Maundy Thursday

 

In the Church calendar, we are in the days leading up to Easter. These are among the holiest—that is, set apart for a special purpose—days of the year (this is where we get our word ‘holiday,’ days set apart as special, different from everyday days). On Thursday evening, I will be speaking about Jesus with his apprentices on the night of his betrayal and arrest. You can read the text, from John’s biography of Jesus, below. My attention is caught by these words: ‘One who has bathed does not need to wash, except for the feet, but is entirely clean.’

I don’t know how often you have a bath, and for what purpose. I have a bath about twice a year, not to wash my body—I do that in the shower, and also have a basin in my bedroom—but as an act of self care, running the bath as deep and as hot as possible, and soaking in it.

In the Instructions of Moses, we find that there are certain states of being that cause a person to be ritually impure, and that their restoration to the wider community requires a ritual bath.

Being ritually impure has nothing to do with moral wrongdoing. It is, rather, a codified way of engaging with the reality of death. Certain states of being are, psychologically, rehearsals for death, including ejaculation and menstruation—not because these things are ‘dirty,’ or even shameful, but because in both instances, the person loses mastery of their bodily life-fluids. Contact with a corpse, and being a corpse, also result in ritual impurity. Ritual washing marks the restoration of purity, symbolising the limit to which death cuts us off from life.

Dying made a person ritually impure; but the community handled the corpse in such ways as to make the person ritually pure again, ready to meet their Maker. In Jewish tradition to this day, this begins with gently washing the body, removing anything that is not a natural part, such as jewellery or nail varnish, while saying certain prayers and psalms and other passages of Scripture (holy writing). Then the body is fully washed, either by submerging it in a mikvah (ritual bath) or by pouring a large amount of water (the equivalent of 48 pints) over the corpse. Finally, the body is dressed in linen, ready to return to the earth from which it came.

We should not assume that contemporary Jewish tradition is the same as first-century Common Era Judaism; but neither are they unrelated.

When Jesus says that Peter has had a bath—in fact, not washed himself but that he has been washed—he is referring to the washing of a body after death. Though this is not described, in relation to Jesus’ blood-streaked corpse, in the Gospels, it is implied. This practice is mentioned by the church historian Luke in his Acts of the Apostles, where he notes that the deceased Dorcas is washed by the women of her community, and also that Paul and Silas have their bloodied backs washed by the jailer in Philippi immediately before he himself is baptised.

Jesus is saying that his apprentices have been joined with him in his death. They have been washed, made ritually pure again, in preparation to stand before God—symbolising the real but temporary separation from God that death demands. Having been full-body washed, all that remains needful is to have their feet washed. In Genesis, God visits Abraham in human form (that is, in a form Abraham can see, and relate to) and Abraham welcomes God by washing his feet. An act of welcome and hospitality. The tradition later arose that Abraham welcomes the dead into Paradise (and Jesus tells a parable, or micro story that gets under the skin, where Abraham does exactly this). So, Peter is already made ready to enter Paradise, and Jesus now takes the Abrahamic posture of welcoming him.

This is what we enact in baptism, the candidate dying with Christ (Jesus, the One sent by God to rescue his people), united with him in his death and in his mighty and glorious resurrection.

This, then, is the drama of both our baptism—a one-off, unrepeatable event—and the Thursday of Holy Week—to which we return annually—that we rehearse our physical death, that, when it comes, we might die in the confidence that this parting is temporary; that the community of faith, and the God whose faithfulness we look to, will take us in their hands and hold us with dignity and love. As we, in turn, are to do for our brother's and sisters.

By such love, confident in the face of death, we shall be known.

John 13.1-17, 31b-35

‘Now before the festival of the Passover, Jesus knew that his hour had come to depart from this world and go to the Father. Having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end. The devil had already put it into the heart of Judas son of Simon Iscariot to betray him. And during supper Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands, and that he had come from God and was going to God, got up from the table, took off his outer robe, and tied a towel around himself. Then he poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples’ feet and to wipe them with the towel that was tied around him. He came to Simon Peter, who said to him, ‘Lord, are you going to wash my feet?’ Jesus answered, ‘You do not know now what I am doing, but later you will understand.’ Peter said to him, ‘You will never wash my feet.’ Jesus answered, ‘Unless I wash you, you have no share with me.’ Simon Peter said to him, ‘Lord, not my feet only but also my hands and my head!’ Jesus said to him, ‘One who has bathed does not need to wash, except for the feet, but is entirely clean. And you are clean, though not all of you.’ For he knew who was to betray him; for this reason he said, ‘Not all of you are clean.’

‘After he had washed their feet, had put on his robe, and had returned to the table, he said to them, ‘Do you know what I have done to you? You call me Teacher and Lord-and you are right, for that is what I am. So if I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet. For I have set you an example, that you also should do as I have done to you. Very truly, I tell you, servants are not greater than their master, nor are messengers greater than the one who sent them. If you know these things, you are blessed if you do them.

‘When he had gone out, Jesus said, ‘Now the Son of Man has been glorified, and God has been glorified in him. If God has been glorified in him, God will also glorify him in himself and will glorify him at once. Little children, I am with you only a little longer. You will look for me; and as I said to the Jews so now I say to you, “Where I am going, you cannot come.” 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.’’

 

the company of Christ's pilgrim people

 

Jesus said, ‘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

It should not come as a surprise to hear that I have an interest in films that explore the life of faith. One of my favourites is The Way (2010), written, directed and produced by Emilio Estevez and starring his real-life father, Martin Sheen.

Sheen plays Tom Avery, who, despite a successful career as an ophthalmologist, does not see eye-to-eye with his son Daniel (played by Estevez). Daniel travels to Europe to walk the Camino de Santiago, the Way of St James, much to his father’s disapproval. Tragically, Daniel is caught in a storm crossing the Pyrenees on his first day walking and is later found dead. Tom flies to the south of France, to bring his son’s body home. But something causes him to change his mind. Instead, he has Daniel cremated and sets out to walk the Camino carrying his son, scattering his ashes along the way.

Along the way, Tom falls in with other pilgrims, each one walking the Camino for their own personal reasons. Joost, from the Netherlands, is hoping that his wife will fall in love with him again. Sarah, from Canada, is trying to escape an abusive husband. Jack is a writer from Ireland, who has writer’s block. At first, Tom resents their intrusions into his deeply personal endeavour. But over time, a transformation takes place. Through a series of misadventures, they become unlikely friends.

When you were baptised (if you have been baptized) you passed through the parted sea with the Israelites, over three thousand years before you were born. If, like me, you were baptised as a baby, you were carried over in your mother’s arms.

When you were baptised, you died with Christ and rose again with him; participating in events two thousand years before you were born. When you were baptised, you became a member of the company of Christ’s pilgrim people. You may have wandered very far from Christ in the intervening years. I have baptised forty children at St Nicholas’ and few of the parents have continued to bring them up in the faith; but Christ is faithful, even when our parents are not, even when we are not.

The invitation is deeply personal, but it is not private. In baptism, we begin a lifelong pilgrimage in the company of others. Some, we will journey many miles together, over many years; others, we will come across from time to time; still others, we won’t meet, but they, like us, have walked or will walk the Way.

We walk the Way with others, and they are, at times, and often to begin with, deeply annoying. As are we to them. For we all carry our own pain. We are all broken. Joost. Sarah. Jack. Tom. You. Me. But the mandate we have been given (the mandate that gives Maundy Thursday its name) is to love one another. To love one another, even those parts that are unlovely.

For this to happen requires no more or less than that we walk the Way. That we follow the example of Jesus, who showed us what love looks like. But walking the Way is more than imitation, essential though that is. Through the act of walking in the Way, we are empowered to love by the Holy Spirit. This is not a matter of what we do, but of what is done to us as we respond. Over time, we become more like Jesus.

And this is key: it takes time; indeed, it takes a lifetime. If we are not there yet (and we are not) it is because we are not there, yet. But we are on the Way.

 

Maundy Thursday

 

Each spring, one of the toughest endurance races in the world is held in the Frozen Head State Park in Tennessee. Participants attempt to complete a five-lap route—or, as our American cousins pronounce it, rout—which is, in total, between 100 and 130 miles. The exact route changes each year, but roughly one third is on forest trails, the other two-thirds off-trail. The total ascent and descent are equivalent to going from sea-level to the summit of Mount Everest and back. Twice. The five loops must be completed within a strict 60-hour cut-off. And the American pronunciation rout is fitting: each year, 35-40 of the world's best endurance runners take part. To date, since 1989, a total of 20 people have finished (three more than once). If you aren’t a runner, it is possible that you heard of the Barkley Marathons for the first time this year, as British runner Jasmin Paris became the first woman ever to finish.

The race is legendary, with its own mythic lore. Jo and I have watched two documentaries on it, and we are in awe. Two things stand out. The first is that it simply isn’t possible to know what it is like to take part in the Barkley Marathons unless you have taken part. Even if you are a seasoned ultramarathon runner. Which I am not. The second is that as participants drop out of the race, they become the most amazing support team for those who remain. No assistance is permitted except in camp, between loops, and there, the most experienced ultra runners in the world are willing one another on. They are on hand with advice, to wash legs shredded by briars, to pierce blisters so the other can carry on.

Both these things speak to me of the Christian life.

On the Thursday of Holy Week, the Church gathers to hear again the old, old story of the Israelites eating a hurried meal before heading out into the wilderness at night, walking pole in hand, in their escape from Egypt (this, too, is mirrored by the Barkley Marathons, where, between loops, runners take on hurried food for energy) and the less old story of Jesus washing his disciples’ feet.

As Jesus moves from disciple to disciple—those who have been with him on the Way—Peter is aghast that his greatest hero might stoop to serve him. But Jesus responds: You don’t understand, don’t perceive what I am doing, in this precise moment; but then [somewhat ambiguously and unhelpfully translated as ‘later’ in some English translations] you will.

What is it that Jesus wants Peter and the others to understand? That they were to delight in one another and prefer one another to themselves. That is to say, when we look out for ourselves, we are alone; but when we look out for one another, we have a tribe on our side. As the saying goes, if you want to go fast, go alone; if you want to go far, go together.

And Jesus says, it isn’t possible to know, to perceive, to ‘get’ what it means to love one another through observing others—let alone by reading about it or watching a documentary. You only get to understand this by doing it. Only those who have attempted to run the Barkley Marathons know what the Barkley Marathons are about.

The only way to know what it is to follow Jesus, with others who are following Jesus, is by following Jesus together. Not as an idea or a philosophy, not as head-knowledge. You discover it in your hands and feet, in aching limbs.

I am never going to run 130 miles around the mountainous forests of Tennessee inside 60 hours. I wouldn’t even try. But I have been walking with Jesus for over fifty years, and I have no intention of dropping out now. I have yet to reach the cut-off point. Let’s go again.