On My Knees (Maundy Thursday)

Sermon — April 2, 2026 (Maundy Thursday)
The Rev. Greg Johnston
Lectionary Readings

In the years since I became a parent, I’ve found myself spending a lot of time on my knees. Not in prayer, necessarily—although being a parent often requires prayer—but carrying out some very practical tasks. I’ve spent time on my knees helping buckle Velcro shoes, and zip up winter coats. I’ve spent time searching for many tiny missing Lego pieces on the floor, which isn’t made much easier by the stain-hiding pattern of the rug. I’ve spent time on my knees with a dustpan and broom in hand, sweeping up Cheerio dust and bits of banana and all manner of strange and soggy things from underneath high chairs and booster seats and corners of the kitchen floor.

On Sunday, I said that Holy Week is the story of Jesus’ “downward mobility”: the story of how Christ, the cosmic Word through whom all things were created and who came down to earth on Christmas Day, descends even further, from life to death. And this story of descent happens on a cosmic scale—from heaven, to earth, to the grave—but there’s a local scale, as well: as when Jesus leads the triumphant ride into Jerusalem not on a noble stallion, but on a humble donkey instead.

On Maundy Thursday, we see another of Jesus’ small acts of humility. During supper with his friends Jesus gets up from the table, takes off his outer robe, and ties a towel around himself. And then, in his most literal act of downward mobility, he kneels down on the floor and begins to wash their feet.

This ritual of footwashing, which we include in our own Maundy Thursday tradition, feels strange to many people. (And that’s okay, it’s totally optional.) And in fact, it felt strange to Jesus’ own disciples, but for a different reason.

They were used to having their feet washed by someone else. In a world of dust and sandals, it was a normal act of hospitality. But it would normally have been done by a servant or a slave, or maybe by one of the lowlier disciples. It was an act of welcome and care, but it certainly wasn’t prestigious or highly-honored work. It implied a certain upstairs-downstairs relationship between the people who’s serving by washing feet, and the one who’s being served.

So the disciples are surprised to see Jesus on his knees. Peter says, “You’ll never wash my feet!” It’s his place to wash his teacher’s feet, and not the other way around. But Jesus insists that Peter accept his care. “Unless I wash you,” he says—unless you let me serve you— “you have no share with me.”

And then Jesus presents this humble act of practical care as the model for Christian life. I give you a “new commandment,” he says, “that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another.” (11:34) This commandment is not about whether they should love; it’s about how. Jesus has reminded them before of the Torah’s commandment to love their neighbors as themselves; now he gives them a “new” commandment to love one another, in the same way he has loved them. This is what Christian love means: not to like someone, or to feel warmth in your heart toward them, but to trade your nice coat for a towel, and to get down on the floor to wash their dirty feet. On Maundy Thursday, some of us will take this very literally. But the new commandment is an everyday reality.  Christian love means caring for other people, in messy and practical ways; and it means allowing other people to care for us—because that’s exactly what Jesus tells Peter he has to do.

This humble kind of love means different things for different people at different times. But it’s usually about the most un-glamorous moments in life. The late-night wake-up to clean up the effects of a child’s stomach bug. The long hours spent by a hospital bed with a parent who can’t remember who you are. The indignity of having to allow yourself to be cared for by someone you barely know.

These moments rarely fill our hearts the feeling of love. They rarely come with recognition or with thanks. They don’t fill us with a sense of the presence of God or overwhelm us with their beauty. But as strange as it may be, these are the moments when we draw most near to the God who rides a donkey into town; the God who tells his disciples to love one another just as he has loved them, with a bowl of dirty water in his hands. The love that we show one another in these messy moments, when we serve one another, and let ourselves be served, that Jesus means when he says: “By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”