From the reading, John 13: 1-15, and the actions that are unfolding around us, we could reflect upon two significant events: Jesus washing the feet of his disciples and the Last Supper.
Jesus washing the feet of his disciples
After the meal has begun, Jesus breaks the feast to draw maximum importance and focus to something that he thought as important as his suffering and death. Jesus gets up from the table, removes his outer robe, ties a towel around his waist, fills a basin with water, and begins to wash his disciples’ feet. In the ancient world, foot-washing was assigned to the lowest servant in a household; and not just any servant; Jewish law considered the task too degrading even for a Hebrew slave. It was the work of the outsider, the foreigner, the one with nothing left to lose. Jesus, the one they called Rabbi, Lord, the one some believed would restore a kingdom, takes that position on the floor, one pair of feet at a time.
The essence of KM Gaffoor’s Malayalam poem Yudham (War) could be translated this way: over small things, we lose our patience and cool, we grow in anger and revenge. When the food had a little less salt, we struck the table in frustration, and pushed the plate away violently. When someone gave a harsh feedback we banged the door so hard. When a glass slipped and shattered, we raised our hands in punishment. Over small things—a meal, a feedback, a mistake—we became storms. ‘This is us.’
And then we, seeing the horrors of war, ask, what is war? Why is there war? KM Gaffoor answers it plainly: ‘War is simply us, made larger.’ War is not something that happens out there, between nations and armies and strangers on maps. War is something that happens in here—in the kitchen, at the dinner table, in the spaces between people who are supposed to live with each other.
When we read the gospel of John, Jesus knew exactly who was going to betray him, who was going to deny him, and that no one would remain with him at the crucial hour, they would run away. Jesus does not recoil, shrink or withdraw. He does not accuse, challenge, or punish; rather he bends down to wash their feet.
This washing of the feet could be understood two ways. Firstly, it is to say that I have nothing against you. I have met you at your lowest moment, I know what would happen; but I hold nothing against you. You have a complete second chance to begin your life. In Matthew 5: 23-24, we have heard Jesus saying, when you offer your gifts at the altar, and you realise that your brother has something against you, go reconcile and come back, and then offer gifts. It was also preparation for the first holy Eucharist.
Secondly, washing of the feet is a nonjudgmental act—it is forgiveness. We can see its parallel in John 8, the story of a woman caught in sin. Jesus does not condemn her. Jesus forgives her. Forgiveness is washing of the feet. Though this incident of the washing of the feet is kept for the last, it was not an isolated incident; all through the gospels we find events parallel to the washing of the feet.
The Last Supper
Gospels do not use the word ‘Last Supper’. It comes to us from art, literature, and popular culture. The word perhaps is ‘Passover’, or theologically, the institution of the Eucharist, and consequently, the priesthood.
There is something worth pausing over before anything else is said: the company Jesus chose to keep on the last night of his life. He had been arrested, in the eyes of the religious establishment, for precisely this crime; eating with sinners, tax collectors, the disreputable, the morally compromised. Matthew, Mark, and Luke all record the scandal of it. And yet here, in the upper room, on the very night before the cross, he does not surround himself with the devout or the dignified. He gathers, one last time, with his disciples — men who will, before morning, betray him, deny him, and run. He knew this. He knew all of it. And he stayed at the table. There are a lot of discussions about who all must have been at the table? Would there be any women? Would there be Mary? Knowing the Jesus of the gospels, I find no difficulty in believing that there would have been more people.
The disciples of Jesus, who as they walked with Jesus on the dusty roads of Palestine had to be satisfied with quietly plucked grains from the cornfields along the paths and maybe a few crumbs given by some generous women, now lost perhaps in the mesmerizing aroma and taste of the yummy dishes and drink, may not be really aware of what is taking place among them and what is happening around them in Jerusalem; and what will happen to them in the hours to come. But in the midst of them sat Jesus: fully aware of what is happening among them, fully aware of what is happening in and around Jerusalem, and fully aware of what will happen to him in the hours to come.
Jesus knows it is his last meal with his loved ones; his life on earth was just 33 years old, had he lived enough? He painfully knows that the majority of seeds that he had sown had been taken away by birds, had been choked by thorns and killed by the heat and hardness of stones. He painfully knows that he has no shoulders to put his head on and cry; perhaps it is significant that within an hour or two he will be crying with his head on a cold hard rock in a lonely garden. The man who wanted to gather everyone as his children as a hen gathers its chicks under its wings is left all alone.
Having washed their feet, Jesus returns to the table, takes the bread, breaks and sheds himself, symbolically in the form of bread and wine. And celebrates a happy thanksgiving—Eucharist. Jesus knew what was ahead. He knew the garden, the arrest, the denial, and the cross; still he took the bread, and he gave thanks. The whole sacrament is named after a moment of gratitude in the middle of darkness. This is the deepest secret of that moment, and perhaps the hardest: Jesus gives thanks, not because suffering is good, not because it does not pain him; but because to give thanks is to refuse to let darkness have the final word.
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