Lent is quickly approaching its climax. On Sunday the Church will enter Holy Week - seven days devoted to contemplation of our Lord’s Passion.
Contemplation is the exploration of scripture or other divine mysteries under the direction of the Holy Spirit. That we are allowed to engage in such a holy occupation is an honor beyond grasping. That God in fact desires us to know Him speaks of His unfathomable humility. God delights to reveal Himself to the humble of heart, and He counts our thoughts toward Him as acts of friendship.
The goal of contemplation is never conclusion. It is not a doctrinal exercise. Rather, it is a journey of love, and one of its mysteries is this: when we turn our focus to God’s nature and His story, He often speaks to us about ourselves and our stories. The Father never tires of contemplating His children. This is why He takes such joy in our contemplation of His Only Begotten.
Today I am thinking about Jesus washing Peter’s feet. I hear Peter’s objection, ”Never shall You wash my feet!” and imagine myself saying the same. Peter meant the protest as a declaration of honor, as would I. He understood that merely being in Jesus’s presence was a sign of divine favor. Peter had seen his Master work miracles. He done miracles himself because of this man! And apart those wonders, Peter simply loved Jesus. He was willing, in his imagination, to lay his life down for the Messiah. Thus Peter objected when his Lord assumed a humiliating position before him. But there was more to his protest, I think. Was Peter not embarrassed to expose his dirty feet to Jesus?
Jesus responded, “Unless I wash your feet, you have no part of me.”
The truth is that Jesus would soon take a far more humiliating position before His disciples. Just a few hours after this dinner, Jesus would be stripped naked and hung in public as a target for mockers.
For most of my life, being afraid of pain and death, I have thought of the cross primarily in those terms. Jesus came to save us from eternal death through his temporal death. He came to bear the penalty of our sin through the tearing of His flesh. But I am coming to see there is still more which transpired on the cross. Jesus was humiliated under the weight of our sins. He came to heal this sting of shame while delivering us from death. I am in awe of such love!
Today I see Jesus kneeling before me as He once knelt before Peter, but in a position even lower and more humble. He comes bearing the wounds of the cross as He once came to Peter with the towel. He wants to cleanse my sin and heal my shame with His blood. It was for this reason He died. But to allow Him to do so means I must expose the thoughts, the acts and the memories which need washing. I must allow Jesus see the filth far more fetid than stinky feet. I must “do whatever He tells me” in order to be healed. This might include sacramental confession, acts of reconciliation, or focused times of sitting in His presence and listening to His voice. This is how I let Jesus wash me.
Such intimacy goes beyond social discomfort. It is a complete surrender to the humility of Christ. It is an acceptance of God’s judgment, His mercy and His love. Allowing Jesus’s story to touch my own is both wonderful and frightful. But unless I accept His humility, I have no part of Him. His sacrifice will not bear fruit in me. So I say with Peter, “Lord, wash all of me!”