The nomadic Semites had a feast that they celebrated the night of the first fool moon of spring, when they were about to lead their flocks to summer pastures. With the unleavened bread of Bedouins, they had no time to let the dough rise, and some herbs, which were found in the desert, they ate a roasted lamb from the flock. This “migration” was a very important occasion, and a very dangerous one. So to ward off these dangerous they adored God, the source and master of life, by marking their tent-pegs with blood of the lamb which they killed. The whole celebration was taking place at night, at the beginning of their journey, before the flock was ready to leave at dawn.
Many centuries later, during the Israelite's exodus from Egypt this ritual received a new meaning. The meaning presented to us in today’s first reading from the book of Exodus. The feast was to be celebrated as a memorial of God’s intervention on behalf of His people who were called to leave a land of their slavery in order to migrate to the Promised Land.
As centuries were passing by, that particular celebration has become for the Israelites an occasion to express their yearning for God’s saving power and for His Messiah who was to save them from their current problems and sufferings. This celebration was such an important occasions that it could not be observed alone. It had to be celebrated among family members and neighbors.
This was exactly the meal Jesus celebrated with his disciples on the night before he suffered and died. It was a dark time in the history of the Israel who was occupied by the Romans.
However, that night, one more time, this meal received a new meaning. That night Jesus made clear to his disciples that he was that Messiah everyone was waiting for, the one who was promised to them by God to bring salvation, that this salvation would be offered to people of Israel in its fullness after he willingly allowed for his life to be taken away from him. He was to be a new sacrificial lamb.
Jesus was heading towards that ultimate sacrifice. He had been giving up his life in the service to others for many years:
- by leaving his house, family, and preaching the good news of salvation,
- by bringing forgiveness and peace to sinners,
- by defending the poor and the oppressed
- by healing the sick,
- by challenging inhuman rules and leaders.
He served others anyway he could to bring them closer to God and each other. He served them by building the reign of God in their midst. This was a goal of his life.
However, before he was to pay the ultimate price, on that night we have heard about in today’s gospel, during his Passover meal with his disciples, he reminded them what his ministry with them was about:
“He rose from supper and took off his outer garments.
He picked up 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.”
And as he finished washing their feet he put his garments back on and reclined at table again and simply said to them:
“I have given you a model to follow,
so that as I have done for you, you should also do”
Jesus affirmed and reminded his disciples that salvation of God is offered to God’s people through service and ministry, even through the most humiliating acts of service, as slaves’ work of washing feet, or the ultimate act of giving up the life if necessary.
We are gathered here tonight in our church to pronounce that as Disciples of Christ we understand the legacy Jesus left us. That we have not lost that legacy’s meaning. We are gathered here celebrating our Christian Passover, the Eucharist, knowing that it calls us to service and ministry, to easing the pain and suffering in this world. For this is one of the most important ways God continues offering His salvation to this world and His people.
Tonight our Eucharistic Celebration is to help us to deepen our understanding of our service and ministry to others, to each other, by reliving some of those moments described in today’s gospel.
What we are about to do is not just re-enactment of what happened in the past. This is not just dramatization, or actors’ play, in which the priest and 12 men portray one of the scenes of the Last Supper. We will be using the symbolic action of washing feet to pronounce that Jesus’ legacy is present in the life of each one of us regardless of who we might be:
- a man or a woman
- a parent or a child
- a priest
- a husband or a wife.
We will be kneeling before the one whose feet we will wash, as we do that in the front of the Blessed Sacrament, recognizing God’s presence in them.The mystery of our service and ministry to each other on our journey to God is to be a center of our Christian lives. This is the way we build the God’s reign in our midst. Through the ministry of love, forgiveness, and compassion.
In a couple of minutes some members of our pastoral and finance councils of our church will began washing feet of others. We will have four places in front of the altar. Please, come forward, have your feet washed or if Spirit of God calls you , replace those doing that service and start washing the feet of others, perhaps the feet of your wife or husband, your parent or child, your neighbor, or your classmate.
This is the legacy that Jesus has left to us, to serve one another as he served us. Tonight we just remind ourselves about it in this symbolic action of washing each other’s feet.
We are no longer priests, deacons, layers, doctors, teachers, professors, man or women, children or parents, husbands or wives, but we are servants of God and each other. The servants who through the service of love, forgiveness, and compassion build God’s reign in the midst of this community and world, and make God’s salvation a reality of their and our own lives.
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