Because of what we remember today, I very much doubt that Jesus suffered from podophobia. Podophobia is the fear of human feet, and today is Maundy Thursday, the day in Holy Week in which we remember that Jesus washed the feet of his disciples as recorded for us in John 13.
Where’s the food?
John, in his gospel, does not directly include the Passover meal Jesus and his disciples shared or any of Jesus’s words about his body being the bread and his blood being the wine. Rather, he focuses on washing feet.
I sometimes wonder if all we had was John’s gospel and no Matthew, Mark or Luke, would we – the church – still celebrate Communion together by the breaking of bread and drinking of wine? Or would we, as some church traditions regularly do, wash each other’s feet? If all we had was John’s gospel, would Paul still write 1 Corinthians 11:17-34 as he did, or would this have changed to be about washing each other’s feet? Either way, at the heart of what Paul is saying in 1 Corinthians 11 is the issue of how we love each other well, for I would argue, in his view, how we love each other is the measure of how much we really love Jesus.
Love is the Measure
This connection of loving each other as the measure of whether we love Jesus brings us back to the biblical roots of Maundy Thursday. The maundy of Maundy Thursday refers to John 13:34-34:
After John describes Jesus washing the feet of the disciples, a job normally only a servant would perform, he alludes to them reclining and eating a meal. This is the Passover meal that the other gospel writers make the centre point of their descriptions of the events of holy Thursday.
From the Old French
John then describes Jesus and the disciples as “going out” (John 13:30, 31) Their going out is presumably to the Mount of Olives in which there was a place called Gethsemane (Mark 14: 32; Matthew 26: 36; Luke 22:39). Gethsemane, which means ‘oil press’ was probably a walled olive grove, and it is here that Jesus gives his disciples a decisive maundy. The word maundy comes from the Old French mande, in turn from the Latin mandātum, which means “mandate or command.”
I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.’ (John 13:34–25)
As I Have Love You
Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another! Wow, that is a hard command to obey, for we are called not merely to love each other but to love each other as Jesus has loved us.
Balthasar Hubmaier, who was martyred as an Anabaptist in 1528, left a liturgy for observing the Lord’s Supper in which those gathered would make “a sworn pledge and giving one’s hand on the commitment that one is willing henceforth to offer one’s body and to shed one’s blood [as a martyr] thus for one’s fellow believers”. It was a pledge that many of those who used this liturgy for Communion in the 16th century would fulfil.
Our context, thankfully, is different from Hubmaier’s. Yet, the truth that to love each other as Christ has loved us is costly remains.
Help
I don’t know about you, but I know I sure need some help to love others as Jesus loves them. Thankfully, Jesus knew we’d need help to do this and so sent his Spirit to empower us to Christ-like-loving. Foot washing, gathering around the Lord’s Table are two “structures” which remind us of Christ’s command and shape us toward obedience to it. They are opportunities for us to acknowledge our lack in this area and ask for a fresh empowerment from his Holy Spirit.
Help to Grow
A vine needs a structure, a trellis, to support it and help it grow fruitfully. Likewise, the sanctifying work of the Holy Spirit in which we grow in loving as Jesus loved, benefits from spiritual habits / spiritual practices which act like a trellis. In the emotionally healthy relationship course, many of us have been doing, we have been learning skills which act like a trellis that we might grow in learning to love each other well for the sake of Jesus’ mission in the world.
After Easter, information about term 2 of the School of Leadership [emotionally healthy spirituality] will come out. I’d encourage everyone who is able to sign up for this course.
This Week
In the meantime, can I encourage you to come along to the Easter reflections, worship night, silent Saturday, Sunday celebration at the QP Flagpole, and the Sunday service, and as you remember, pray, and worship, allow the Holy Spirit to fill you afresh with new joy and wonder at what God has done for us and a greater capacity and ability to love one another as Christ Jesus has loved us.
Brodie