Remember the bowl and towel.
This year it will happen on Thursday April 14th at 7:30pm.
It’s the night before Good Friday and in a stunning, sublime act of worship, the priest takes a towel and a bowl of water and washes 12 peoples feet. At the time of typing there are still some spots left if you wanted to be one of these 12.
This might sound a bit odd, but it is one of the things I look forward to the most every Holy Week. Using the bowl and towel goes to the very heart of what being a priest is.
It is the relentless service of others. Doing the most menial and grungy task with dignity, glee and joy. We understand that to wash someone’s feet is one of the most important and liberating tasks that we can do.
This most uncomplicated act of worship comes from the Master himself who, knowing that he would be dead within 24 hours, knowing that one would deny, one would betray, still washed his friends feet. He did so not just because it was the right thing to do, not just because the feet were mangy and needed a good scrub, but simply because he loved them.
We have been unable to celebrate this liturgy in the past couple of years and so to be able to do it again will come as a fresh, poignant and exquisite joy.
But the theme of loving humility is to be lived out not just on this most extraordinary night, but day by day, hour by hour, in every encounter, in every conversation, at every act of worship. Whenever we are tempted to lofty triumphalism, then we clergy must always remember the bowl and towel.