1It was before Passover, and Jesus knew that the time had come for him to leave this world and to return to the Father. He had always loved his followers in this world, and he loved them to the very end. 2Even before the evening meal started, the devil had made Judas, the son of Simon Iscariot, decide to betray Jesus. 3Jesus knew that he had come from God and would go back to God. He also knew that the Father had given him complete power. 4So during the meal Jesus got up, removed his outer garment, and wrapped a towel around his waist. 5He put some water into a large bowl. Then he began washing his disciples’ feet and drying them with the towel he was wearing.
The Emperor Constantine shaped much of Christian history when he issued an edict of toleration for the Christian faith and then allowed Christianity to be embraced as a state religion. A significant part of the story occurred just prior to the Battle of Milvian Bridge in 312.
According to these sources, Constantine looked up to the sun before the battle and saw a cross of light above it, and with it the Greek words “Ἐν Τούτῳ Νίκα” (“by this, win!”) Constantine commanded his troops to adorn their shields with a Christian symbol (the Chi-Rho), and thereafter they were victorious.
How different would history have been if instead of the Chi-Rho, the Emperor had seen a bowl and a towel. It is difficult to imagine the Crusaders marching on to war with shields emblazoned with a bowl and a towel.
Jesus washing of his disciples feet needs to be understood for what it is. It is a prophetic act.
Prophetic acts point always to something more than the actual action. True the act would have been treasured for
what it was by those present at the Passover meal.
The washing of the feet was also an act of humility. In Palestinian circles, the host at the meal, which Jesus was, was not the one who washed feet. It was meant to be done by a servant or a slave. Monarchs, archbishops and priests have all echoed this act of humility by washing feet.
But the act was not just an act of humility alone, no matter how impressive it was. Rather Jesus was giving the disciples a template for living.
Jesus actions seem to paint a wonderful picture in action of what Paul does with words in his letter to the Church at Philippi
5and think the same way that Christ Jesus thought: [a] 6Christ was truly God. But he did not try to remain [b] equal with God. 7Instead he gave up everything [c] and became a slave, when he became like one of us. 8Christ was humble. He obeyed God and even died on a cross. 9Then God gave Christ the highest place and honored his name above all others. 10So at the name of Jesus everyone will bow down, those in heaven, on earth, and under the earth. 11And to the glory of God the Father everyone will openly agree, “Jesus Christ is Lord!”
Jesus by taking the form of a slave acts in the opposite way to most of us. Most of us—myself included– am only too willing to assert my own individual rights. Jesus, the perfect human, who deserved to be served, serves others. In this he offers not just an example of humility, but a template for human living and human growth. Jesus challenges what Rowan Williams has called our illusions of omnipotence, or to put it another way, The story of God becoming human in Jesus shows us how shallow our understanding of God is at times.
Christ Jesus, putting the towel and around his waist, and washing feet shows us how God really acts—and challenges us to do the same.
Why should we treat others as Christ does? Perhaps an answer is found in Jewish traditions at time of the birth of the early church of angels giving reverence to human beings. This reverence was offered because in each human they could see the face or image of God.
What would life be like if we saw in each human the image of God? How different would our actions be both within and outside the Church?
Our lives would be closer, I would suggest, to the pattern offered by Jesus.
Washing feet
Washing feet, touching the divine
Touching the divine, healing wounds
Healing wounds, with self-emptying love
Self-emptying love, a pattern both human and divine
Human and divine patterns offering a shape
A shape for us to love and grow
To love and grow as we wash feet
To see in each the presence of the divine
lurchersontheedge 