The Mystery We Celebrate

Holy Thursday

Ex 12:1-8, 11-14: The Passover of the Lord.

1 Cor 11:23-26: "Do this in remembrance of me."

Jn 13: 1-15: He washed his disciples feet.

You’ll pardon me half a moment before I actually begin this entry, but as some of you know, for priests, especially for diocesan priests, Holy Thursday is a very special feast—it is the feast of the priesthood of Jesus—Jesus, from whom we priests receive our priesthood.  And I want to take just a half moment to say to my brother priests, first, thank you for what you do the people Christ has placed in your care.  And secondly to remind us all of the central line from the Instruction that we priests each heard on the day of our priestly ordination, namely, Imitate the mystery you celebrate.  As we celebrate that mystery again in these days, may Christ Jesus ever renew that mystery in your hearts and in your actions.

Do you realize what I have done for you?

You know, one of the things that consistently amazes me about Jesus is his incredible sense of humor—I know that that seems like a really odd way to begin a homily on this sacred evening of this most sacred Triduum—but really, the question is so funny when you think about it…”Do you realize what I have done for you?” Jesus asks.  And the answer is so obvious…so very obvious…No, they don’t have a clue….not a clue.  We see this in the reactions of the disciples.  You can imagine the very awkward silence as Jesus gets up from the table, strips himself down to the garb of a slave, takes a basin from an astonished waiter, and kneels before them one by one, and proceeds to wash their feet.  Peter gives voice to it, but I am absolutely sure that no one in the room knew what to make of this.  “Wash my feet?” Peter cries “Absolutely not!”  And when Jesus tries to explain, Peter gets it wrong again…Peter is great!

I mention this up front because I find it very consoling…Peter and the rest of the disciples have no clue what Jesus is about.  And they’re a lot like me, a lot like many of us, I suspect…good people, or at least people who hope to be good people…who don’t necessarily get it right on the first bounce, and sometimes not even on the second…Okay, well sometimes not even on the third either.  And yet, Jesus does not seem troubled by that at all.  He won’t wash Peter’s feet without Peter’s permission, of course, but the fact that Peter has no clue doesn’t seem to bother him.  Nor the fact that the other disciples are at least as clueless as Peter.  And there is no mention that he is at all upset as he washes Judas’ feet.  No, Jesus does not need for them to “get it.”  But he wants very much to wash their feet for them, and he hopes very much that they will receive this gesture from him.  For, as he explains it to them, it is an example, given out of love, to them: "If I, the master and teacher have washed your feet," He says, "you ought to wash one another's feet.  I have given you a model to follow, so that as I have done, you should also do."  And we know that that is true.

Now, we all know that it is not about foot washing, don’t we?  Because what Jesus does for his disciples is not just a nice story for us to imitate; it’s really so much more—it’s a parable, as it were, of what his whole life for us is about—as St. Paul puts it in the Letter to the Philippians:

Christ Jesus, though he was in the form of God,

did not regard equality with God something to be grasped. 

Rather, he emptied himself, taking the form of a slave,

coming in human likeness; and found human in appearance,

he humbled himself, becoming obedient to death, even death on a cross.

That God places his own life at the service of us.  And let us be clear, what he does is not more pleasant because he is God.  It is no easier for Jesus to clean those feet, no less embarrassing, no less humbling than it would be for any of us, or for the lowest slave…any of us who have looked after a sick friend or an aging parent knows how awful it can actually be.  And it is no less so for Jesus in this scene.  But he does not turn his nose up at it…and that really is the point….God does not turn his nose up at us, no matter how filthy we are…no matter that we don’t get it…no matter that we will deny him, betray him, and abandon him.  For like Peter and Judas and these other friends of Jesus, we all do.  But God does not judge us for any of that; rather, he tries….tries very hard sometimes, I imagine…to love us….to be hospitable to us, as Jesus is, so movingly in this scene we hear about tonight…to be compassionate toward us.  And that is what we celebrate this night, that is why we give thanks…for God’s great compassion, God’s incredible hospitality, God’s love which is beyond words…love which can finally only be shown in deeds—and very definitive deeds, at that. 

And this is true not only of Christ washing his disciples’ feet, it is even more true of what follows when he offers them his body and blood.  And even more true in what follows that, when he takes up his cross, and literally lays down his life for his friends….for those disciples, for all of us.

Do you realize what I have done for you?  Do you get it?  Do you really understand?  The truth is, for the disciples, and for us too, probably not.  But—here is the important part—it is not about “getting it”…it is not about understanding it.  It is not about theology.  No, it is about what Jesus hopes we will do now …that we will take the example and try to live it.  Not that we will recall as a historical fact that Jesus of Nazareth did these things, but that we will remember them—re-member them—bring them back to life in the way that we live.  By being willing to lay down our own lives a little bit for each other, by washing the feet of those around us—to cleanse them of the dirt and the muck of the roads they have to walk…by offering our body and our blood for them—giving them our time and our effort—giving a little bit of our life.  By loving these other sisters and brothers of Jesus, even when they don’t get it, even when they don’t deserve it, even when they will deny him or betray him or abandon him, even when they will deny and betray and abandon us—for we have all been there—to treat them with the same compassion and hospitality he has shown us, even when—especially when—we have not deserved it.  For he did not turn his nose up at us.

And, let me be very clear; this is not just some pleasant interpretation of the readings, something to make us feel better about ourselves, about Jesus, about the cross.  No, it is really Christ’s command to us.  We are to do this in remembrance of him.  And we are to make his love real. 

I mention this because many people in our world claim that faith is a private matter, that doing good is a nice thing, but that what really counts is what’s in the heart, that religion has no place imposing itself on the rest of the world.  Jesus’ question—“Do you realize what I have done for you?”—is asked with great patience, great compassion and great love.  But Jesus really does hope we will accept his gift—the gift of his efforts on our behalf—the gift of his life laid down and his blood shed—the gift of himself.  And there is only one way to accept the gift.  It is by making it real—by realizing it—not just in our minds, but in our hearts and especially in our actions.  For that is what it means to realize something—to make it real, to make it operative in the way we think, in the way we give our hearts, in the way we act—it is then that we realize what he has done for us.  To use a really mundane example, it’s like a sweater…if someone gives you a sweater—I have six sisters, so I’m an expert on this topic—you have to wear it.  If you haven’t worn it, you haven’t accepted the gift.  The same is true of the Gospel—as Paul reminds us in the Letter to the Romans, we must put on Christ, we must make him real in our lives, we must make his love real in our actions.

And when we do these things—when we imitate the mystery we celebrate in these sacred days—we do remember him.  We remember and we become what he really hopes we will be, what we were created to be, what he calls us to be…we become what we celebrate here tonight—sacraments—the visible signs of God’s love. 

We become like him.

AMDG