What is your favorite Holiday? When faced with this fun little question, I often answer with "Christmas". I love everything about the Christmas season, and if you know me, you know this to be 100 percent true. I love the way a fresh coat of snow looks and smells along with the fresh pine of a tree in our home. I love that when everything is dark outside our house looks like outer space- littered with white twinkling lights. I love the spirit of joy, thankfulness, expectancy, and generosity that fills the air. There is nothing about Christmas that I don't like, aside from maybe Christmas Parties... but that's a topic for another post. So even though it's my most immediate or common answer, it's not entirely truthful. My favorite holiday in fact is Maundy Thursday.
This year's holy week has really hit me in a different way than most years. The Saturday evening before Palm Sunday, we sat down around the dinner table and had some hard discussions about what we wanted to do in terms of celebrating the Easter season this year. There was no bickering. There were no tears. There was only quiet. We didn't have any palms in the house and honestly, it was a little strange. It was almost like that first Christmas where you recognize a lack of that innocent Christmas magic you've experienced every year as a child before now.
Palm Sunday
Palm Sunday just felt like another day and it broke my heart to feel that way. I mean, come on. This is the celebration of that day in history when Jesus of Nazareth arrives in Jerusalem- arrives as the King of the Jews and we are celebrating by watching church in our PJ's. In the stillness of that morning, The Lord reminded me that He is not a feeling as feelings are fleeting.
Clinging to that moment and keeping it in the front of my mind for the week to come, I celebrated. Even when I didn't feel like being happy or smiling, let alone celebrating, I did any way because my God is worth every minute of celebration, worship, and praise- regardless of how I am feeling. So while I felt overwhelmed by the circumstances that surrounded me, I had Thursday to look forward to. My favorite day of the year. A day that I honor and treasure as much as I do the birth, ministry, death, and Resurrection of Jesus Christ.
Maundy Thursday
Some people refer to the Thursday before the Crucifixion as Holy Thursday. I, however, have always called it Maundy Thursday, as the word Maundy is derived from the Latin word command. This simple word has major significance to me, but I'll get into that in just a minute.
There are many things about this day that made me fall in love with it, but firstly, Maundy Thursday was during the celebration of the Passover. The Passover represented the Exodus of the Israelites from Egypt- so we are looking at a celebration within a celebration. In addition, this is the night of the last supper where Jesus reveals to his disciples that he in fact is completely aware that he will die. Moreover, that He is the Passover Lamb.
In this scene, Jesus adjusts his posture and kneels- the king of all kings, kneeling- to wash the feet of his followers. Not just his best friend, Peter's feet, or Thomas the doubter's feet, but Judas' as well. I mean, Jesus washed the feet of the man who would betray Him. And He did so with as must love and gusto as the rest- withholding nothing.
Afterwards, Jesus tells his disciples that his blood and body are broken for them, breaking bread and drinking wine with them. Communion. Sharing a Passover meal with the man you've spent years following and learning under. With the man who will die a sinner's death. With God.
After eating with Jesus and allowing Him to wash their feet, they go to the Garden of Gathsemane to pray. A place where Jesus cries out in anguish to His father asking for another way. A place where Peter cuts off the ear of man in a bout of passion and heavy emotion. A place where Jesus surrenders to the will of the Father- ultimately saving my soul from sin and death.
Keeping all of that in mind, this year's Thursday was something special. With both my mom and sister working from home and dad being an essential worker, I was in charge of the house- as I have been everyday so far. It was my responsibility to make sure the house was clean for my gramma to come over (she lives across the street and is our only neighbor for miles). I also was to make sure the foot-washing basins were located and cleaned for the online foot-washing service as well as make the communion bread and juice.
All day as I was preparing for the evening to come, I noticed a buzz about the house and I couldn't help but imagine that same buzz was in the air some thousand years ago. I imagined all the preparation in planning a Passover meal- the inviting of friends and family, the preparing of the meal itself, tidying up the home, all of it. And it was in those moments of frantic preparing that the Lord met me.
Later that evening, our house full of family, we worshiped and gave thanks to the Lord. We served one another as Jesus did his disciples and we washed each others' feet. It was an emotional time for all of us. I was able to wash my siblings feet, something I haven't been able to do for a while because when in a foot-washing service, we are usually separated by gender, but not this year. In fact, i was able to wash my dad's feet and thank him for setting an impossibly high standard for my future husband and the father that he would become to our children.
I watched as my dad got down on his knees and wash my mother's feet- something he has never been given the opportunity to do.
The act of washing someone's feet is so beautiful. It is a job that grosses most people out- bunions, callouses, ingrown nails, fungus, dirt, scars, eczema. But as I wash the feet of those I love, and those I have a hard time loving, I am reminded of a very specific scripture-
How beautiful are the feet of the messengers who bring the good news!
Romans 10:15
So while this year may not look exactly as any of us thought it would, neither did A.D. 33. So I am reminded that while the birth, ministry, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ was a lot to take in, I'm doing alright in a world that is just running out of toilet paper.
With all the love,
Rachel "Ruby"
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