Holy Thursday Matins

John 13:1-15, 34-35

March 28, 2024

What would you do? If you knew you were going to die tomorrow, what would you do?

You could try to have fun. Eat your favorite food. Play a game. Watch your favorite movie one last time.

Maybe you’d try to finish up something left undone. Make sure everything was put in order. You might even have some things to get rid of. Things you don’t want anybody else to see. Things that would embarrass you.

What does Jesus do? He knows He’s going to die tomorrow. He knows that His friend, Judas, has made a secret deal with His enemies. Soon, men with clubs and torches and swords will come, in the dark of night, and take Him away. They’ll beat Him up, humiliate Him, tell lies about Him, kill Him.

What would you do?

What does Jesus do?

He washes the feet of His disciples.

It shouldn’t have been this way. One of the disciples should have done it. They call Him “Lord” and “Master,” “Rabbi” and “Teacher,” Pastor and Christ. But when Supper time came, all each disciple thought about was himself. Not Jesus. Not the other disciples. Not the poor people out on the street with no place to spend the holiday.

St. Luke tells us that on this night, the disciples actually argued with each other about which of them was the greatest.

Meanwhile, the One who really is the Greatest is making Himself the least, the servant. He does the job nobody wants to do. Do you like cleaning toilets? Changing dirty diapers? Scrubbing floors? Have you ever been around someone with bad body odor? Imagine a bunch of rude fishermen who haven’t had a shower in awhile, who have walked all over Judea and Jerusalem. Their feet are covered with soot and sand, dirt and donkey dung.

The servant is supposed to clean them. That’s what servants do. So that’s what Jesus does. Why? Because that’s who He is. Servant. The Lord of the Universe makes Himself the lowest person, and does it gladly.

Why? Out of love. Not a sappy, sentimental Valentine’s Day kind of love. It’s the love of a Brother, a Father, a Husband, a caring teacher, a powerful warrior, a Shepherd who fights bears and lions to protect His flock. It’s a dying love, a love that is glad to get down in the ditch, the dirt, the gutter, where there are filthy feet and oozing sores and everything unpleasant. He goes through it all so His disciples will have this last memory, this last experience before He is taken away of how much He loves them.

And there’s a lesson for us. He does everything for us. But we are His discipuli, His pupils, His students. Which means, we are to repeat the action of the teacher.

Wherever other people are, there you’ll find feet to wash. It might be actual feet that need washing. But most of the time that will just be a metaphor for what really needs doing: help the person who needs helping, wash what needs washing, forgive what needs forgiving. Why? Because that’s what Jesus does. He loves. He washes. He forgives. And we, His discipuli, His pupils, get to do that too. Because Jesus has already done everything for us.