Easter Triduum / A Servant for all

Easter Triduum   / A Servant for all

Holy Thursday

Before the feast of Passover, Jesus knew that his hour had come to pass from this world to the Father.  So, during supper, fully aware that the Father had put everything into his power and that he had come from God and was returning to God, he rose from supper and took off his outer garments.  He took a towel and tied it around his waist.  Then he poured water into a basin and began to wash the feet of the disciples’ feet and dry them with the towel around his waist.  (Jn 13: 1, 2a  - 5).  

Signs of servanthood or characteristics are humility, obedience, sacrifice, trust, and devotion.  (Taken from “Exploring God’s Call to Servanthood” by James K. Dew).  Jesus showed each of these by his willingness to walk to the Cross  on Good Friday.  This humbling action of Jesus goes beyond the example that places him at the needs of those who speak to him in supplication to his ability of love.  This towel around his waist is a method of drying their feet after they have walked through the dirt of sin from those they will be sent to bring into his kingdom.   His sacrifice which is imminent is the proof of God’s promise to redeem any of his creatures if they will accept this love.  

The devotion that Christ gives to you and me as a Father hands on to his children in spite of their weaknesses that would dispel a wayward child from his attention, now places us in the position to also become humble to the numbers of the world’s needy sinners we will be sent to bring into his kingdom.

There are more than one example of the humble Christ who came to present the only way to find God’s redeeming effort to save sinners from eternal death.  Deciding to become a human being, exactly like us, was the first sign of a humble God who did not need to do this.  This shows the depth of servanthood being perpetrated upon the human race.  Then, using a woman to go through nine months of motherhood and give birth to a man with two natures who is coming to forgive sinners in the only way that would exemplify the servant of God, Jesus Christ.

Holy Thursday, the first of three signs of divine love that come from the heart of a living and perfect God.  Let this be an action that is the Truth of these three days.  

Ralph B. Hathaway