Tonight we begin the Triduum, or worship in three parts over three days that is Maundy Thursday, Good Friday and the Easter Vigil. We have, with God’s help, moved along our Lenten journey of God bringing us home again to Christ. Here, tonight, we are gathered with Jesus’ other disciples as the Master humbles himself to wash our feet.
To be sure, this foot washing we symbolically receive tonight is a final cleansing after a season of cleansing body, heart, mind, and soul. But it is also so much more. For whether we come forward tonight to participate in the symbolic foot washing or not, we are all gathered again around the story of the Master willingly becoming the servant. We are gathered again as Jesus explains that to serve and love God is to serve and love neighbor and to serve neighbor is to serve and love God. To bow at the neighbor’s feet is to bow at the feet of our Savior in worshipful serving.
And then Jesus gathers us around a holy meal of bread and wine and promises that whenever we eat of this meal, Jesus will be truly present, loving us and forgiving sins, teaching and leading the ever-growing flock of disciples.
And this beautiful night full of Jesus sharing clarity and truth of God’s loving purpose could not come at a more opportune moment. For with our arrival to Holy Week we ended the journey of Lent; a time when we traditionally empty out of our lives all that does not serve God. So with God’s help, emptied and ready, these vessels we call ourselves receive all of this rich feast of Master become servant and Greatest Commandment of loving God and neighbor and the instituting of Holy Communion and we,
We are fed.
We hear again that we are forgiven and we know that
It is true.
And as this powerful resurrection story unfolds over these Three Days we hear again that we are part of this story. God’s story through Christ is, in fact, the central part of our story, unfolding before our eyes and within our hearts and for the sake of us, and for the whole world. Here. Now. Again.