Thursdays with Jesus

A common tradition for Maundy Thursday in several parts of the world is to visit seven or fourteen churches on a pilgrimage, perhaps with fasting.

Even more (and increasingly) common is the practice of foot-washing.  This follows the mandate of our Lord to Love one another and his washing of his disciples' feet (recorded in John chapter 13).

In our Church we share Communion, our best symbolic expression of fellowship-love.

The day called Thursday has two Christian celebrations.  Some years of course it might be Christmas Day too but never mind that.  These two are about as opposite as can be imagined and every bit the equal of Good Friday and Easter Day in contrast.

This first Thursday - Maundy - is about intimacy; and the ominous shadow of descending into death.  The other Thursday is Ascension Day.  It is about parting; and about glorious ascension into heaven.

Yet things are, typically, not what they seem.

The ascension is about greater intimacy.  In heaven the glorified Christ intercedes for us. In the young Michael Bruce's memorable lines,

Though now ascended up on high,
he bends on earth a brother's eye;
partaker of the human name,
he knows the frailty of our frame.

Our fellow-sufferer yet retains
a fellow feeling of our pains;
and still remembers in the skies
his tears, his agonies and cries.

In every pang that rends the heart
the Man of Sorrows had a part;
he sympathises with our grief,
and to the sufferer sends relief.

The gift of the Holy Spirit, the fruit of Jesus's ascension, makes the intimacy of Maundy look decidedly minor - for God inhabits us now!  Those feet are part of His temple, not just his cleaning schedule.

Augustine: Homilies on the Gospel of John; Tractate LV.

But why should we wonder that He rose from supper, and laid aside His garments, who, being in the form of God, made Himself of no reputation?    Literally, “emptied Himself,” as in the Greek.

And why should we wonder, if He girded Himself with a towel, who took upon Him the form of a servant, and was found in the likeness of a man?  Phil. ii. 6, 7.

Why wonder, if He poured water into a basin wherewith to wash His disciples’ feet, who poured His blood upon the earth to wash away the filth of their sins?

Why wonder, if with the towel wherewith He was girded He wiped the feet He had washed, who with the very flesh that clothed Him laid a firm pathway for the footsteps of His evangelists? In order, indeed, to gird Himself with the towel, He laid aside the garments He wore; but when He emptied Himself of His divine glory in order to assume the form of a servant, He laid not down what He had, but assumed that which He had not before. When about to be crucified, He was indeed stripped of His garments, and when dead was wrapped in linen clothes: and all that suffering of His is our purification.

When, therefore, about to suffer the last extremities of humiliation, He here illustrated beforehand its friendly compliances; not only to those for whom He was about to endure death, but to him also who had resolved on betraying Him to death. Because so great is the beneficence of human humility, that even the Divine Majesty was pleased to commend it by His own example; for proud man would have perished eternally, had he not been found by the lowly God. For the Son of man came to seek and to save that which was lost.     Luke xix. 10.

And as he was lost by imitating the pride of the deceiver, let him now, when found, imitate the Redeemer’s humility.