"Having loved His own in the world, He showed how perfect His love was." At the last supper Jesus does three things: He shows us what His mission is all about by taking on the role of a slave, He gives us the means to share in His sacrifice through the Sacrament of the Eucharist, and He teaches us the dignity of the human person - reminding us even today that each one of us is so perfectly loved that the salvation of each of our souls is worth His death on the Cross.
Much of the Middle East is a hot and dusty place. In the First Century, when most people wore sandals, going outside was a dirtying business - your feet would be dry and cracked and often caked with dust. So, a gesture of hospitality emerged, where the master of a house would offer guests water, and a servant to wash their feet. Only for someone very honoured indeed, someone of higher status, would the master of the house himself stoop down to wash the feet of his guest and dirty his own hands.
With this context, one can only imagine the curiosity, and confusion among the disciples as Jesus knelt down to wash their feet. In fact, we don’t have to imagine, we see it in Saint Peter’s reaction “Never!” He said, “You will never wash my feet!”
This man, this man they call Rabbi, and Lord, and Master, this man they have seen work miracles, this man they have seen raising the dead, this man that Peter and John and James have seen shining with the very glory of God, this man could not possibly stoop down so low as to wash the feet of his followers.
What is Jesus doing? Why is He so insistent on washing the disciples’ feet?
The Lord’s Supper, or the Last Supper, is a preparation for the Sacrifice of the Cross, and on that evening which we now call Holy Thursday, our Blessed Lord does three things:
First, He uses the symbolism of foot washing and of the Passover feast to show His disciples what God is doing in Him. He lowers Himself, taking on the role of a slave, and performs a menial task out of love for them. He showed how perfect His love was, says Saint John. He then offers bread and wine, as we have from Saint Paul’s account this evening, saying “This is my body, which is given up for you” and “This cup is the new covenant in my blood.”
This is the perfection of Jesus’ love: that He who was God became a slave for us, and gave up His body on the Cross so that we might be saved. He is the Paschal Lamb, taken from the flock of Israel’s Children. His blood anoints the hearts of believers, so that what is evil in them is destroyed and what is good is raised up and glorified with Him.
Second, He gives us a way to share in the sacrifice of His body and blood, when He instructs the Apostles do this in memory of me. Just as the Passover sacrifice was and is still commemorated and shared by Jews as the feast and memorial of their liberation, so to are we given the means to share in the body and blood of Christ, masked under the accidents, the signs of bread and wine. Jesus says of the bread this is my body, and of the wine, this is my blood, and instructs that we take these symbols and eat and drink in memory of Him. Where the Jews offered a new lamb every year as a memorial, we offer each day at Mass the One True Lamb sacrificed for all humanity. The Church, inspired by these words of Christ, affirmed at the Council of Trent that every scrap of this bread, and every drop of this wine contains the whole Christ, body, blood, soul, and divinity. Christ our Paschal Lamb gave himself to the Apostles as bread and wine, and empowered them (as His first priests) to share that immeasurable gift with us.
Third, Our Blessed Lord gives us an example to follow, He teaches us how we are to love one another, in the image of His perfect love. You call me Master and Lord, and rightly; so I am. If I then, the Lord and Master have washed your feet, you should wash each other’s feet. He is saying, I have become your slave, become slaves for one another. Be humble as I am humble.
The mystery of this Triduum, which is symbolised tonight with the washing of feet, is that God the Father chose this to be the means of our salvation: that His only Son, His eternal co-equal word, should descend from the heavens, assume the form of a slave, and give Himself over to death so for us.
The gifts of this Holy Thursday, the knowledge of God’s love for us, the Holy Eucharist, the priesthood of Christ continued in His Apostles, all points us towards a single truth that God wants to make known to us: That to Him, you are worth the blood of Christ. The salvation of your soul is worth the death of God on the Cross. Not only that but the salvation of each individual soul is worth the same: that everyone sitting next to you in the pews tonight, and the tens of thousands of people on this Island who aren’t in Church this evening, and the countless millions around the world who have not yet even heard the Good News, each of them is worthy of the blood of Christ and His death on the Cross. He died for you, and for me, and for them.
This truth affirms the dignity of the human person more radically and more powerfully than we can imagine: we each of us have an infinite value, because the eternal Word of God chose to die for us. That means we have a duty, to uphold and defend the dignity of others. Whether that’s in little ways, like refusing to gossip or say unkind things about those around us, or in greater ways, like providing patient and loving care for friends and family who are gravely ill or at the end of their lives, or in even greater ways - showing genuine kindness to people who hate us or who frustrate us, or who have hurt us.
I have given you an example, Jesus says. On this night, this night where He instituted His priesthood, and offered us His body and blood as a New Covenant, He also reminded us that these gifts do not come for free.
‘If I do not wash you, you can have nothing in common with me.’
To be washed by Christ is to share in His Passion and death, thus the gifts of this Holy Night come at the cost of genuine, self-sacrificing love, that we should love one another as Christ Jesus loved us. That is, with a love that carries us all the way to the cross.
Comments