Monday, April 6, 2009

Today’s text

John 13:1-5

Before the festival of the Passover, Jesus, knowing that his hour had come to pass from this world to the Father, having loved those who were his in the world, loved them to the end. They were at supper, and the devil had already put it into the mind of Judas Iscariot son of Simon, to betray him. Jesus knew that the Father had put everything into his hands, and that he had come from God and was returning to God, and he got up from table, removed his outer garments and, taking a towel, wrapped it round his waist; he then poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples' feet and to wipe them with the towel he was wearing.

Reflection

Some acts play better in silence. Words are not needed. A whispering soundtrack would distract from the simplicity of scene and the echo of one’s own beating heart.

And what do we see, Jesus?

You … a towel about your waist … pouring water in a bowel … kneeling on the floor … washing feet.

It’s an unlikely posture for a messiah, the incarnation of the most high, holy God, or I suppose for anyone of that day who possessed the slightest self-respect.

But I have seen mothers in this posture, many times, wiping off shoes, wiping feet lest they track across a clean kitchen floor.

I have seen paintings that exude an inexhaustible tenderness, showing a mother wash her little girl’s feet. One moved me to tears. Still does. The gentle solicitude of the mother for her child is so great it breaks the heart.

The mother’s heart pours out in tender hands, touching her child, and in her enduring gaze at the child’s feet in her hands. She does not look into the child’s eyes, but at her feet, as if gazing into her eyes would break the tender spell of a sacramental moment.

No, that’s not you, Jesus. It’s a painting. But it leads me to see you, your eyes on your work, holding the dusty foot of one of your followers, intent on serving them, giving yourself, doing for them what your heart requires.

Yes, that is what most moves me.

Your brimming heart moving you to kneel, pour water and wash feet. A humble act, a caring devotion, gentleness in a rough world where every gentleness is a holy sacrament.

An almost final act, this is, revealing a love that bursts the bounds of the heart and demands to be given, shared, acted out in a way no words can express.

So you washed feet. And we see the love not even God can hold within.

Pr. David L. Miller