Maundy Thursday

"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 13:34-35

Mandatum novum – New Commandment – this is where we get the "Maundy" of today from. And how easy this new commandment sounds at first, "love one another." Especially after "love your enemies," loving one another – those with us –sounds easy. But leave it to Jesus to say something else to shift our understanding: "Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another." And just how is it that Jesus loved the apostles?

A few verses earlier in John 13 we see Jesus wash their feet. Foot washing may seem strange today, but it was a standard service that any good host would have offered to a guest – to be performed by a servant of course. But here is Jesus in the middle of celebrating Passover taking off his robe and doing dirty servant's work.

Jesus says he's going to wash the apostles's feet and Peter says "no way." Why this response? Because Jesus – the Messiah – was doing the work of a servant? Yes, but the bigger issue was that the work Jesus was doing required seeing how dirty Peter was.

Following Jesus around dirt roads on foot, Peter was probably pretty filthy. It's no wonder he didn't want his Messiah to see, touch, hold his feet. It seemed both beneath his idea of the Messiah and a shameful revelation of his dirt. But this dirtiness was no fault in Peter, it was the result of obedience – literally following Jesus on the road. And in his love Jesus sees the full filth before him and washes it away.

So what does it mean to love one another in a foot-washing way? Might it mean sharing the places where the daily dust and dirt of brokenness and hurt cling to us?