Holy Thursday, Holy Desire

Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands, and that he had come from God and was going to God, got up from the table, took off his outer robe, and tied a towel around himself. Then he poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples’ feet and to wipe them with the towel that was tied around him. (John 13:3-5)

One ... more ... chance. What would you do if had one last chance to speak what is on your heart, to share your soul with someone you dearly love, husband, wife, children,  your mother or father, a friend whom you love like your own second self.

What do you want to give them? What do you ache for them to know? What do you yearn for them to carry with them as they carry on without you?

Think, what would you do? And listen ... to your heart. For your own confused, conflicted, complicated, heart will reveal to you the heart of Jesus. The yearning within you echoes God’s passionate desire to bathe you in the endless sea of Love Unlimited. And isn’t this what we want to give to those whom we love more than our words can say?

This desire burns in the heart of Jesus, striking home each year, as we watch Jesus washing his disciples’ feet. Watching him we feel—I feel—his desire, a human yet oh-so-holy longing, Love’s longing to be given away to his beloved.

Jesus has this moment to love them one more time, to teach them one more time, to show them the heart that is in him that they might know the heart of God.

He holds nothing back. Jesus takes a towel, wraps it around himself, pours water in a bowel and kneels at his disciple’s feet. He places each heel in his hand and pours water over it. He wraps each foot in a towel to dry them. He looks down at each foot, absorbed in the moment, one by one, flesh on flesh, washing away the dust of living that clings to body and soul.

Every single year, this scene awakens the image of a painting in my mind. Mary Cassatt, an American painter, working in France, painted intimate, domestic scenes from rural life, often mothers and children. One painting, The Bath, depicts a mother in a long, striped dress. A little girl, perhaps three, sits on her lap. Her feet dangle in a basin on the floor as her mother washes her feet. They don’t look at each other. They look down, on the mother’s hand caressing the girl’s right foot. You don’t see their eyes, but anyone with eyes to see feels the ocean of exquisite tenderness that surrounds them.

This ... is what we are invited to feel and know as the deepest truth of our existence. For as Jesus washes feet, we see into the incomprehensible depth of the Love who was, and who is and who always will be, the Love who is always for us ... for the whole confused, confounded, conflicted world, for shattered people in places like Ukraine, for the conniving dictator who seeks their lives and for everyone in-between, whether they choose to welcome it or not. After all, Jesus washed Judas’ feet, too.

He loves them, all of them, all of us, the whole mess, and he loves them to the end, giving himself even to those betray, deny and run away in his hour of greatest need. For he knows the time has come to return to the Loving Mystery from whom he came. The time has come for him to reveal the heart of that Mystery to all humanity.

So he washes them, and as we imagine his hands touching our dirty feet and troubled hearts, his love washes over us, rinsing away our regrets that our lives have never been as good as our intentions. 

He washes away the crushing weight of sin and guilt that we may take a deep breath of the sweet air of freedom.

He washes away our failures and the fears, lifting our hearts out of the doldrums into joy and expectation.

He washes away our denial and justifications of hurts we have caused that we may discover the startling truth that we are we are forgiven and beloved after all, everlastingly loved by an Everlasting Love.

He bathes us in the love that transforms bitter tears into the sweetness of consolation, knowing God’s love is greater than every death that ever was or will be.

He washes away our doubtful fear that we are alone, forgotten or forsaken, for we are carried in the current of an all-possessing Love.

This the love that moved Jesus to kneel at the feet of his disciples, the love which accepts the bitterness of the cross to reveal the Love who embraces even those who try to kill it.

Just so, we are blessed, for the Love who was and is and always will be comes to us in bread and wine, word and blessing. The Love Christ is comes in the flesh of those who greet us in peace and in every moment love awakens our hearts.

We are blessed every moment we welcome and allow this Love wash over us, for it is then that we know the heart of Jesus within our own hearts.

We are blessed. For knowing him we can give our hearts away in love, as our Lord Jesus gives himself to us. 

David L. Miller