washing feet, 1987

 

On this night when he freely gives himself to death

MEDITATION AT St. JOHN’S, EAST BENTLEIGH

MAUNDY THURSDAY (April 23^rd) 1987

 

 

Maundy Thursday; the time at which, since the fourth century, Christians have gathered to remember our Lord’s giving to his people the sacrament of the Holy Communion meal.

Maundy Thursday; since the eighth century the time at which those excommunicated from the church, having completed suitable penance, were admitted once more into the fold of believers.

Maundy Thursday; since perhaps the tenth century the day associated with Christ’s washing of his disciples’ feet, an event commemorated in churches throughout the world by foot washing liturgies.

Maundy Thursday; the day mysteriously so named not, as some might believe, to add to the obscurity of our religion in the eyes of those beyond the pews. No:  named from the Latin word “mandatum,” commandment. it is on this day, according to St. John, that Jesus gave to his disciples the awe-inspiring commandment, “love one another, as I have loved you.”

Maundy Thursday, the day which you and I have come after journeying together through Lent. A day of communion, a day of forgiveness, a day of humility, and above all a day of love. And now, on this day we gather together with Jesus and his twelve disciples in the upper room, to share what Jesus – and Judas – knew would be the last meal of the disciples together.

Our Lord is full of the knowledge of his imminent betrayal, full of the knowledge of the betrayer’s presence in our midst. After washing our feet he will say to us, “someone who shares my table rebels against me.” It is no use us, like the disciples, turning to one another and asking, “is it I?”

For the answer is, “Yes.” It is Judas Iscariot who walks out of the upper room into the darkness tonight, but he was only the first to desert the ranks of Jesus on this night. Even dear Peter, of whose bravado we have heard read yet again tonight, is soon to leave Jesus in the trial, and walk out into the dead of night, walk away to the resounding cry of a cock crowing.

None of us stay with Jesus tonight, all of us choose to embrace not the light which has come into the world, but the darkness that is being away from, unfaithful to, that Christ-light. There will be much darkness between now and Easter morn. The darkness of the Garden of Gethsemane in which Jesus struggles alone in prayer, the darkness of the betrayal, the darkness of the long trial, the darkness that is to cover the earth at the time of the crucifixion. As Judas walks out from the upper room, John tells us, it was night.

We cannot look around us to wonder who it is that will desert the ranks of the one who has washed our feet tonight. Judas may betray him, but Judas merely embraces the extremes of darkness, the absolute act of cynicism. We all must admit to the darkness that is within us, tonight, the darknesses in our deepest recesses that are, ultimately, no more or less   than the absence of Christ-light in those parts of our soul that we keep from him.

Jesus knows only too well our darkness, our sin, and loves us yet, even as we desert him in the night. It is for this reason that he washes our feet, and not we his. We must let him, our servant, our deacon, our saviour, wash ours, lest we slip into the mistaken belief that he owes us any favours. We cannot earn re-admission to the light which is Christ, but can only accept the awe-inspiring mystery that he invites us to return to him. Despite our desertion of him in the night, the darkness that Judas enters tonight is not his alone but yours and mine.

We are not singing tonight the hymn, “ Ah, Holy Jesus,” but well we might.

Ah, holy Jesus, how hast thou offended,

That man to judge thee hath in hate pretended?

By foes derided, by thine own rejected,

Oh most afflicted.

Who was the guilty? Who brought this upon thee?

Alas, my treason, Jesus, hath undone thee;

’twas I, Lord Jesus, I it was denied thee:

I crucified thee.

 

Paul tells us that he received the tradition that on this night on which we have come together, Jesus took bread, gave thanks, broke it, and gave it to his disciples saying, “This is my body.” We are also told that after supper Jesus took the cup, and gave it to his disciples saying, “This is my blood of the new covenant.”

Most important of all, we are commanded by Jesus always to do likewise, as a way of remembering the events of this night on which we have betrayed our Lord, as a way of recalling to memory the events that are to take place tonight and tomorrow, as a way of proclaiming to the world the enormous events of these next three days.

Every time we receive the elements, the body and the blood of Christ, we are to remember our unworthiness, to recall that we and all people have no right to embrace the light which is Christ, and that it is rather our universal human nature to embrace darkness, as we and all humanity do on this night of Jesus’ betrayal.

On Good Friday and Easter Sunday we will talk more of the death to which we betray our Lord, the death which we proclaim each time we joined together in Holy Communion. Tonight, though, we should remember the darkness: the night into which we go after our Lord has washed our feet. We shall remember the darkness, and remember that it is not only the darkness of Judas, but also the darkness of all the followers of Jesus, you and me included. It is my darkness and your darkness.

But so too it is your feet and my feet that Jesus washes. As I went into retreat a few days before my ordination I received and took with me the words of a dear friend: “Allow Christ to be your servant in the silence.” So too we must allow Christ to be our servant in the darkness of this night, and in the private darkness of our own soul. And the further we go on in Christ the better we shall know that the darkness of this night is our darkness.

Let us remember this night not only for the darkness but also for the words that Jesus speaks to us in the face of that darkness, the words for which this day has come to be named: “love one another, as I have loved you.”  And so, together remembering that love, let us go on to eat his body and drink his blood in the rite which he commanded us, so that we might proclaim to the world that for all we are in darkness, the light of Christ has come into our midst.

 

 

[In digging out this 1987 sermon I found a much longer version. There was much in it that I now find (even more) excruciating (in 2025) and I should remain very thankful that, I suspect, my training vicar Ken Hewlett put a red pen through two or three paragraphs of somewhat self-indulgent wallowing dressed up as meditation. Thanks, Ken …  I had the best training vicar imaginable!]