Maundy Thursday - Holy Week 2017

Maundy means the ‘washing of feet”.  Thursday was the day of the Last Supper.  Jesus washed the feet of his disciples then. “a servant is not greater than his master; nor is he who is sent greater than he who sent him” Jesus said.   This gave rise to the description of Jesus as the “Servant King’.  Humility is to be admired and not seen as a sign of weakness as it is by the cowardly braggart. The first should be last and the last should be first.  Suffer little children to come under to me. You must be like children to enter the Kingdom of heaven. All of what Jesus stood for was that it’s in the little and the great that God is found.  It was thought before that the Great were the venue to God.  The peasant did not know God but through the King or High Priest.  Now Jesus, son of God, son of man, said differently.  

I’m heavy with age and work and threats and betrayal.  I’m asking you God, I’m asking you Jesus, restore my childlike enthusiasm.  Give me the desire to carry on.  I see you as the one who told the truth.  At the Last Supper Jesus said that Judas would betray him.  It’s been said even God couldn’t pick 12 men who would not betray him.  I look at politics and I see the deceit and lies and betrayal. In my own life I meet everyone these days in fear that they will lie and attack me for their profit.  Judas betrayed God for 30 pieces of silver. But some say that Judas was the truest for he triggered humanity’s salvation.  These events unfolded later but at the supper Jesus spoke of the betrayal.  

The greatest harm comes from betrayal because betrayal is always the work of a friend, a loved one.  

It is the sense of betrayal we feel in terms of the institutions that we serve, the sense of betrayal of our government representatives.  But that is through the whole of the Jesus story.  it’s the leaders of society that blinded by their wealth and privilege kill God.  

Even today it is the government that promotes and protects abortion.  It’s is the government that now that favours suicide.  It’s the government that profits from tobacco and alcohol and would add cannibis to it’s source of income for increasingly nefarious hedonistic means.  

Jesus.  You a carpenter, teacher, healer. You lived under the local authority of Herod the Jew and under the representative of Rome's Pilate born during the reign of Caesar Octavian.  You taught the Kingdom of God and Love.  Christianity is the religion of Love.  Agape and Filios and yes even eros.  

I am crying for you daily. I see you in the beauty of nature, in moments with others, in the relationships we share, in the love of my dog even.  Everywhere the Holy Spirit comes. I pray, Holy Spirit Come. You are here now. The Resurrected Christ.  

I wash your feet and you wash mine.  You wash my feet and I wash your.

At the last supper you say that the bread is your body and the wine is your blood and we share in the celebration of eating and drinking God for God is all but this is you in death and life and resurrection. This is a reminder of the Last Supper.  In the days of Passover.  

Thank you Jesus.