Listen

Before the Festival of Passover, Jesus knew that his time had come to leave this world and go to the Father. Having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them fully.

Jesus and his disciples were sharing the evening meal. The devil had already provoked Judas, Simon Iscariot’s son, to betray Jesus. Jesus knew the Father had given everything into his hands and that he had come from God and was returning to God. So he got up from the table and took off his robes. Picking up a linen towel, he tied it around his waist. Then he poured water into a washbasin and began to wash the disciples’ feet, drying them with the towel he was wearing.

After he washed the disciples’ feet, he put on his robes and returned to his place at the table. He said to them, “Do you know what I’ve done for you? You call me ‘Teacher’ and ‘Lord,’ and you speak correctly, because I am. If I, your Lord and teacher, have washed your feet, you too must wash each other’s feet. I have given you an example: Just as I have done, you also must do.

John 13:1-5, 12-15

Think

Steve Jobs shared the following in a Stanford University commencement speech:

“I [once] read a quote that said, ‘If you live each day as if it were your last, someday you’ll most certainly be right.’ Since then, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself, ‘If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I’m about to do today?’ And whenever the answer has been, ‘no’ for too many days, I know I need to change something.”

On the last day of his life, Jesus could do so many different things. However, he shares a meal with his friends and then washes their feet. Jesus knows these friends will abandon and betray him, but he chooses to spend the last day of his life showing them selfless and extravagant love.

If today were the last day of your life, what would you do? What would you not do? How will you embody the simple yet radical love of Jesus?

Mary Alice Birdwhistell

Pray

God, help me to live each day as if it were my last. May this Holy Week journey reorient me to what is truly important – and to what is not very important at all. Amen.

Go

As you go about this Holy Week,
don’t be afraid to go to the edge
of what seems most ordinary
and comfortable
and familiar.

Because if you pay attention,
you will find that
extraordinary Love is hidden
in the most unexpected places around you,
and even within you.

And once you encounter it,
this Love will
never leave you the same.

May you have the courage to show up this week.

May you live fully in each fragile moment.

And may you do even the smallest things with extravagant Love.

Amen.