John sets the stage for us in his gospel account of the Evening of the Lord’s Supper (Jn 13). First he reveals to us that, “Jesus knew that his hour had come to pass from this world to the Father.” (v. 1) Often in the past, beginning with the wedding at Cana with his mother, Jesus had told his disciples that, “My hour has not yet come.” (Jn 2,4; 7,30; 8,20) Now we are told that Jesus knows that his hour had come. His hour is now at hand. Then John reveals to us, “He loved his own in the world and he loved them to the end.” (v.1) Finally John reveals that Jesus was “fully aware that the Father had put everything into his power and that he had come from God and was returning to God.” (v.3) His hour has come, he is fully aware and he is loving his own to the end, so what does Jesus do now at this time pregnant with meaning and final purpose? Jesus washes feet. Jesus gives us the gift of himself and his love in service and sacrifice.

Washing feet is profoundly practical. Jesus demonstrates to us that the love of the Father is not something abstract and theoretical but it is something that we all need daily and something that is available to us all. In the sacrament of Jesus, the Father stoops down and washes the feet of his children. Feet get dirty. That happens when we are walking in this world. The dust of the world clings to our feet. We don’t need to be embarrassed about our dirty feet, the Father knows that our human lives are often more dust than glory. The Father, in his tender and merciful love for us, humbles himself and washes the dust from our feet. The writer of Hebrews helps us to understand this “dust of the world”: “let us rid ourselves of every burden and sin that clings to us and persevere in running the race that lies before us while keeping our eyes fixed on Jesus, the leader and perfecter of faith. For the sake of the joy that lay before him he endured the cross, despising its shame, and has taken his seat at the right of the throne of God.” (Heb 12,1f) Like the dust of the world clings to feet, so does sin cling to us and becomes a burden for us in this life. Just as the dust that clings to our feet needs to be washed clean, so do the sins that cling to us need to be cleansed. That is what Jesus is about, washing us clean from our sins and removing the burden of sin from us so that we can run the race that lies before us in freedom and joy.

All of us need to be washed clean. Our life in Christ is filled with this very practical truth that we must face every day. Everyone carries the burden of sin and we must help them to be free of this burden that clings to us and holds us back from being the disciples that we are meant to be. Too often though we resist this work of the Father. Peter says to Jesus, “You will never wash my feet.” (v.8) Jesus responds to Peter’s resistance, “Unless I wash you, you will have no inheritance with me.” (v. 8) Our pride too often allows resistance to keep us from accepting the gift of grace that the Father is offering to us in the sacrifice of Jesus. Unless we are freed from the dust of sin that clings to us we will not inherit the glory that we are meant to share with Christ. The dust of sin that clings to our feet is nothing to be ashamed of, but it is also nothing to be proud of. We must be washed clean. As the Father humbles himself in Jesus, so must we humble ourselves before the Lord and accept his gift of washing and then help in washing the feet of others.

“Do you realize what I have done for you?” (v.12) This is the question that we face during this Holy Week of the Lord’s Passion. We must realize what the Lord has done for us in enduring the cross. “You call me ‘teacher’ and ‘master’, and rightly so, for indeed I am. If I, therefore, the master and teacher, have washed your feet, you ought to wash one another’s feet. I have given you a model to follow, so that as I have done for you, you should also do. Amen, amen, I say to you, no slave is greater than his master nor any messenger greater than the one who sent him. If you understand this, blessed are you if you do it.” (vv. 13-17) Our mission in the sacramental life is profoundly practical and humbling, we must help one another by washing one another’s feet, removing the burden of sin that clings to each of us. This is something that we all must “receive” if we are to receive the gift of divine glory that the Father has reserved for us. To share in the gift of the resurrection, we must first share in the service and sacrifice of Jesus. This is the Eucharist in very practical terms. To receive the Eucharist means to become “Eucharistic” in our own lives.

St. Pope John Paul wrote to us in Ecclesia Eucharistia, “The Eucharist is a straining towards the goal, a foretaste of the fullness of joy promised by Christ (cf. Jn 15:11); it is in some way the anticipation of heaven, the “pledge of future glory”. In the Eucharist, everything speaks of confident waiting “in joyful hope for the coming of our Savior, Jesus Christ”. Those who feed on Christ in the Eucharist need not wait until the hereafter to receive eternal life: they already possess it on earth, as the first-fruits of a future fullness which will embrace man in his totality. For in the Eucharist we also receive the pledge of our bodily resurrection at the end of the world: “He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day” (Jn 6:54). This pledge of the future resurrection comes from the fact that the flesh of the Son of Man, given as food, is his body in its glorious state after the resurrection. With the Eucharist we digest, as it were, the “secret” of the resurrection.

Significantly, in their account of the Last Supper, the Synoptics recount the institution of the Eucharist, while the Gospel of John relates, as a way of bringing out its profound meaning, the account of the “washing of the feet”, in which Jesus appears as the teacher of communion and of service (cf. Jn 13:1-20). The Apostle Paul, for his part, says that it is “unworthy” of a Christian community to partake of the Lord’s Supper amid division and indifference towards the poor (cf. 1 Cor 11:17-22, 27-34).
Proclaiming the death of the Lord “until he comes” (1 Cor 11:26) entails that all who take part in the Eucharist be committed to changing their lives and making them in a certain way completely “Eucharistic”. It is this fruit of a transfigured existence and a commitment to transforming the world in accordance with the Gospel which splendidly illustrates the eschatological tension inherent in the celebration of the Eucharist and in the Christian life as a whole: “Come, Lord Jesus!” (Rev 22:20).”
On Holy Thursday we are given a Eucharistic mandate – be transformed by the grace of the sacraments that we live and celebrate. Receive the gift that Jesus gives us in faith and then live that gift in sacrifice and service to one another. Break through your resistance to the Father’s grace and be washed clean. Keep your eyes always fixed on Jesus, the leader and perfecter of faith. What he has done for us, we must now do for one another, that we may all run as one and finish the race we are running in this world and together experience the fullness of new life and joy in the resurrection of Christ.