So what actually happened on that evening when Jesus and his friends shared their last meal together? Paul spells it out pretty clearly (1 Corinthians 11:23-26). Jesus took the bread and wine, which are traditional elements of a Passover meal, and used them in a completely different way. He turned them into a new reality that linked the human and divine in a way that cannot be broken. The gospels of Mark, Matthew and Luke have pretty much identical accounts of this meal.
But John doesn’t (John 13:1-15).
It’s not that John ignores the Eucharist, not at all. But he positions it at a completely different point in his telling of Jesus’ story. He links it to the miracles of Jesus feeding people. He also elaborates more deeply how important it was and is, and how many people found it impossible to accept.
So what can it possibly be that John considers so important among the actions of Jesus that he positions it as his last act with his disciples before his death? What could be more important than God giving himself as food to his people?
The most simple action imaginable. Simpler even than eating. The action of washing. Something we know is essential for our health and wellbeing, that was done for us from the moment of birth, and is so familiar that we do it constantly without even thinking about it. It can also be something very special if we treat it as such, as when we go to a spa, or a special healing baths, or even sometimes in the ocean.
Eating, washing, it doesn’t get more basic than that. But what is it that Jesus did to the washing that made it even more significant in John’s eyes than what he did with the meal?
Rather than something we do to and for ourselves, whether by simple force of habit, or in occasional luxury, Jesus did it to and for others. The force of the symbol of the most important person there has ever been, getting on his knees and washing someone else’s feet still hits us today, as when the Pope does it. Medieval kings did the same. Imagine today’s world leaders getting on their knees and washing someone’s feet.
But that’s not the point of the story. The real force of what John tells us is not that Jesus did this, but in what he then says about it: “If I have washed your feet, you ought to wash one another’s feet.” This isn’t about our individual relationship with God, it’s about our relationship with those around us: “I have given you a model to follow, so that as I have done for you, you should also do.”
And then he went off to die for us.