Holy Thursday

The message of the foot-washing does not begin with the Upper Room, but runs through the entire life of Jesus. One of the first times we clearly see this in Jesus’ life is at the Pharisee’s banquet, where he must watch as the invited guests tactlessly and inconsiderately jostle for the first places at the table. The Lord tells His followers that they are not to do so. Rather, they are to calmly go to the last place and allow the master of the house to decide whether he will move them up or not. […]

We then encounter the same scene phenomenon of places at the table when we get to the Lord’s Supper. The evangelists recount for us how the Disciples fought over the first place, in a sense reenacting the drama of world history on a small scale amongst themselves. The World is present, even within the Church, the Gospels are trying to say. We should not be surprised to see the drama of world reflected here as well, encroaching upon the most sacred of things, upon the Eucharist.

But against this the Lord sets the reversal of values which he himself embodies. He has already decided the place he will take at the Last Supper as well. His place is not the place of the master, the place of the powerful, the place closest to the full bowls or the most comfortable place. He does not even take a seat at the table, but goes around like a servant distributing the meal, and what he distributes to them is himself.

In his account of the foot washing, St. John wants to show how the Lord washes the dirt and sweat of everyday life from the feet of his Disciples in order to make them fit for the table. Even more than the other Evangelists, John makes clear that this is not just a singlular moral act. The Lord Himself, in the form of his entire life, is the act of foot-washing to us. His essence is in “coming down”, his very being is humility. The reason why he, the Son of God, is able to become man is that he has taken off the outer garment of glory and clothed himself with the coarse linen of human nature. And he kneels before us, his creatures.

With his own body, he has washed us in his suffering and cleansed us of the stench of our pride and the filth of our selfishness in order to make us fit for the banquet of God’s love. “For I have set you an example, that you also should do as I have done to you.” Rather than a mere moral exhortation to do moral deeds, this statement represents the very foundation of the Christian life, initiation into fellowship with Jesus Christ. It is the humility of “coming down”.

The only way for us to identify with him is by entering into this movement, by becoming humble ourselves. Without humility, once cannot have faith. To say yes to this mystery in the midst of a world that does not recognize it, to say yes to the limits of our comprehension, to the unfathomable concept of a God who kneels down before us – such a thing cannot happen without humility. And just as there is no faith without humility, neither is there love. [...] The Holy Thursday Gospel thus enshrines humility in the very nature of Christianity itself. It is the very ground on which we stand, without which it is impossible to be a Christian.