THE WATER OF MAUNDY [R, 4-2-26]

CHRIST IN WINTER: The Maundy Thursday Mutterings of An Old Preacher—THE WATER OF MAUNDY [R, 4-2-26]

 

I have always been fascinated by Jesus’ references to water. He lived in a land where water was important because there was so little of it. So did I.

When I grew up on the farm, we had no indoor plumbing. Clean water had to be carried in in buckets and dirty water had to be carried out in other buckets.

The water came from a cistern and a well. The cistern caught water off the roof of the house. It was covered by boards. We dipped a bucket in to get the water that we used for washing clothes and other household chores. The well had a pump with a long handle. We kept a jar of water beside it to “prime” it so that it would produce.

It was a deep well and so the water was good. We used it for drinking and cooking. During long summers, though, it would go dry. So did the cistern. It was then that I had to go to the Heathman’s house to carry water in a bucket. Their house was up a hill on our little gravel road, about the distance equivalent of two city blocks, maybe three. A family of six needed a lot of water. That made for a lot of trips up and down the hill.

My right shoulder is lower than my left. I think that was from carrying water with my right arm from age ten, before I had stopped growing. When my wife made my first pulpit robe, she had to allow for that low shoulder.

I never took a shower or a bath until I went to college. We always washed out of a shallow basin on a wash stand. In college I lived in a decrepit old leftover BOQ building from WWII. It had a very ugly and dank shower room. But it had plenty of water. I thought it was wonderful.

I am careful with water. I don’t waste it, even now, when it comes out of a faucet or a shower head. I know what it’s like not to have water.

Jesus knew that, too. Which is why foot washing was such an important part of a host’s responsibilities toward guests. Guests had been walking, on dirt roads, in sandals. It wasn’t just that their feet were dirty, they were uncomfortable. But it was a servant’s job to wash feet. If the host did it, that was a mark of ultimate respect for the guest. And foot washing took water…you didn’t waste precious water on just anybody.

When Jesus and his disciples came in for supper that Thursday night before crucifixion, they’d been walking the dirt roads. Their feet were dirty. Somebody needed to wash them. So Jesus did.

We call that Thursday “Maundy” as a form of the Latin “Mandatum,” meaning a command. Jesus gave a new command to his disciples on that night, that they were to be servants, and he showed them how, by doing the foot washing himself. [John 13]

Foot washing has long been a part of our Maundy Thursday rituals as we prepare for Easter, sometimes literally, usually figuratively, often just as a homily subject. We rarely use actual water.

Several years ago, a CNN producer telephoned me. She was working on a special in which she was saying that the next big crisis in the Middle East would be water instead of oil, and she wanted to check some theological points with me. In the midst of an oil crisis, it’s hard to believe water is important, but everyone needs water to live. No one needs oil to live.

If, however, any of us are to live for long, we need to learn how to be servants, not of the oil, but of the water.

John Robert McFarland

I usually post every other day, but there will be extra posts—meaning almost every day—during the Easter weekend. I’ll be posting on April 3, 5, 6, and 8.