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Wondering Pilgrim

~ the ramblings of a perambulent and often distracted sojourner

Wondering Pilgrim

Tag Archives: Maundy Thursday

The Power of Basin & Towel

09 Thursday Apr 2020

Posted by wonderingpilgrim in Personal, Spirituality

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

Last Supper, Love Commandment, Maundy Thursday

unsplash-logoMicheile Henderson

I’ve often wondered how different church history might have been if its universal symbol was a basin and towel rather than a cross.

Today, on the eve of Good Friday, Christians commemorate the Last Supper at which Jesus, having taken a basin and towel, washed his disciples’ feet, saying “By this, all will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”

Symbols are powerful and the first Christians used a variety of them to recognise one another in secret circumstances, often under state oppression. The cross eventually emerged “officially” under the auspices of Emperor Constantine and world history tells of its continuing use, yes, for inspiration, but also for oppression by the powerful.

The events commemorated today suggest followers of Christ will be recognised, not by the cross, but their loving service in the manner of Christ who abandons seemliness to wash the feet of others in service.

“This is my commandment, that you love one another, as I have loved you.”

Do jewellers make basin and towel pendants?

Footwashing – another Easter symbol

29 Thursday Mar 2018

Posted by wonderingpilgrim in Personal, Spirituality, theology

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Foot washing, Maundy Thursday

footwashingToday begins the three days of Easter.

The little-heralded act of Jesus enacting his calling as a servant and washing the feet of his bemused and scandalised disciples is the act that begins the three-day drama of Easter.

He said to them,

‘Do you know what I have done to you? 13You call me Teacher and Lord—and you are right, for that is what I am. 14So if I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet. 15For I have set you an example, that you also should do as I have done to you.16Very truly, I tell you, servants are not greater than their master, nor are messengers greater than the one who sent them. 17If you know these things, you are blessed if you do them.

Alongside the symbol of the cross, itself a scandal, we might well lay the foot-washing basin and towel as a symbol of service for followers of the Way.

Just imagine depictions of the basin and towel adorning church steeples and hanging as pendants around our necks. How would this change the public perception of contemporary Christianity?

Reflecting on Maundy Thursday…

21 Thursday Apr 2011

Posted by wonderingpilgrim in Spirituality

≈ 5 Comments

Tags

Foot washing, Last Supper, Maundy Thursday, postaday2011

Christ washing the feet of the Apostles, by Gi...

Image via Wikipedia

When I was a schoolboy somewhere back in the last millennium, there were class monitor jobs that were much sought after – cleaning the blackboard, feeding the gold fish, collecting the lunch orders. The one no-one enjoyed was emptying the rubbish. Things haven’t changed that much – I asked the school kids the other day which monitor jobs were popular and which were the least enjoyable. Some tasks have changed in this high tech era (there is an energy monitor), but someone still has to put out the rubbish! The students agreed however, that the least enjoyable jobs were important. Someone had to do them.

I guess foot-washing was on the list of least desired tasks amongst Jesus’ contemporaries. It was the task of the least influential person in the household to wash the dust and animal dung from the feet of weary travellers as they reclined at table.  When Jesus gave one final demonstration to show how the economy of the Kingdom worked by washing his disciple’s feet in preparation for the last meal they were to share, the disciples were somewhat disconsolate. Not that he was calling them to serve, but that Jesus, their teacher and mentor, the honoured one, was performing this lowly task on them!

The foot-washing became an entry point for much that Jesus had to share over that meal – the total giving of himself – reinforced in bread and wine that his disciples would eventually come to understand as a way of recognising when Jesus would continue to be amongst them – in serving one another and in table fellowship.

Some of the lousy jobs ascend to the highest order!

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