Holy Week Series: A Renewed Spirit

Today in the church calendar is Maundy Thursday. During a normal year, you may have experienced a Passover seder meal and a foot washing to replicate what Jesus and His disciples did the last evening before Good Friday, when Jesus was crucified.

Now, you may not have thought too much about the foot washing element other than it’s a little awkward. If you’re the one getting your feet washed, you take off your shoes for the first time in church, pray your feet don’t stink, and feel uncomfortable as someone else from your church washes your feet. If you’re the one doing the washing, you may be wishing for the evening to be over soon since it’s gross touching everyone else’s feet. Or perhaps you have a tiny part of you that resents being the one who has to do the dirty work.

Of course, that’s just what I’d assume. Maybe you absolutely love this part of the Maundy Thursday service, and if so, then that’s wonderful! But I want us all to step into the shoes of a disciple for a moment and think about what it would’ve been like to have Jesus wash your feet.

Your feet are so dirty that you can no longer see your skin. Your sandals stick to your feet, glued on by sweat, as Jesus pries them off your feet. Sniffing the air, your face crinkles up as a pungent odor of dead fish mixed with donkey doo fills your nostrils. And yet Jesus takes a cold, wet cloth and gently drapes it over your feet, rubbing them tenderly until the repulsive smell and caked on dirt have vanished.

In a sense, that would feel incredible, right? Your physical body is getting a refreshing revival. But it comes at the cost of Jesus, your Lord and Savior, sacrificing His dignity and perhaps even His sense of smell before you can feel clean again. You might even feel a little guilty watching Him humbly serve you. I know I would!

Just as Jesus came to be a humble servant to others by refreshing their souls and cleaning their feet, His main goal, of course, was to sacrifice everything to give us a spiritual revival, everlasting life. And thinking about Jesus dying for us might make us feel more than a little guilty, huh? I mean, it’s one thing to think about Him cleaning our feet, but it’s entirely another to picture His agonizing, humiliating death. All because of our sin.

I used to think that the only way to fully appreciate Jesus’ gift of salvation was to feel guilty. But I’ve come to realize that Jesus came to save us from everything, including our feelings of worthlessness and shame. He didn’t come here to make us feel bad that He had to die. Rather, He came out of love for us.

Think about someone you love. If they did something that hurt your feelings or caused you grief, you might get upset in the moment, but your love for them never changes. And ultimately, you’d rather have them know your love rather than your anger. Because when we love someone, we put our relationship with them before anything else.

Of course it hurts Jesus when we sin. Of course we need to repent. Of course we should avoiding sinning as much as possible.

But even when we do make mistakes, Jesus will still love us. We don’t have to be forever burdened by our sin. Jesus came to restore, to renew, to give us life. He didn’t come to take it away.

And when we finally realize how great Jesus’ love for us is, we can extend that to others by being willing to sacrifice our reputation, ego, or even temporarily our sense of smell, so that they can witness Jesus’ love too.

This Easter season, don’t focus on how guilty you may feel for Jesus dying for you. Rather, let Jesus’ love sink into your heart and let that love pour into everything you do.

So we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him.

1 John 4:16

As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Abide in my love. If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love. These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full. “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends. …

John 15:9-17

See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are. The reason why the world does not know us is that it did not know him.

1 John 3:1