Another and older name for Holy Thursday is Maundy Thursday – so called from the Latin word “mandatum” meaning command or mandate.  Maundy Thursday recalls the new command, the new mandate Jesus gave his disciples at the Last Supper.  I give you a new commandment: love one another.  As I have loved you, so you also should love one another.  This is how all will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.

In John’s gospel there is no explicit recollection of the institution of the Eucharist at the Last Supper.  Rather than recalling the Eucharist John recalls Jesus washing the feet of his disciples.  I want to call our attention to John’s solemn introduction to this scene from the Last Supper.  John writes: Knowing full well that he had come from God and was returning to God –

Knowing full well his relationship with the Father – Knowing full well that the Father had put everything into his power –

Jesus washes feet!

The solemnity of John’s introduction to the scene stands in surprising contrast to the earthy simplicity of the act itself.  Yet this is Jesus’ final instruction to his disciples – his own lived obedience to the new command given at the Last Supper.  Love one another?  Wash feet!

In your own prayer during these holy days you might reflect in the following manner.  Knowing full well that you come from God and are returning to God, Jesus says to you: wash feet!  Knowing full well your own relationship with the Father, wash feet!  Knowing full well that the Father has put everything into your own power and responsibility, Jesus says:  wash feet!

We are reminded of the Prologue to John’s gospel where we hear:  To those who accepted him Jesus gave the power to become children of God.  It’s the power to wash feet.  The power of the children of God is the power to wash feet.

Likewise we are reminded of Jesus as Word of God.  We believe Jesus is the revelation of God – the revelation of what it means to be God, to be divine – the revelation of what it means to wield divine power.  And in Jesus we see and we learn that God bends the knee before us and washes feet.

A footwashing God!  We need to have a sense for the outrageous, even for the offensive – in what is being proclaimed and portrayed in this scene from the Last Supper.  God takes on the form of a common servant.  God washes feet.

And we dare not lose the earthiness of God’s humility.  The humble, kneeling, working servant is God’s true form.  John also tells us:  God is Love.  And love always seeks out the good of the other.  Love is not power.  Power seeks to maintain itself.  We have only to look around in city, country and church to see the ways of power.  But love seeks to maintain the other.  In this sense Jesus’ God is a power-less God.  The footwashing God is not intent on his own dignity and recognition, nor his own prominence and prerogatives.  Rather, this God only seeks out the good of the other.  The footwashing God does not want – does not know how – to “lord it over us”.  Rather, this God calls us “friend”, not “servant”.  This God is the un-dominator, the un-boss whose only desire is to be with us and within us – not above us.  I am in you and you are in me, says this God.

What then are we to make of this foot-washing God of Jesus?  One thing is clear.  We may not make Jesus’ foot-washing into a mere religious ceremony.  It is not enough for us to recall the Last Supper and admire Jesus from a distance – praising him for doing the foot-washing.  Nor does Jesus mean for us merely to play act at him doing it.

As disciples we will do the foot-washing – as Jesus did.  We will get out of power and get into love.  This will be our earth-shattering apocalypse: when we live to expend ourselves – not to extend ourselves.  A life lived for self-maintenance is simply not worthy of our servant-God.

But we must be prepared to reckon with the cost of our foot-washing – since there will be opposition.  We must be prepared for a kind of dying.  Because – in a culture and society which would have us lord it over one another, we as disciples will bend the knee before one another.  And in a culture and society which would have us actually choose cool, antiseptic detachment, we as disciples will wash one another’s dirty feet.

In our creeds and liturgies we picture Jesus, the Risen Lord, at the right hand of the Father.  Remember that that hand is always washing feet.  The Risen Lord continues to wash feet – through us – his Body – through us, his real and true Body.

Do this – become this – be this in memory of me!