Before Easter joy and Good Friday grief, there was Thursday — a night gathered around the table with love and the kind of humility that is revolutionary.
We often see Thursday through the lens of Friday’s sorrow.
But the disciples didn’t; they saw Friday through Thursday’s gathering.
The night of foot washing and friendship, of a shared feast, brimming with memory and meaning.
Jesus and his friends were celebrating, sharing stories, passing the bread and the wine. It was Passover, a joyful holiday feast. It wasn’t quiet or solemn, but loud and full of life. They were remembering how God liberated their ancestors from slavery and dreaming aloud: Could this be the moment it happens again?
And then, in the middle of that meal, Jesus gets up and kneels to wash their feet.
It wasn’t just unexpected, it was strange. The kind of act that unsettles everyone in the room.
And maybe that’s the point.
Because real humility unsettles.
It disrupts the systems that climb and conquer.
It unlearns power as control and relearns it as a love that bends low.
That’s what we see in the way Jesus serves. Not charity. Not pity. Love — embodied, gritty, disarming love. He didn’t wash their feet to make a point but to restore dignity. He turned power upside down. He met their longing for liberation with a revolutionary act of humility and servanthood.
When we feel powerless, longing for liberation to come again, there is some hope in knowing we can continue this kind of revolution and can see it around us daily.
It looks like a welcoming smile and new pyjamas, or a hygiene kit that actually suits your needs. It looks like a meal made with consideration of dietary needs and the option of seconds, and linens that have been cleaned with purpose on a bed made with intention. It looks like grabbing a mop without complaint or pausing to sit with someone who’s hurting. It looks like a community that shares, even when it has little. It looks like presence without performance.
The world says power, performance, and dominance are how you get ahead. But this is where Jesus still kneels — and how we live out our Mission to share His love, meet human needs, and be a transforming influence — in the chaos, in the moment, in the mess and mystery of lives too often dismissed.
Before the pain of the cross, there was the table — alive with joy, longing, memory, and messy, real love.
Before betrayal, there was friendship.
Before death, there was dinner.
And maybe that’s the part of the story we need to remember. The table is the revolution — coffee rings, crumbs, dirty plates and all. A table big enough for doubt, for betrayal, for love. A table where people bring their whole selves, not filtered, not perfect, and are still welcomed. Where revolution begins, not with dominance, but with deep, embodied humility.
So this Holy Week, we’re not putting on a show. We’re just showing up. Setting the table, picking up the towel, tending to each other’s feet, stories, pain, hope, as we strive to be “the hand of God, in the heart of the city.”
– Erin
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