Over the past two weeks, I shared two essays I wrote privately during Holy Week (when I still lived in California). So often I get distracted after the season has passed and simply forget how profoundly reflecting on the Cross can be. Two weeks ago was the first. Last week was the second. Here is the third and final.
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Maundy Thursday.
I had heard those words before, but even after spending most of my life in church, I had no idea what they meant. During Holy Week, I told my friend Susan I’d attend all the services at her church with her. When Thursday rolled around, I realized I didn’t know what I was getting myself into.
I remember the first time I went to St. B’s in Nashville. I had never been to a liturgical church in my life, at least, not during a service. The first time I attended a service, I nervously clenched my program. When do we kneel? Will people look at me strangely if I don’t make the sign of the cross? Do I dip the bread in the cup or do I have to drink from the cup after all those other people have touched it? Can I even receive communion here? I was a member at a non-denominational church and was even an ordained and licensed minister…but not in an Episcopal church. At the churches I had been to and worked at in my adult life, communion appeared to be a programming element. “Oh, we have ten extra minutes in the service here – let’s do communion.” It wasn’t a weekly thing.
I was so nervous.
The same nervousness passed over me as I drove to the Maundy Thursday services last week. I quickly read through the history of Maundy Thursday on Wikipedia – summaries of different interpretations hit my screen. Foot-washing, giving money to the poor, eucharist, stripping of the altar….
Ohhhh-kay…?
I decided to just flow with whatever was going to happen.
After some prayers and readings, one of the junior bishops got up and talked about the foot washing prior to the Lord’s Supper.
Most of us, myself included, have always seen the act as one of service – Jesus putting himself in a lowly position to perform a menial task.
And then…
Plot. Twist.
He pulled out a verse in John to focus on.The one where Simon Peter refuses to let Jesus wash his feet, and Jesus’ response to him.
No,” Peter protested, “you will never ever wash my feet!”
Jesus replied, “Unless I wash you, you won’t belong to me.”
Simon Peter had a point, and I’d probably have the same reaction. “Sorry, Jesus. You’re, you know…JESUS…and I am not going to let you wash my feet.” He felt unworthy to have his leader, someone who he saw as the coming messiah, get down and clean his dirty feet.
How often do we feel the same way?
How often do we not want to let people in (or Jesus for that matter) because we feel we are burdening them with our dirty feet?
***
I tried to hold them back, but I couldn’t.
Tears started running down my face. Especially over the last year, I have felt like a walking weight. I’ve often likened it to thrashing in the middle of the ocean trying not to drown while my friends are all swimming to shore…I grab on to someone, we swim for a while, I see the shore, and I try to swim harder. I don’t want to push any of my friends down along the way but I need to get to dry land. I don’t feel worthy enough to be carried much longer. And so much of the shame and guilt from my past has me keeping God’s all-restoring, all-perfecting love at arms’ length.
“No, Jesus, you can’t wash my feet.
I’m too…
Broken.
Hopeless.
Confused.
Aimless.
You should have given up on me by now.”
“Let me wash your feet.”
“But…”
“Let me wash your feet. If you desire me, you will let me wash your feet.”
***
The church leaders up front started pulling out bowls and water.
What?
We were going to have a foot-washing ceremony, in church?
But there are so many of us.
This is going to take forever.
Where am I supposed to put my shoes?
What?
Wash my feet?
No.
No.
No.
“Go, Anne. Go.”
I know God’s voice when I hear it.
I made my way to the front.
I pulled my red shoes off and tucked my socks inside. I sat in a chair and waited. Finally, I walked to the bowl and sat down in front of it.
The junior bishop dipped his towel into the bowl as I placed my feet in it. He said a prayer of blessing over me, thanking God for the “path he has placed me on.” I continued to cry. If only he knew my path, maybe he wouldn’t say such crazy things. Or maybe he does know? Who knows. Another leader dried my feet off. I walked back to my shoes, picked them up, and made my way back to my seat. I placed my arms on the pew in front of me and laid my head them, quietly crying.
“Why do you still love me? How can anyone still love me? I feel so helpless.”
I continued to cry…pushing away the love that was trying to envelop me. To be lavished on me.
“No…no…no…you can’t wash my feet.”
“I already have…”
As the choir sang and the rest of the congregation had their feet washed, I realized how hard it is for me to choose to receive love.
But receiving love is just as important as giving it.
***
After we were all seated, the Bishop and other leaders began silently removing everything from the altar. Every flower, every cloth, every kneeling cushion. Even the very cross that had been draped with a sheer white cloth was removed. And they began washing the altar with towels and water. The candles which remain lit at all times were put out.
I thought about what it must have been like for the disciples and Jesus to clear the table after the Lord’s Supper. How they probably stripped away the table cloth and the plates of food and the chalices of wine and the bread crumbs.
It represents the end of an era. An end of a time.
And it was preparing the way.
A way of death for life.
A way of life for us.
They finished stripping the altar – it was completely bare.
Without notice, all of the lights went out.
A door slammed.
Some people gasped. I jumped, startled.
There was no cue, but we all filed out of the sanctuary. Nobody said a word.
It was finished.
***
Jesus knew what waited for him the day after the Final Supper. We knew what this meant.
I drove home in complete silence.
I felt like the person I loved the most was dying because of something I did.
It wasn’t fair.
“Why? How?”
I’ve spent most of my life reflecting on Easter, the death and the resurrection, and have yet to reconcile it. I know it was what was meant to be. And who am I to take his cup?
I just need to stop trying to rationalize love.
And I need to let him kneel before me, and wash my dirty, messed up, broken-hearted, fearful but eternally grateful feet.
The Joy in Holding on to Grief
