At the Threshold - The Easter Week Series
Elizabeth Moore
“Some say the love of God can cause a man
to faint, plow him down,
drive him mad, take him
wholly to the ground…”
Wednesday. Hump day. The weird day in the middle where we don't know if we’re motivated or just over it.
This is where we find Jesus: approaching the gateway, the threshold, the middle ground between the journey and the arrival.
We pause and gather, watching and shuddering, marveling that He might have the audacity to step across. To do the unthinkable.
We watch the face of the donkey-rider, the foot-washer, the table-turner. The Human. The Healer. The Mystery. We see the calm of his resolve, the moment of surrender. We see the tortuous struggle of decision, the anxious drops of life blood already soaking the dust.
And there, at the threshold, in the moment right before nothing else can be done—He kneels. We hear the far off rattling of swords and thirty pieces of silver, but He kneels.
The Man—the one we thought would ravish us into the intoxicating delight of an immediate Kingdom—takes off his clothes and wraps a towel around His waist.
Without a shred of shame in His eyes, He bends to wash our feet. Resting in the full knowledge of Who He Is—He serves.
He takes our feet upon his lap. It has to be this way. He designed it to be this way.
“Unless I wash you, you have no part with me.”
So we let Him. Uncomfortably and reluctantly, we let Him. We hear the crescendo of the betrayers, and we're confused by his calm in the chaos.
How could you ride into town like the Messiah and then stoop to wash our feet? Who does this make you? Who does this make me?
And He says, “Go and do likewise.”
Serve. Stoop. Scorn the shame and know who you are.
So on Wednesday, we stoop and kneel around the threshold of what’s coming. We hear the accusers. They’re almost at the door. But for a few final moments, we’re with Jesus, communing with Him, drinking His blood that soaks the dust.
We’re asking questions and not getting answers. But we’re with Him, and for now, that’s enough.