Feeding and eating and bathing or washing are everyday acts. And these everyday acts are the stuff of what we read tonight in Holy Scripture. So let’s look at feeding and eating, bathing, washing.
We have to eat. Jesus and His friends had to eat. They had to nourish their bodies and they wanted to nourish their faith in the Passover meal. So they were having that meal together in Jerusalem in the final days of Jesus’ life on earth and according to Paul, who wrote about that meal in the passage from Corinthians we just heard, and also according to others as you know. In the course of the meal Jesus picked up a piece of bread, gave thanks to God and told them to do likewise at table ever after that in remembrance of Him. Actually He said the bread was His body, His presence. Then He took up the cup of wine and He told them it stood for the New Covenant God was making through the shedding of his, Jesus’, blood. That’s how covenants were made in the old, old times in Israel, through the shedding of the animal blood. That was sprinkled, sometimes on the people, sometimes on an altar, and all Jesus’ friends gathered there with Him would have known about that, because it was in their scriptures, all over their scriptures. But this would be a new covenant, so drink wine, the wine of the new covenant at table, ever after, in remembrance of me, Jesus said.
Well after His blood was shed on the cross and He died there. Jesus was raised by God to new life. All His friends experienced the Risen Lord. And after He had gone away into heaven they remembered what He had told them, so when they came together for their meals, there was always a time for bread and for the wine in thanksgiving and remembrance. And somehow, as they took that bread and that cup, every time they gathered, they were acutely aware of His presence to them. It was as if He were actually among them, blessing and breaking and giving the bread and blessing and offering that cup. Time passed, sharing the bread and the cup split off from the setting of the meal and the Sacrament of Holy Eucharist came into being. It is still a meal however, a Holy meal at which the Holy Spirit is really present to everyone who comes around the table, the table, which we call an altar. It is the meal that sustains us, the meal that empowers us, renews us to love and to serve Him.
Tonight we remember the occasion on which He first told His friends to share it with one another. We have to eat; we have to nourish our bodies and our faith in this rather simple act of sharing the bread and the cup, this Holy act He feeds us.
Bathing, washing, every day act. We need to bathe. Usually we think of bathing as a personal everyday act, unless one is helpless to bath oneself and then someone else, we hope, will bathe us gently and with care. John’s gospel recounts a different chain of events from the one that Paul refers to. The setting is a meal, true, and at the meal Jesus made a startling move, true again. But this time the everyday act was bathing, it was washing. Jesus left the table, wrapped a towel around his waist and began to bathe the feet of His friends. No we know that in those dusty days it was common to have water at the entrance to a house, so that folks could rinse their own feet before crossing the threshold or have their feet washed by a servant or a slave. But it was astounding to see a host do it for His guests and unheard of to do it in the middle of meal, so long after they had already entered the house. So some of them were upset by what He did. Peter was one of those. And one wonders, what was He really up to when He did that?
Well, one wise interpreter suggests that this intimate act of bathing, washing their feet, I’m quoting, “mirrors the intimacy of Jesus’ relationship with God.” That relationship is so intimate that Jesus is more than willing to completely put Himself in God’s hands. And now His friends must symbolically put themselves in His hands, allowing Him to bathe their feet. By this He will demonstrate His love for them, God’s love for them, by allowing Him to do it; they will demonstrate their trust in Him.
When He had accomplished what He set out to do He told them they were to do the very same thing with one another. Not just washing each other’s feet, but doing what that act symbolized, loving one another, as He had, serving one another, as He had. The passage ends, “I give you a new commandment, that you love one another just as I have loved you, you also should love one another.” That’s very important work and its very difficult work, isn’t it? Yet He expects it of His friends.
Tonight when we bathe each other’s feet we will be earnestly thanking our Lord Jesus for His love and we will be promising to follow His commandment, not only tonight but every day and every night. Hard duty though it may turn out to be. We need to bathe, we need to wash. We need to bathe our own bodies and bathe one another in His love. Bathing is an every day act, a holy every day act.
Every minute that passed that night brought death upon the cross nearer. He was betrayed by one of His own, yet He paused to assure His own that He would always be truly present to them. They couldn’t yet fathom the profound meaning of what He was doing for them, saying to them. But one day they would and we too, now, know what He was doing. These holy every day acts are the stuff of our life together, so let’s be about them, first the bathing, the washing, then the feeding and the eating. Amen.
|
