The Basin and the Towel

It's Maundy Thursday, which, for me, is always an evening of deep reflection. Tonight Sean and i will be leading worship for a service at Cedar Ridge that will include a footwashing. To prepare my heart, i revisited the story in John 13 this morning:

"And during supper Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands, and that he had come from God and was going to God, got up from the table, took off his outer robe, and tied a towel around himself. Then he poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples' feet and to wipe them with the towel that was tied around him. He came to Simon Peter, who said to him, 'Lord, are you going to wash my feet?'

Jesus answered, 'You do not know now what I am doing, but later you will understand.' 

Peter said to him, 'You will never wash my feet.'

Jesus answered, 'Unless I wash you, you have no share with me.'

...After he had washed their feet, had put on his robe, and had returned to the table, he said to them, 'Do you know what I have done to you? You call me Teacher and Lord- and you are right, for that is what I am. So if I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another's feet. For I have set you an example, that you also should do as I have done to you.' " (verses 3-8, 12-15)

Do you know my first thought when April asked us to do this service? It was, "Should i get a pedicure?"

I never mean to be so shallow. I guess i'm just slow to embrace the larger message... like Simon Peter, maybe? It's hard for me to be humbled...to willingly place the filthiest parts of me into my Lord and Teacher's terribly tender hands. To be patient while he scrubs off the dung of depression and the crud of complacency.

Yet afterwards, i find myself compelled by the smarting-pink of my freshly scrubbed flesh to shed my outer shell that i might be-towel and be-friend another's pair of filthy feet. As Michael Card says in the song below, it is indeed "impoverished power that sets the soul free."

The Basin and The Towel  by Michael Card

And the call is to community...

In an upstairs room
A parable is just about to come alive
And while they bicker about who's best
With a painful glance He'll silently rise
Their Savior Servant must show them how
Through the will of the water
And the tenderness of the towel

And the call is to community
The impoverished power that sets the soul free
In humility to take the vow
That day after day we must take up
The basin and the towel

In any ordinary place
On any ordinary day
The parable can live again
When one will kneel and one will yield
Our Savior Servant must show us how
Through the will of the water
And the tenderness of the towel

And the space between ourselves sometimes
Is more than the distance between the stars
By the fragile bridge of the servant's bow
We take up the basin and the towel

And the call is to community
The impoverished power that sets the soul free
In humility to take the vow
That day after day we must take up
The basin and the towel