Maundy Thursday 2009

Preached by Fr. Daniel Cannon 

Christ Episcopal Church, East Tawas Michigan

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It was the night of the holiest festival of the year. The unblemished lamb was prepared according to Moses’ instructions for the Master and his guests. Just like other devout Jew, Jesus and his disciples sat down to observe the Passover: the commemoration of Israel’s deliverance from slavery in Egypt.

As they ate this meal together like one family, they soaked in the symbolism and meaning of this ancient rite. But this was a pasover they would never forget. Jesus the Rabbi and Master, filling the role of the father, blessed the first cup of wine to begin the ritual meal. The Passover meal has four cups of wine each one with a different meaning and symbolism. The first cup is poured with dignity and majesty, a celebration of the freedom from bondage.

Later in that night Jesus took the symbolic bread and said that it was his body and took one of the cups after they had eaten and said it was his blood. But before Jesus instituted the first Communion he did something remarkable that left its impact on the disciples.

St. John recounts that Jesus did something astounding during that Passover. He:

“got up from the table, took off his outer robe, and tied a towel around himself. Then he poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples’ feet and to wipe them with the towel that was tied around him (John 13:4-5).”

This wasn’t kosher, the Master was supposed to wash his own hands as this point in the meal to symbolize purification. Instead the Master washed the feet of his disciples, something fit for only the lowliest slaves. The feet were a sign of the dirtiest most dishonorable part of a person. Wearing sandals in the hot Middle Eastern climate with no hot showers like we have today…you can imagine why feet were so taboo. In that culture, one of worst insults you can do to your enemy is throw your shoe at them or touch them with your feet.

So, what was Jesus thinking, they wondered…Peter was so shocked that he even refused Jesus’ humble act saying: “You will never wash my feet.” But Jesus makes clear to them it’s significance, saying “Do you know what I have done to you? ¹³You call me Teacher and Lord—and you are right, for that is what I am. ¹⁴So if I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet. ¹⁵For I have set you an example, that you also should do as I have done to you (John 13:13-15).”

Friends, we have a Lord who leads by example. Jesus the Son of God, came down from the glory of heaven…to wash our feet. He took the smelly, calloused and shameful feet of his disciples and held them in his holy hands. He poured water on them, washed away their caked on filth. Nothing was to gross or too ugly for him to turn away in disgust.

Feet can represent anything shameful and ugly in our lives: addictions, callousness, rage, lusts. Anything that we find shameful, that we desire others not to touch; those are the very things that Jesus has come to wash, to cleanse by his love and Sacrifice. Jesus showed the disciples the extent of his love, the love that led him to the cross. He took their feet into his hands without judgment or disgust and made them clean.

Jesus was revealing the cleansing power of his death on the cross, the power that we received in baptism: Where God takes us just as we are, with all of our flaws, all of our smelliness and washes us…makes us clean by the blood of Jesus.

But it didn’t end there with their cleansing that night. Jesus told them to wash one another’s feet as he has washed theirs. On that first Maundy Thursday, Jesus gave the disciples the great commandment: to love one another as he has loved them.

That is where we get the name Maundy Thursday: from the Latin word ‘maundatum,’ commandment.

Jesus’ sacrifice and great humility towards us is what cleanses us from our sins. But now he calls us to go and show this to the world…by doing as he did: By obeying his commandment to Love as he did, to serve as he did, to help cleanse one another as he did.

Does Jesus really want us to wash one another’s feet? Well tonight we will have a symbolic washing for anyone who desires it. But more important that the symbolism is that we bear one another’s burdens and shame; that we avoid gossiping about one another’s failings; that we help one another in our areas of struggle and moral weakness; that we continue to love and hold each other close, even when they stink with the callousness of sin.

In this way we bring the love of Christ to a broken and hurting world, a world unwashed and unloved. This is hope that Maundy Thursday brings, that we the Church will be Chirst’s hands and Christ’s feet even today.