Maundy Thursday

Washing Feet and Ordinary Love

About a year ago, I was expressing to a person that sometimes I felt caught between the pull to serve my children and to teach them responsibility. The balancing act between picking up that 15 millionth pair of socks in love, and gently instructing my kids to please pick up their own dadgum socks, thank you very much. It was a simple confession, a moment of motherly spiritual formation, but the person’s response struck me:

“I don’t think Jesus would serve a three year old.”

The conversation came to a full stop–I was too stunned to have a helpful response. On the one hand, I was familiar with the Jesus she was referring to–the obedience-over-grace Jesus who was particularly obsessive about children obeying their parents at all costs; but, I had also been spending time in scripture expanding my understanding of our Lord as one full of love, compassion, service…

I didn’t grow up following the church calendar, and despite having leaned into seasons like Advent and Lent for the last several years I was today years old when I learned what “Maundy Thursday” meant. Maundy comes from the latin word “mandatum,” or, “commandment.”

So, more than a vague remembrance of the Last Supper as I have always assumed, Maundy Thursday centers our hearts here:

“Little children, I am with you only a little longer. You will look for me, and as I said to the Jews so now I say to you, ‘Where I am going, you cannot come.’  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 13:31-35

On the night that Jesus loved his disciples to the end, John details Jesus washing feet (even insisting Peter allow himself to be served and loved in this way), and instructing his followers to do the same. He also details Jesus dipping his bread with his betrayer, and dismissing him to set in motion the course that would deal him a fatal blow.

I wonder what concept we’d have of Jesus if we allowed the wisdom of the early church fathers and the centering stories of the church calendar to guide our faith practice. I wonder if the service of a three year old would feel quite so preposterous in the face of a yearly Maundy Thursday remembrance.

I intended to write something more profound–perhaps even a poem–about Maundy Thursday. I always feel deep and reflective around Easter, like the Spirit who moves within my very being is churning and bowing in grand reverence to the cosmic victory that Easter reminds us of.

But, all three of my children have had fevers this week. Today, I was managing two feverish children and one hyperactive little boy who was finally feeling better and struggling with another day of laying low at the house. I was snatching moments between snuggles and discipline to clean up toys, wash dishes, prepare meals.

There are a lot of times when the ordinary tasks of my days feel monotonous, drab, and lackluster. But today I remember a foot-washing Jesus who asked his followers to first receive his love and then share it outward. If the Savior who went to the cross embodied this new command with something as lowly and simple as foot washing, I suppose there’s something holy in the making of snail sandwiches (pinwheels) and the picking up of all the socks I find littered about the house.

May you find acts of ordinary love in your ordinary days pointing you to the ordinary holiness of foot washing and loving just as you have been loved.