“Almighty Father, whose dear Son, on the night before he suffered, instituted the Sacrament of his Body and Blood: Mercifully grant that we may receive it thankfully in remembrance of Jesus Christ our Lord, who in these holy mysteries gives us a pledge of eternal life; and who now lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.”
-Collect for Maundy Thursday
I don't like doing hard things, and I rarely make sacrifices for others. Yet these are Jesus’ words to his disciples the night before his crucifixion: “As I have loved you, so you must love one another.”1
On Maundy Thursday, Christians celebrate the institution of the Eucharist and the occasion of Jesus washing the feet of his disciples. Both acts are interpretations of the events of Good Friday. While evident in Holy Communion, it’s also true of the foot washing narrative. Biblical interpreters maintain that the story is a picture of the passion of the Christ. In the words of Reverend Fleming Rutledge:
When the Lord gets up from the table, puts on the loincloth of a slave, and kneels at the feet of his disciples, he does it first and foremost to teach his disciples the meaning of his death… the primary meaning is that the Son of God is stooping down from his heavenly throne to wash us clean from our transgressions. The primary meaning is that the Lord of the Universe is preparing to undergo utmost humiliation in order to purify us from the contamination of sin. The primary meaning is that the Eternal Word which was in the beginning with God has become flesh, not only ‘to dwell among us, full of grace and truth, but also to love us and to serve us to the outermost limit, even to death on the Cross.2
It is significant that after washing their feet Jesus says, “I have given you an example, that you also should do as I have done to you.”3 However, the foot washing story is chiefly “a parable of the humiliation of the Son of God.”4 It represents the cleansing to come on Good Friday.5 The “laying aside of his garments”6 foreshadows the laying down of his life.7
This is good news. In the words of the collect, it’s “a pledge of eternal life.” We receive this guarantee every Maundy Thursday. What’s more, we experience this promise every time we partake of the Lord’s Supper.
This Paschal Triduum, don’t forget that the institution of the Eucharist and the story of the foot washing point to the cross. We all need to be washed. In Christ, God “stooped.” He “loved us to the end,”8 and we are “clean all over.”9
As we are drawn into the Holy Week drama, we will witness “love to the loveless shown, that they might lovely be.”10 Those of us who don’t like to do hard things may find that it makes us willing to make sacrifices for others. We may discover that we’re inclined to love “because he first loved us.”11
John 13:34.
Fleming Rutledge, The Undoing of Death, 73.
John 13:15.
Edwyn C. Hoskyns, The Fourth Gospel, 446.
C.K. Barrett, The Gospel According to St. John, 363.
John 13:4.
Raymond Brown, The Gospel According to John XIII-XXI, 551.
John 13:1.
John 13:10.
Lyrics to the first verse of “My Song is Love Unknown.” (Hymn 458 of The 1982 Hymnal.)
I John 4:19; Many of the insights of this devotional are indebted to years worth of readings of Fleming Rutledge’s sermon, “Lord, Not My Feet Only” in her book The Undoing of Death.
You are a gift to us. Thank you!
You are such an inspiration to me Ben! Thank you!