the reason this Maundy Thursday foot-washing spectacle just goes too far. “I can love my neighbor with my shoes on, Pastor,” someone once said to me. 

But our real trouble with the mandatum of Maundy Thursday has nothing to do with feet at all. In fact, our struggle to love as Jesus loved us begins before we take off our shoes or kneel at the feet of our friends, before we ever pour the water, before we even pick up the towel.

Jesus said, “So if I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another's feet.” But when we, like Peter, focus only on feet and water and service, we miss the scandalous reversal of roles and renunciation of power Jesus demonstrated at the washbasin—and on the cross.

For Christ Jesus, “though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness. And being found in human form, he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death—even death on a cross.” (Philippians 2:6-8)

This is why the new commandment to love is so difficult—because the first step of the journey from the table to the washbasin is this: Jesus got up from the table.

In other words, if we are to love as Jesus loved us, we must begin as he did, by relinquishing our positions of power and privilege at the head of the table.

If we are to love as Jesus loved us, we must shed our outer garments—the robes of class, or education, or patriarchy, or institutional power which set us above and apart from others.

If we are to love as Jesus loved us, we must tie a towel around our waists in solidarity with workers, with the poor, with the oppressed, with the foot-washers of the world.

Then, and only then, can the water be poured. Only then are we ready to serve. Only then are we prepared to love as we have been loved.

The truth is, we cannot do this of our own power. We can only do this through our Lord Jesus Christ, who in laying down his life and picking it up again has empowered us to follow in his steps, to the washbasin and to the cross.

And, so, beloved, let us love one another. By this will everyone know we are his disciples, if we have love for one another. Amen.