Tonight Jesus will be betrayed and condemned on false charges.  Before that scenario of pain and despair, He will spend His last earthly night with His best friends.  Knowing what was going to happen, Jesus prepared the disciples, and us, for what’s next.

He washes their feet – a scandal then and even more so now.  Who washes someone else’s feet?  Oh wait, parents, caregivers, hospital personnel and nursing home workers do.  Most of us have forgotten the true service rendered in washing someone’s feet.  It is a humbling experience and intimate in its closeness to another person.

Jesus tells them He is giving them an example.  Horrified, they’re not sure what to do.  Peter speaks for all of us in his insistence that Jesus not wash his feet.  Jesus takes that teachable moment and shows Peter, and us, what true discipleship means – service to others.

With covid-19, we may not be washing anyone’s feet, but we can serve one another through prayer, forgiveness, compassion and hope.  Someone needs to hear from you.  They might need groceries or medication, they might need reassurance, they certainly need a word or gesture of hope because someone cares – you!

Jesus then goes on and offers bread and wine as a remembrance of His Body and His Blood that He will sacrifice within hours.  Whether we call our repetition of this action the Lord’s Supper, Eucharist or Holy Communion, it was, and is, the hallowed remembrance of the ultimate sacrifice of our Lord.

When we all get back to church eventually, take communion.  It is the Lord’s ongoing gift of Himself to any believing, baptized Christian.  Embrace the privilege.  Be a responsible disciple and share the gift of Jesus by witnessing to others of His goodness and graciousness in your own life.

Life is hard now, more so than we could ever have imagined.  Do not despair.  The disciples must have been crazy with fear and worry, perhaps mostly for themselves.  Jesus gave His life to free us from fear.  Stay safe.  Keep trusting in the Lord.  He will not abandon us.

God bless you.

Coleen+

Rector, St. Peter’s Anglican Church

How often do we cheer our heroes then trample them under when they get old, tired or no longer able to perform at the level we want them to?  This will be the road for Jesus.

Cheered by the crowds on Sunday, He will be crucified before them on Friday and no one will try to stop it.  Sports heroes traded or retired, business partners or colleagues let go, relatives shunted to nursing homes – we all have stories of these in our immediate life or purview who have been scuttled away because now deemed unuseful, inconvenient or a danger to themselves or others.

And yet the mystery of Palm Sunday, or liturgically Passion Sunday, is that the very rejection, torture and ultimate death of Jesus is what saved us and our world from the greatest human fear – suffering and death.  Jesus’ final and lasting heroism was not His miracles but His passion, death and resurrection that we all might have our sins forgiven and have eternal life.

Reach out to someone this week.  Many people are feeling useless and inadequate at home.  Remind them that they are loved, prayed for, and cared about.

In this fearful time of Covid-19, remember Jesus.  In this challenging time when live sports and entertainment stop, heroes retire unsung and we can’t even visit our loved ones in long term care, remember hope – the hope that comes from believing in a God who is with us and who knows what’s going on, even if we don’t.

God bless you.

Coleen+

Rector, St. Peter’s Anglican Church