One more time

Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands, and that he had come from God and was going to God, rose from supper, laid aside his garments, and girded himself with a towel. Then he poured water into a basin, and began to wash the disciples’ feet, and to wipe them with the towel with which he was girded. (John 13:3-5)

Hands and feet, water, a basin and towel. Blessed are those who have eyes to see holiness where it is pleased to appear, as in this hunted man as he kneels on a stone-cold floor and washes feet.

This is the last time Jesus will be alone with his friends before his enemies scourge him body and soul and hang him out to dry, an object of derision. He has one more time to love them, to touch them body and soul, hoping to open their hearts to everything that is in his God-haunted heart.

To remember, we gather and tell the tale one more time, imagining ourselves cloistered with him in that little circle as he pours water into a bowl of sun-burnt clay and ties a long cloth around his waist.

One knee on the cold stone, he grasps a foot, my foot, your foot, in his right hand, cups water from the basin and washes the dirt of living from the arch and sole. His eyes fix on his work, ours on his hand as water spatters back into the bowl, our hearts heavy with a lifetime of fears and regrets, betrayals and hurts, hectored by our failures to be everything we or someone else thought we could’ve, should’ve or might’ve done and been, if only … .

But none of that seems to matter here. All that matters is the hands and heart of Jesus, whose love requires him to kneel at the feet of the weary and unworthy, reverently touching us with the love that fills him from the great Loving Mystery with whom his heart is one, tenderly touching and washing away our suspicion that we are adrift in a universe uncaring, a world where our little lives don’t much matter.

And this … is who God is.

Jesus upends everything commonly thought about who God is and what God is about. It’s all turned upside down. Any heart who hungers for God best looks not for a high and mighty unmoved mover far distant from their flesh. Look, instead, at this man moved to his knees by a great, unconquerable love, loving his friends to the end despite their faults and failures, their betrayals and failure to grasp the love that was reaching to them in his every word and gesture.

The more human we see him, the more divine we know him.

David L. Miller