Sunday for Maundy Thursday 2025

Maundy Thursday

Exodus 12:1-4, (5-10), 11-14: 1 Corinthians 11:23-26; John 13:1-17, 31b-35

The Rev. Paul D. Allick, Church of the Advent, April 17, 2025

Peter said to Jesus, “You will never wash my feet.” Never.

This is the same Peter who refused to accept Jesus’ prediction of

his suffering and death. The same Peter who would later three

times deny even knowing Jesus.

And, yet this was the same Peter who tried walking on water with

Jesus. The same Simon who confessed Jesus as the Messiah

and was renamed Peter, Cephas, the Rock who exemplified the

faith of the Church.

I can relate to this kind of relationship with Christ. Anyone else?

Jesus answered Peter, “Unless I wash you, you have no share

with me.”

To “allow” Jesus to wash our feet is the same as to “allow” him to

sacrifice his life for us. Jesus’ washing of the Disciple’s feet is a

foreshadowing of the ultimate Sign of Love to come: his death on

the cross.

Sometimes it is hard for us to simply receive. Our world tells us

that all interactions are transactional. You do for me so that I will

do for you.

This is not the Way of Christ.

Episcopal Priest and Writer Martin L. Smith reminds us that

“On Maundy Thursday it is good to abandon the pretense that

there is no vestige left in us of the resistance to being served and

loved... Part of me wants to deserve love...How often do I look

(to)...Jesus in prayer and consent to his washing away the daily

grime of my frustration, struggles, mistakes? I prefer to try to do it

for myself.”

Some do not feel sinful enough to need Jesus to serve them.

Others feel completely unworthy. Neither of these postures is the

Way of Christ.

Consenting to be served by Jesus, to unconditionally accept his

sacrificial love, compels us to serve others. Maybe this causes

some hesitation as well.

Jesus says to us tonight, “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.”

Catholic philosopher Peter Kreft wrote this about allowing Jesus

to serve us, “To fulfill yourself, forget yourself. Don’t think of

yourself as superior or inferior – just give yourself away. Why?

Because that’s what your Lord and Master did and that’s what he

explicitly commanded you to do.”

It is only through “allowing” Jesus to spiritually cleanse us and

then die for us that we can then “allow” him to feed us. If we are

reluctant to give up control and give ourselves away to Christ and

one another, it can be difficult to faithfully receive our Lord body,

soul, and divinity in the Holy Eucharist.

In Christ God has shed his blood and put it on the doorposts of

our souls so that harm and disaster will pass over us. Through his

mission to heal us, to cast out demons among us and within us, to

suffer and die for our salvation, to rise triumphantly from the

Tomb, God has brought us through the deep waters unto

everlasting life.

The Maundy of today is the Mandate given by Christ: we are to

love each other as he loves us. This is an immense responsibility

even for those who love and adore each other. This is not to be

taken lightly. Tonight, we are reminded of this great gift and the

pretense of the Christian who chooses to ignore it.

The import of tonight can be summed up in the Catechism’s

instruction in what is required of us when we come to receive Holy

Communion, “It is required that we should examine our lives,

repent of our sins, and be in love and charity with all people.”

(BCP, 860)

Tonight, as we do at every Mass, we fall on our knees praying for

God’s grace to do so.

References:

Martin L. Smith from A Season for the Spirit: Readings for the Days of Lent

Speaking to the Soul, Vicki K. Black

Morehouse Publishing, New York 2009 Pp. 454-455

Food for the Soul: Reflections on the Mass Readings, Cycle C

By Peter Kreft

Word on Fire, Park Ridge, IL 2021

p. 275