Kristin Tovar

“Now that I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also should wash one another’s feet.”
—John 13:1-17

Dear friends,

This Maundy Thursday, I immerse myself in the setting of Jesus with the disciples at The Last Supper. Knowing Simon Peter would deny him along with Judas, who had already betrayed him, Jesus chose to wash the feet of all who were in his circle that evening.

Monk, poet, and social activist Thomas Merton said,

“Our job is to love others without stopping to inquire whether or not they are worthy. That is not our business and, in fact, it is nobody’s business. What we are asked to do is to love, and this love itself will render both ourselves and our neighbors worthy.” 

Returning to the moment where Jesus takes on the lowly work of cleansing feet and embodying a servant. Jesus did not bother himself with whether these people were worthy. He spoke of being clean or unclean, based on the choices they had already made or would make, yet still washed the feet of all. 

The first verse of this chapter, John says, Having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end.” In this passage, the Greek says he laid down (tithēmi) his garments to wash their feet, pointing to the coming moment where he will lay down his life for the sake of love.

Unlike Jesus, we cannot predict the outcome of each human life in our spheres of influence. That is a good thing, for if we knew who would betray, sell, and deny by one, would we still seek to love them to the end?

Yet we are called to this kind of love.

Our passage today ends with a promise:

“If you walk in this way of blessing, you will do well, and it will return to you–full circle.”   (John 13:17, First Nations Version)

Loving in this way, leading in this way of love with each other, is a blessing that returns to our neighbors and to us. It is an essential development in our formation in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus.

We have been shown the Way. May we now embody the Way in our daily lives. In it, may we find the joy of returning full circle to the beauty and gratitude of the love that we are held in, that is ours, shown to us in the Son of God.

In that love may we stay,

—Kristin