3-29-18 WASH Maundy Thursday

It took five decades of living for me to discover the delight of a pedicure. While issues with nerves in my feet make it less pleasurable to experience the pedicure itself, the final result feels liberating to to my calloused soles. Even in the dead of winter I wear sandals, for various reasons, so my sorry feet get a little worn and weary and a little dirty and dry. My every-days usually begin with a shower, but by bedtime my feet are ready for a nice washing. I always sleep better with clean feet, and I feel so blessed to have fresh water so readily available.

Today, as part of my preparations for Easter, I read in the New Testament book of John, giving extra attention to chapter 13. Holy Thursday, or Maundy Thursday, is a great day to read John chapter 13. Go ahead, it's only one chapter. You can do it.

I was especially struck by verse 10:

Verse 10, as I read it, refers to Jesus telling his apostles that they're already clean, in the more spiritually holistic sense. All that needed to be washed, at that moment, were their feet. He took this opportunity to tell them they were all clean, spiritually, except for one. (That one was Judas.) I think it's interesting that He would note the fact that they were clean men. I guess He wanted them to really know that they were OK. They probably didn't get what He was talking about until much later. Funny how that happens to us humans.

I don't think there is a single thing that was done during Jesus' ministry that was coincidental. I mean, He is the most intelligent and creative soul in the past, present and future of this earth, so I am pretty sure He knew exactly what he was doing and what He chose to say, especially during his final hours with his disciples. 

So, after He had washed all of their feet and was sitting again, He asked them to tell Him what he had just done. Rhetorically, perhaps, because He answered his own question. What He seemed to be doing, looking back on it, was setting the stage for a new commandment. In the past, Jesus had been dutiful to testify about keeping God's commandments. If He had new perspective to bring, He usually gave it in the form of parables, which could be safely and broadly interpreted. But now, when the wheels had been set in motion, He could speak plainly. He was finally, beautifully, emboldened. He had always, always, been empowered; but for so long, in order to fulfill His ministry, he had to be restrained. I inhale as I think about the kingly boldness He exhibited repeatedly after he returned to Jerusalem on that donkey.

Maundy Thursday, the day that would end in the darkness of a Garden, was the day that brought to mankind forevermore one distinct new commandment. "Maundy" is based on the Latin word mandatum, which means "command, or order." 

Love One Another - it's a Christian mandate. Except there is more, and we sometimes forget that something more, but I think it's really important. We are commanded to love each other as He loved his apostles. With exactness, with purity, with reverence, with expectation but with an embracing sense of brotherhood. With forgiveness, with patience, but without dismissing out of compassion that which is against the other commandments of God. To Him, actually doing what is commanded was as absolute as 2 + 2 = 4. We of the let's-love-the-way-it-feels-good-to-love mentality get a little confused, and boy does the Adversary use that against us. Loving like Jesus loved requires serious spiritual intelligence.

I hope for the focus and determination I need to prayerfully study-out the way Jesus loved while he was on the earth. He came, after all, to give us the pattern. I need to lay myself down on His pattern.

Tonight is the anniversary of that holy event where Jesus broke bread and initiated the sacrament, a sort of "feet washing" ordinance we repeat weekly, that helps keep us spiritually clean. It was the night when He felt the sting of betrayal, the incomprehensible burden of atoning for the weaknesses of humankind, and the loneliness of the withdrawal (to what degree I do not know) of His most faithful and devoted companion. Imagine how weary He must have been when finally they raised Him onto that cross. 

Oh, my heart!

Tonight, at the close of Lent, I finish with my own witness that He lives, as He lived. I believe this, and trust it as it directs my daily actions. I believe that He loves me, with a perfect love. And I want to love Him, and my brothers and sisters who share my faith as well as those who don't, with increasing Christlike perfect love. While I have given, in my Lenten offering, many words to bring me closer to Him and to those I love, in the end there are no words to adequately express my heart.

Let my life testify where words fail.

Tomorrow, Good Friday, let's pause to remember. The heartache of loss is such a beautiful indigo wash against the brilliant landscape of hope that was given to all mankind on that Easter morn.

He is mine,
and I am His

If ye know these things, happy are ye if ye do them. John 13:17
A happy Easter tide to one and all.

Love, Cori

ONE SMALL BOY

We humans are creatures of repetition. Come to think of it, this whole Earth is based on repetition, spinning faithfully on her axis, turning our faces to the sun regardless of our righteousness or unrighteousness. She just keeps on spinning, shifting dutifully so seasons come and go. Repetition. We who breathe require rest in regular intervals; we repeatedly nourish and cleanse our bodies; we put one foot in front of the other over and over again just to get where we want to be. We are replete with “repeat”.

Some things we repeat so we can consciously remember them. I listen to the toddlers in my life repeat their ABC’s, and within a very short while they are stringing letters together to make words. My guitar students place their fingers on the fret board of their guitars in certain patterns: “OK now, strum, 2,3,4…off,2,3,4…back to the pattern,2,3,4….Eventually they go to the chord they want without having to look, then eventually their fingers fall into place without even thinking of it as a pattern. Their fingertips are perfectly callused, their tendons and muscles are accustomed to pinching the string against the wooden neck…it all becomes second nature.

Even the term “second nature” alludes to the power of repetition. We shed our first natural state to take on a second one, like a butterfly sheds her cocoon, like a cicada molts and leaves the old flesh behind.

Night before last we all gathered around my milk glass cake plate, atop which was stacked a yummilicious fresh German’s Chocolate Cake. We lit candles and sang our massively harmonic Happy Birthday to You and David leaned over with his grandkids to blow out the candles. We have repeated this scenario for many years, many more than David would like to admit, though I think it wholly worthy of shouting that the world has had him this long. Birthdays are so great, in my thinking, because they allow us to remember someone in very physical and meaningful ways, without feeling like we are being exclusive and without hurting the feelings of other people we love. We are permitted to focus, to celebrate the fact that someone who has changed our lives was born in the same time and space that we lived on this earth.

Some birthdays we celebrate after the person has finished their earthly journey. There are national holidays assigned to give us pause, so that we will remember them and what they represent. This is a good tradition.

I’m not sure of this, because I have not researched it, but I am sort of guessing that the oldest birthday we celebrate as a people is the one we cherish on the 25th of December. Even though this is thought to be a different day than his actual birthday, the fact that we set apart a specific time to celebrate his birth is good enough. It’s not the exact moment that matters as much as the fact that there was a moment at all. And though we have not always celebrated in such a fantastic way as the civilized world has done the past century of so, the fact that there have been more than two thousand years that the earth’s cycle has repeated herself between his birthdays is really worth noting. A thousand years of Christmas days…and then again, a thousand more.

When I was working on the creation of songs for my latest Christmas album, I found the following tidbit:

A medieval hymn, written near the time the Christian calendar was set, says this-

"Though Christ in Bethlehem, a thousand times be born,

Unless he's born in you, your heart is still forlorn."

I was at the time working on another Christmas song, which remains unfinished, because I could not let go of these words. I thought of all the people on this earth who celebrate Christmas with a tree and presents and some form of culinary delights. I thought of how this holiday brings people to a place of sharing and giving, and all that is good. But for those who will go back, there is so much more. Back to the stable, to the manger, to the babe. His coming was so pivotal we changed our calendars to center on that day in that year.

We repeat the story over and over. We repeat to remember.

Today is Thursday. Not just any Thursday.

Remember.

There was a chamber in the upper portion of a house in a far away city in a far away time, and in that chamber there was a man who wore the cloak of humility though he was a king. And though he was a king he knelt before his servants and washed the mud from their feet. He broke bread, and he poured wine, and he sang and prayed and touched and taught. And he gave a new pattern for them to follow, doing away with the old one. He simply told them to Love, like he had loved, like He still loves.

It is as true and as lovely a story as has ever been told.

We do well to remember.

ONE SMALL BOY

A thousand times the Child is born

A silent night in a little town

With a thousand angels looking down

On One Small Boy

A simple stall; a manger bed

A brilliant star overhead

A thousand tears his mother shed

For One Small Boy

He is come Emmanuel

Holy one, Emmanuel

A thousand years of Christmas days

And then again a thousand more

And still we come and we adore

This One Small Boy

He is come Emmanuel

Holy one Emmanuel

A perfect life; a noble death

No greater love; no truer friend

In my heart He’s born again

One Small Boy

A thousand times born again

One Small Boy

There is a scripture in the second book of Corinthians that, in a few short words, speaks the volume of a life filled with remembrance.

2 Corinthians 5:17

Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.

When I come to His table; when I willingly lift my hand and accept the offering; when I crush the bread and lift the cup to my lips; not only do I remember for myself my dependency on Him, but I remind Him that I am here…I am trying…I am weak, but I am willing. A thousand times, week after week in a lifetime of Sabbath days…a thousand times… born again.

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Maundy Thursday refers to the Thursday before Easter, the occasion of the Last Supper. The word 'Maundy' comes from the Latin word for commandment, mandatum; referring to the new commandment given that we love one another as He loves us.

(a thousand angels looking down)