Reflection for Maundy Thursday, 2 April 2026, St Peter’s Bramley
Reading : John 13:1-20
Featured image: Jesus washing the feet of the apostles by Del Parson, 1983

My name is Simon, usually called Cephas or Peter. I was one of Jesus’ disciples and I want to tell you about that last evening of his life. It was a Passover meal, and when he sent us to prepare it I expected the usual rituals. We left our sandals at the door and reclined, waiting for the women to serve the meal. But this time it was very different.

The first point that I realised that Jesus was doing things differently was when he took off his robe, tied a towel round him, knelt on the floor and started washing people’s feet – a job usually done by a servant. When he came to me, my first reaction was that this was not right. In the three years that the Twelve of us had been following him, we had come to recognise him not only as a great rabbi but a miracle worker, a prophet, in fact the long-awaited Messiah. This was the greatest man to have lived since Moses!

What was he doing, washing feet? Feet that had trodden the sandy beaches of Galilee, hardened by years of exposure to the sun and water, feet that had shaken off the dust of Samaritan roads, and waddled in the dirty water flowing down the streets of Jerusalem. Unclean feet, ritually and literally.

So I refused. “Never shall you wash my feet, because you are my Lord!” But he insisted that it was right, because he came not to be served by us, but to serve us and to make the unclean clean.

Suddenly I recalled how not long before, a woman had knelt at his feet, cried over them, dried them with her hair, and poured expensive perfume on them. He let her do this as a sign of love and to commission him for suffering and burial. Now he wanted to do the same for us. So I did let him wash my feet, and those of the others, Judas included.

Later, I also remembered words from the prophet Isaiah: How beautiful on the mountains are the feet of those who bring good news, who proclaim peace, who bring good tidings, who proclaim salvation, who say to Zion, “Your God reigns!”

Finally I got it. Jesus came to serve us, and wash our feet, not despite him being the Son of God, but absolutely because he was the Son of God. If God is love, then Jesus also was love. He had loved us into discipleship these three years, loved us through shared experiences of joy and pain into being a close-knit team. And as he went on to say later in that supper, loved us to the very end of is life in order to make us one body. Washing our feet was just another step in the process.

Jesus went on to say, “Now that I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also should wash one another’s feet.” Our feet were being washed, not only to satisfy ritual, to make us clean for the Passover, but as a way of commissioning us for what would come next. Because after the events of Easter and Pentecost, all of us would be sent out in different directions to serve Christ by proclaiming that good news of peace and salvation. Twelve pairs of feet: well, eleven apart from Judas. Sent out to serve, teach, heal, baptise and disciple others, both Jew and Gentile. Thomas ended up in India, Andrew in Greece, Philip in Africa, and so on. My life was ended in Rome, crucified like the Lord I served, hands and feet pierced like his.

So think about your feet. What roads have they trodden? Who has loved you enough to wash or caress them? When have they obediently followed along Christ’s narrow way., and when have they wandered off his way and ended up in the mud? Where might he be calling you to walk with him now? And who are you now being called to serve, as he served us? How beautiful are your feet, when you too go where Christ sends you with the Good News!