"How beautiful are the feet of them that preach the gospel of peace, and bring glad tidings of good things!" - Romans 10:15b
A Maundy Thursday Practice During Isolation
As we tried to come up with a meaningful way to celebrate Maundy Thursday, a time when Jesus showed his love to the disciples by washing their feet, each one in turn, we have a dilemma. How do we remember this moment when the body of Christ is dispersed and isolated? If you are at home with your family, you might be able to practice the ritual with another. However, many of us are alone.
Perhaps today is a good day to focus on our own feet. The feet that carry us throughout our day. The feet we rely on without thinking about them much. The feet that we may have forgotten to tend to in the long winter months and now at home, we rarely give a care. The feet, our feet, represent the forgotten, the lowly, the hard worker, the invisible structure that brings us our food, our water, our electricity, who takes away our garbage.
Today, as you ponder the words of Christ, to “love one another, as I have loved you”, you might ponder your own feet. Give them a good soak. Dry them and rub them lovingly with oil. And consider what a blessing they are to you. And then, imagine how they can carry you today (even if only in your imagination) to offer good news to those who invisibly and steadfastly hold us up, even in a time of isolation.
Practicing Foot Washing At Home
If you’d like to do a foot washing at home you can do it in any number of ways. You could be as ceremonial as pouring water from a pitcher over the feet of your beloved into a basin and then drying them tenderly as Jesus would have done for his friends. Or you can sit on the side of the bathtub, or pool and take turns offering a bit of tenderness to one another. Remember, Peter objected to the idea of Jesus washing his feet, but Jesus told him that if he didn’t allow it, he could not be part of the Body of Christ. Therefore, even if you have to wash your own feet, do so tenderly and with reverence for the gift those feet are to you. After all, they carry the Christ that dwells within you.
