Because we celebrate the Eucharist so often in our churches, basically every Sunday, I wonder if we don’t have a tendency to forget that it’s this one time thing in the Gospel. This is Jesus’s last supper with his disciples, his farewell dinner right before he is arrested and put to death. And so if we forget about how special it is, we may also forget the privilege it is to attend it. I was surprised this week to have several people letting me know that they wouldn’t be able to attend tonight. It wasn’t their fault, they had to stay later at work, or to attend important meetings. But it made me sad our society does not make it easier for Christians to find time for this sacred moment. This week, it’s all about Easter, and of course Easter is so important, and yet when we have a good friend we don’t want to just share the joy with them, we also want to be with them when it’s difficult. If we had a friend having a farewell party, we would want to go. Even more, if it was our last opportunity to see them alive, we’d do anything to be with them, to listen to their last words for us, to hold their hands one last time. I am with you only a little longer, says Jesus. All of us, we have lost people we love and how often have we replayed in our minds our last meal with them, our last conversation. And so we do that every Sunday, and especially on this Maundy Thursday. We are reminded of Jesus’s last will for his disciples, and after all is said and done, Jesus asks them to love him, and to love one another. But how do we do that? There are so many ways to define love. So to show them what kind of love he speaks about, John tells us that Jesus grabs a towel and starts washing the disciples’ feet.
What does it mean? Well, if you pay attention, Jesus gives two different explanations for what he is doing. The first thing he says is that his disciples need to be cleansed and if they love him, they will accept that. You probably already know that everything is symbolic in John’s Gospel. At a time where people walked all day with sandals on dirt roads, it was the use to wash their feet when they entered someone’s house and especially because they reclined to have dinner. Jesus uses this simple act of everyday life to remind the disciples that they also need to be cleansed to take part to God’s banquet. We all want to look good and we do our best to look good, especially I guess when we go to a dinner party, but to be clean before God there is not much we can do. We just have to receive God’s grace in the form of God’s forgiveness, and it’s humbling in the same way it is vulnerable to have someone washing your feet. The Bible knows about that because it often associates showing your feet with nakedness. Like when Ruth gets in Boaz’ bed and “uncover his feet”. When Jesus washes our feet, we find ourselves a little naked before him, we have to let down all the armor we put on our vulnerability, on our weaknesses. But Jesus does not look at us with the eyes of a judge, of a Master, he says he is like a servant, and maybe even more like a mom who wipes her newborn and wraps them in a clean blanket. We have been feeling ashamed of ourselves since we first sinned, since that time when Adam and Eve went to hide in the bushes, behind fig leaves, but Jesus tells us that if we love him, we will come to him as we are, trusting that we will be accepted.
And then Jesus also says that he uses the washing of the feet as an example of the way we should love each other. Well, I think it’s really something we need to think about in our churches where we can get tempted to become very involved in politics, activism, where we may think our job is to become prophets in our society. It can be important of course, but sometimes our ego tricks us into thinking it is all that matters. Yet when Jesus asks us to grab a towel, he shows as the perfect example of love the most humble gesture of domestic life. I grab a towel twenty times a day to dry the dishes, wipe my dog’s paws, clean the counters. The last time I had the flu, Xavier brought me a wet towel to put on my face to bring the fever down. This is not the kind of love you think about the day you get married! There is nothing glamorous or glorious about it. And yet that’s what love is made of for each one of us, day after day. In a world where everybody wants to be noticed and approved, Jesus asks his disciples to show love in little things that don’t make noise, things that feels a bit uncomfortable, that are not very fulfilling, that may even offend a bit our dignity. And so that’s hard, but that’s also very reassuring to realize that Jesus does not ask us to do anything more than what we already do.
So we were wondering how we could be with Jesus tonight? Some among you confessed to me that since we have done this Bible study on Jesus’s last hours they had to realize how awful Jesus’s death was. I don’t think Jesus asks us to linger on his sufferings though. But he asks his disciples to remember his great love. Maybe to be with Jesus in his last hours, we don’t have to beat ourselves up about our sins or read nightmarish descriptions of the crucifixion, but we could consider to accept to die a little more to ourselves in the weeks to come, to die to what offend our pride or our sense of fairness and take on all the things we think don’t matter that much, all the things that feel like a waste of time or energy, like cleaning after others, and decide to do it as if it was sacred work. You know, we may not always feel brave enough to take upon our cross, but a towel is always within range. Holiness is within range, perfect love isn’t further away than the next towel. Jesus by washing his disciples’ feet has sanctified the smallest acts of service and in the process, he has sanctified us, if we let him.