“[I]f I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet.” (John 13:14)

The services of the Triduum have always held been very dear to me as an incredible encapsulation of what Christianity is all about, so it does break my heart a little that these rituals hold so little sway in the public imagination of the season in comparison to things like Easter egg hunts and glazed hams. In this passage directly from John’s Gospel itself, Jesus dictates quite clearly that we should wash one another’s feet – and yet where is this actually happening in our world outside of the hardy few who make their way to a service on this otherwise ordinary Thursday night?

Jesus does often speak in parables, and maybe this command is so unsettling in a modern cultural context that many can only make heads or tails of it strictly as a metaphor. And it is very much a metaphor for Christian service, both what we provide for our neighbors regardless of social status and what we have to set aside our own pride in order to accept in our time of need. Ignoring the literal words of our Savior just to accommodate taboos around certain body parts does feel like shirking our full duties as Christians, though, even if we still get a valuable message out of it. 

In an increasingly vulnerable world where the socially acceptable feel-good messages around Christian love often fail to meet the moment, then, we really have no choice but to return to the radical source material. Embrace tonight’s washing of feet wholeheartedly, not just in its underlying meaning but in its overt physicality as a reminder that love means nothing unless it is put into tangible action. When our love for each other is truly and visibly shown, not only will everyone know that we are Christians – they just might feel the tug of Christ’s perfect love on their own hearts.

[NOTE: This piece was written based on an assigned piece of Scripture for a collection of 40 Lenten reflections by the parishioners of St. Catherine’s Episcopal Church.]