Triduum Meditation: Holy Thursday Washing of the Feet

So we come to the Paschal Triduum—the three days that leads to the Resurrection on Easter Sunday.  I’m not going to have a meditation for every day of the Triduum in one year, but I thought I could do one of the days every year for the next three years.  I’ll do them in order, so today, this year, I will provide a meditation on Holy Thursday.

Holy Thursday—also called Maundy Thursday—commemorates the Last Supper but we celebrate it in a liturgy composed from Gospel of John’s version of the Last Supper.  More specifically we highlight Jesus’s washing of the Apostles’ feet.  The Gospel reading describes the action.

 

Before the feast of Passover, Jesus knew that his hour had come

to pass from this world to the Father.

He loved his own in the world and he loved them to the end.

The devil had already induced Judas, son of Simon the Iscariot, to hand him over.

So, during supper,

fully aware that the Father had put everything into his power

and that he had come from God and was returning to God,

he rose from supper and took off his outer garments.

He took a towel and tied it around his waist.

Then he poured water into a basin

and began to wash the disciples’ feet

and dry them with the towel around his waist.

He came to Simon Peter, who said to him,

“Master, are you going to wash my feet?”

Jesus answered and said to him,

“What I am doing, you do not understand now,

but you will understand later.”

Peter said to him, “You will never wash my feet.”

Jesus answered him,

“Unless I wash you, you will have no inheritance with me.”

Simon Peter said to him,

“Master, then not only my feet, but my hands and head as well.”

Jesus said to him,

“Whoever has bathed has no need except to have his feet washed,

            for he is clean all over;

so you are clean, but not all.”

For he knew who would betray him;

for this reason, he said, “Not all of you are clean.”

 

So when he had washed their feet

and put his garments back on and reclined at table again,

he said to them, “Do you realize what I have done for you?

You call me ‘teacher’ and ‘master,’ and rightly so, for indeed I am.

If I, therefore, the master and teacher, have washed your feet,

you ought to wash one another’s feet.

I have given you a model to follow,

so that as I have done for you, you should also do.”

~Jn 13:1-15

 

Fr. Geoffrey Plant explains the historical and Biblical contexts of Maundy Thursday. 

 

There is one interesting fact that Fr. Geoffrey cites that was startling to me.  He cites Fleming Rutledge’s observation (starting at the 27:00 min mark) that Christ washing his feet in His loin cloth is a corresponding image to Christ in His loin cloth on the cross.  This is not just a foreshadowing but an amplification of the action Christ’s self-sacrificing love teaches from the cross.  I also love the quote Fr. Geoffrey takes from Pope Benedict XVI, from I think Pope Benedict XVI’s Jesus of Nazareth: Holy Week.  Speaking of the foot washing, Pope BXVI says,

 

Jesus represents the whole of his saving ministry in one symbolic act.  He divests himself of his divine splendor; he, as it were, kneels down before us; he washes and dries our soiled feet, in order to make us fit at the table for God’s wedding feast.

There is one observation on the washing of feet that no one in any of the homilies I sampled across the internet makes, and so this perhaps is a peculiar observation to me.  So if I’m wrong, you can blame me.  So the connection to the washing of feet, or more specifically the lowering of a king to a servant for the sake of his subject can be found with King Rehoboam in First Kings, Chapter 12.  King Rehoboam is the son of King Solomon and the successor to the throne, but King Rehoboam faces a crises.  Jeroboam from the northern Israel is threatening to divide the kingdom by rebelling Israel against Judah.  Why, Jeroboam asks, should Israel subject herself to his authority when Rehoboam and his father have been so tyrannical over Israel?  King Rehoboam seeked advice for an answer.  Jeroboam, confronts him.

(4) “Your father put a heavy yoke on us. If you now lighten the harsh servitude and the heavy yoke your father imposed on us, we will be your servants.”

(5) He [King Rehoboam] answered them, “Come back to me in three days,” and the people went away.

(6) King Rehoboam asked advice of the elders who had been in his father Solomon’s service while he was alive, and asked, “How do you advise me to answer this people?”

(7) They replied, “If today you become the servant of this people and serve them, and give them a favorable answer, they will be your servants forever.”

(8) But he ignored the advice the elders had given him, and asked advice of the young men who had grown up with him and were in his service.

(9) He said to them, “What answer do you advise that we should give this people, who have told me, ‘Lighten the yoke your father imposed on us’?”

(10) The young men who had grown up with him replied, “This is what you must say to this people who have told you, ‘Your father made our yoke heavy; you lighten it for us.’ You must say, ‘My little finger is thicker than my father’s loins.

(11) My father put a heavy yoke on you, but I will make it heavier. My father beat you with whips, but I will beat you with scorpions.’”

(12) Jeroboam and the whole people came back to King Rehoboam on the third day, as the king had instructed them: “Come back to me in three days.”

(13) Ignoring the advice the elders had given him, the king gave the people a harsh answer.

(14) He spoke to them as the young men had advised: “My father made your yoke heavy, but I will make it heavier. My father beat you with whips, but I will beat you with scorpions.”

(15) The king did not listen to the people, for this turn of events was from the LORD: he fulfilled the word the LORD had spoken through Ahijah the Shilonite to Jeroboam, son of Nebat.

(16) When all Israel saw that the king did not listen to them, the people answered the king:

“What share have we in David?*

We have no heritage in the son of Jesse.

To your tents, Israel!

Now look to your own house, David.”

 

So Israel went off to their tents. (1 Kings 12:4-16)

Notice the King Rehoboam’s receives two sets of advice.  From the elders he is advised: “If today you become the servant of this people and serve them, and give them a favorable answer, they will be your servants forever” (7).  He is first advised to be a servant king.  Who today on Maundy Thursday do we celebrate in a liturgy replicating His actions as a servant King?  Jesus Christ in the washing of the feet.  Does King Rehoboam take this advice to be a servant king?  No as we see in the very next line (8).  He goes on to ask advice from his childhood buddies, and they advise him to put on an even heavier yoke than the heavy yoke his father had put on Israel (10-11).  And this is what he tells Jeroboam (14) and Jeroboam and Israel break away and divide the kingdom (16).  So King Rehoboam is an anti-archetype to King Jesus, negatively foreshadowing Christ’s foot washing.  Notice to the language of “heavy yoke” Rehoboam uses.  Notice how that contrasts with Jesus speaking about His yoke in Matthew eleven:

o

(28) “Come to me, all you who labor and are burdened,* and I will give you rest.

(29) Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am meek and humble of heart; and you will find rest for yourselves.

(30) For my yoke is easy, and my burden light.” (Mt 11:28-30)

 

Meditation: “Do you realize what I have done for you?”