Reclaiming the Truth
When he had finished washing their feet, he put on his clothes and returned to his place. “Do you understand what I have done for you?” he asked them. 13 “You call me ‘Teacher’ and ‘Lord,’ and rightly so, for that is what I am. 14 Now that I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also should wash one another’s feet. 15 I have set you an example that you should do as I have done for you. 16 Very truly I tell you, no servant is greater than his master, nor is a messenger greater than the one who sent him. 17 Now that you know these things, you will be blessed if you do them. – John 13.13-17
Redeeming the Time
Today we celebrate Maundy Thursday. It’s the opportunity to remember and celebrate the day when Jesus celebrated His final Passover with His disciples. It was at this meal when Jesus washed the feet of His disciples in an extraordinary display of humility. He then commanded them to do the same for each other. Note the word “command.”
“A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another.” John 13.34
Christ’s “mandate” is commemorated on Maundy Thursday. “Maundy” being a shortened form of mandatum (Latin), which means “command.”
Love is patient.
Love is kind.
Love is tender.
Love does not fear.
Love does not shame.
Love never “should’s.”
Love is never self-seeking, self-serving or self-protecting.
Love is never forced.
Love is not done in a subversive attempt to be loved.
Love seeks only one thing – the good of the one loved.
Love always desires to understand more than to be understood.
Love always listens.
Love always shows up.
Love receives.
Love frees.
Love blesses.
Love does.
Reflection
- How does the humility of Jesus washing His disciple’s feet move you to action?
- Jesus washes the feet of his disciples knowing they will abandon Him, even betray Him. Yet He acts in this incredible expression of love. How does His example challenge you and invite you to act in love today?
- Love is never self-seeking. What is one way you can fully love another today?
Resting in His Redemption
Today we’ll pray along with Ted Loder. Rest and receive – His love is with us.
Catch me in my anxious scurrying, Lord,
and hold me in this Lenten season:
hold my feet to the fire of your grace
and make me attentive to my mortality
that I may begin to die now to those things that keep me from living with you
and my neighbors on this Earth;
to grudges and indifference, to certainties that smother possibilities,
to my fascination with false securities, to my addiction to sweatless dreams
to my arrogant insistence on how it has to be;
to my corrosive fear of dying someday
which eats away the wonder of living this day,
and the adventure of losing my life in order to find it in you.
Catch me in my aimless scurrying, Lord, and hold me in this Lenten season:
hold my heart to the beat of your grace and create in me a resting place,
a kneeling place, a tip-toe place
where I can recover from the dis-ease of my grandiosities
which fill my mind and calendar with busy self-importance,
that I may become vulnerable enough to dare intimacy with the familiar,
to listen cup-eared for your summons,
and to watch squint-eyed for your crooked finger in the crying child,
in the hunger of the street people
in the fear of the contagion of terrorism in all people,
in the rage of those oppressed because of sex or race,
in the smoldering resentments of exploited third world nations,
in the sullen apathy of the poor and ghetto-strangled people,
in my lonely doubt and limping ambivalence;
and somehow, during this season of sacrifice,
enable me to sacrifice time and possessions and securities,
to do something… something about what I see,
something to turn the water of my words into the wine of will and risk,
into the bread of blood and blisters,
into the blessedness of deed, of a cross picked up, a savior followed.
Catch me in my mindless scurrying, Lord, and hold me in this Lenten season:
hold my spirit to the beacon of your grace
and grant me light enough to walk boldly,
to feel passionately, to love aggressively;
grant me peace enough to want more,
to work for more and to submit to nothing less, and to fear only you… only you!
Bequeath me not becalmed seas, slack sails and premature benedictions,
but breathe into me a torment,
storm enough to make within myself and from myself, something…something new, something saving,
something true, a gladness of heart,
a pitch for a song in the storm,
a word of praise lived,
a gratitude shared, a cross dared,
a joy received.
