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Day 28
Saturday in the Fourth week of Lent

John 13:8

Peter said to him, ‘You will never wash my feet.’ Jesus answered, ‘Unless I wash you, you have no share with me.’

Peter rejects the notion that the Messiah, the anointed of God, could ever rightly do the work of the lowest slave.  In John’s Gospel it is the equivalent story to Peter rejecting Jesus’ prediction of his suffering and death.  This action of washing feet is as unthinkable for God’s anointed as the idea he could die in Jerusalem rather than rule.  It’s not the way of power.

Peter’s is right.  It’s not the way of power.  But it is the way of God.  And only if we accept Jesus washing our feet can we share in him.

Washing feet brings shame on Jesus.  The cross will also bring shame.  In the eyes of the world, both of these are completely degrading.  It is the purpose of crucifixion: to show the utter powerlessness of the condemned person, to degrade them completely in the eyes of the people, to assert Roman dominion over life and death and make clear the price of resisting Roman rule.  But Jesus turns the world upside down.  Greatness is in serving.  Honor is in sacrifice.  In dying we live.  The cross is not shame but glory.  

If we reject the way of the cross, if we reject the way of mercy, forgiveness, sacrifice, service – if we reject the way of love – we have no part in Jesus.  But he still stands before us with a towel and a bowl of water inviting us to die and rise with him.

Holy Wonder, Faithful Lord,
keep us ever in the arms of Christ.

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Scripture quotations are from New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright © 1989 National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.
© David K Bonde, 2021, All rights reserved