Last Supper

The last meal we shared with Jesus was strange. It was the Passover feast so we were all joined together in Jerusalem. We were all sitting around the table when Jesus got up, wrapped a towel around his waist and poured a basin of water.  I watched him, wondering what he was going to do and why he hadn’t got a servant to help him prepare whatever he was going to do.  What was he was going to teach us now?  I was bewildered as I saw what he did next and watched wide-eyed as he started washing my friend’s feet.  This a job reserved for the lowliest of servants and Jesus was doing it himself. Washing his dirty, dusty, smelly feet, for we had been on the road all day. And then he moved onto the next person at the table. I couldn’t bear it why would he humiliate himself like this? Our Lord. Why would he condescend to wash our feet when we should be washing his? When he came to me, I told him that he wasn’t going to wash my feet.  He looked at me in that way that he did and said ‘ you don’t realise now what I am doing, but later you will understand’.  No I said, not my feet.  He looked me in the eye and said ‘If I don’t wash you then you can’t be part of what I am doing’.

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Well I said if that’s the case then wash my hands and head, not just my feet. 

He took my foot in his hand and said as he washed it, ‘I am concerned with holiness and not hygiene.  If you’ve had a bath in the morning then it is only your feet that will need to be washed’.  I was wondering what this meant as I sat there.  I felt embarrassed as he held my feet and washed them, knowing that I should have offered to wash his.’ And now each one of you is clean – though not every one of you.’ I was brought to with a start as I heard his words, who did he mean?  Did he mean me? I realise now that he must have meant that scoundrel Judas but at the time I was searching for meaning. By the time I started listening again he was talking about how we should wash each other’s feet and that no servant is greater than his master and I was reminded about a conversation some of us had had earlier about who was the greatest among us. 

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Later during the meal, Jesus told us that one of us was going to betray him.  As he handed out bread to us all Judas got up and left the table.  I thought he was going out for more supplies but it turns out that wasn’t the case.  Judas who had been one of us for so long, who had eaten with us, witnessed miracles, spread the good news. Judas. I would never have believed that it would be one of our own who would be the one to betray our Lord.

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Jesus then told us he was leaving us and that we could not go with him. What did he mean? I had given up my whole life to follow him.  I had left my family, my trade, everything.  I couldn’t lose him.  I told him that I would follow him and lay down my life for him.  That’s when he told me that I too would disown him………

 

Question:

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• How would you have felt if Jesus had washed your feet?

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• What do you think the conversation was like at the table after Jesus had told them that one of them was going to betray him?

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