It is Maundy Thursday, welcome to Day 4 of Holy Week Tears
If you are journeying with us this week, you will know that today is Day 4 of our Holy Week Tears reflections and that we are creating a visual focal point as we move through this Holy Week. Take your tear drop shape and place it next to Monday’s Palm Cross, Tuesday’s Bread, Wednesday’s Silver coins and on it place some Soap and small cloth or a tissue.
A quiet thought:
Reflect on your bar (or bottle) of soap your cloth or tissue (or toilet paper!) and how something so ordinary and every day, something we have used with barely a thought, has in recent weeks become a commodity of value and desire and need beyond anything we could have imagined a few weeks ago.
We add soap and towel (paper or otherwise) to our reflections this week as a reminder of Jesus’ service to his Disciples, to his friends, to those nearest to him. He knelt and washed their feet. A final act from him to them, he was their servant king and he is ours too. No task too menial or humble. John 13:1-15 tells the story for us.
Foot washing, normally the job of a servant, was an act that would have shocked and humbled his friends. He was aware that times were confusing for them, so he did something very basic, very every day, that they would understand, he would show them that they were to care and do for others as he had cared and did for them. Many of us are humbled now at the little acts of kindness shown to us in the present Coronavirus times. There are those who need their feet washing, but there are those who need a phone call, an email, a reassuring word, a shopping list collected, a prayer said, a letter posting. In their own right they are little insignificant acts, but they mean more than we can ever know. Even if we are self isolating we can offer service and the caring to those around us. Today, Maundy Thursday, maybe it is even more apt that we reflect on this.
Jesu, Jesu, fill us with your love (StF 249)
Hillsong ‘what a beautiful name’
Matt Redman ‘10,000 reasons’
A closing prayer:
Servant God, you sit beside us, stand with us, breath with us, cry with us and we are humbled that you care for us.
Wash away the dust from our minds, the dust in our eyes and our ears; let us see you and hear you and know you with such clarity, that we can rest in the knowledge of your abundant care, no matter what happens to us.
Servant God, we give thanks for those whose acts of kindness make a difference to our lives, especially in these changing, confusing and frightening times; for those whom we rely on in times of need, for those who work tirelessly to ensure things are the best they can be. Bless them and bless us and all those we love.
Amen.
