John 13:33. Little children, I am with you only a little
longer. You will look for me; and as I said to the Jews so now I say to you,
“Where I am going, you cannot come.” I give you a new commandment, that you
love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another.
Jesus speaks these tender words in that upstairs room
where the disciples have gathered together for the last time. Jesus knows he
will be leaving soon, and in the intimacy of that last meal they all share,
Jesus is doing his best to prepare the disciples for his imminent departure.
The way he chooses to do that is surprising. Removing his
outer robe and wrapping a towel around himself, the Lord and Teacher stoops
before his disciples and washes their feet. The tenderness, the familiarity,
the intimacy of this act is beyond surprising, it is shocking. It is enough
that the Son of God turns servant to his friends… but to hold their dirty feet
in his hands, bathing them with cool water, tenderly drying and slipping them
back into their sandals… this is an act of intimacy so profound, I can hardly
take it in.
There is something terribly intimate about foot washing.
There is a humility in it that is different from anything I have ever
experienced. Jesus was teaching his disciples that servants and masters and
martyrs and queens are all beloved of God, that the first shall be last, that the
divine lives in each one of us and that we are to live together a way that
makes those things true.
Jesus didn’t gather the disciples in a circle on the floor
and teach with his strong and tender words. He stripped down and stooped down
and got very intimate. And while I know he was teaching about a kingdom where
all are precious and necessary parts of the Body of Christ, what touches me
more deeply is that the disciples would let him bathe their filthy, calloused,
ugly feet. Jesus didn’t choose to anoint their foreheads, he choose the
profoundly intimate act of foot washing. In doing that, I think he was teaching
us that there’s more to loving one another than a willingness to become
servants. I think he was teaching us that love means be willing to be naked and
vulnerable and intimate. That is the kind of love that will change us. And the
love that will change the world.
—The
Rev. Karen Haig
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