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<strong><img class=”alignleft wp-image-365244″ src=”https://thevillagereporter.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/6-26-24-indesign-kelly.jpg” alt=”” width=”233″ height=”327″ />By: Mike Kelly</strong>
<strong>Retired Pastor</strong>
“A new commandment I give you, that you love one another; just as I have loved you, so you are to love one another” (John 13:34).
These words follow Christ’s act of washing the feet of the disciples just before their last meal together. The Church world calls this Maundy Thursday.
(In the Vulgate translation of the Bible, the Latin for “a new commandment” was mandatum novum which over time and different translations gives us today’s Maundy Thursday.)
On the night before the crucifixion, Jesus demonstrated humble service by washing his disciples’ feet, and said that his followers should follow his example.
Since at least the fourth century, services of foot-washing have been held on the day before Good Friday, with clergy humbling themselves by washing the feet of their congregants. This tradition continues today, with many branches of the Church holding foot-washing services tomorrow night. However, in truth, few churches will see many people turn out for this ancient tradition.
I wonder what Jesus would do today to make his point that we are to love and humbly serve one another? Would he pump our gas for us?
Would he put out our mulch or cut our grass? Would he bag our groceries at the self-checkout lane? Maybe picking up litter on the streets in our neighborhood, or cleaning up spilled food in the grocery aisle?
Or, maybe cleaning the house for an overwhelmed mother? Volunteering to do the chore that everyone “hates” to do.
I can think of a few acts of extreme humble service I have witnessed over the years. I twice saw men go into a house where the husband had committed suicide and replace the mattress and clean the walls and remake the bed before the widow came home from the hospital.
I have seen a man dig a hole in hard August dirt to bury a large dog for a friend with an intellectual disability. I have seen a friend clean up after a Great Dane cut himself and bled over everything and everywhere before the owners got back from the vet.
I have seen neighbors bring food over after a death in the family. I once saw a man hand money to a family where they had just lost their mother and wouldn’t have been able to afford to go to the funeral.
I’ve seen communities come together to paint a widow’s house, to build a home for a veteran. Even people pulling their car over for a funeral procession is an act of humility. Isn’t admitting a mistake an act of humility?
Maybe Jesus still wants us to wash each other’s feet but I suspect he’s more interested in us showing kindness and favor to others in our everyday lives within our cultural context. Living out humility in our interactions with others in the here and now would please him.
How will you show His love? How will you “love one another, just as I have loved you”? It’s not about one night of humble service, it’s about a lifestyle of service that reflects Him to our world.
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<em>Mike Kelly is the founding pastor of Bryan’s Grace Community Church (retired) and Board Chairman of Bryan’s Sanctuary Homeless Shelter and Williams County’s Compassion (free) Medical Clinic.</em>
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