The Last Supper
They are assembled, astounded, bewildered,
round him who, like a sage centered at last,
withdraws from those to whom he once belonged
and flows beyond them as some foreigner.
The former solitude comes over him
which raised him to perform his profound acts;
again he’ll wander in the olive grove,
and those who love him will now run from him.
He summons them to a final meal
and (as a shot shoos birds from sheaves)
he shoos their hand from bread
with his word: they flutter up to him;
they flap about the table anxiously
searching for some way out. But he,
Like an evening hour, is everywhere.
Rainer Maria Rilke
Translated from the German
by David Curzon and Will Alexander Washburn
The bread. The wine.
Take bless break give eat.
He is everywhere.
First, we will wash each other’s feet.
My friends, welcome to the embodied intimacy of Holy Week. There is so much touching, eating, sleeping, sweating, bleeding, breathing, enfleshed living and dying, right up to the tending of the lifeless body that will be laid inside carved stone, back to the body of the earth. On Easter Sunday, that body, with shining breath returned to it, will rise, walk, will even break bread with them again, meeting them in their own bodies, just as they are, right where they are.
And this is where we are, too. About to go over the cliff of ripping trauma as a community of faith, again, holding hands and feet, keeping watch, running away, avoiding, showing up, feeling the grief of it all. This is who we are and how we carve out space inside ourselves to be able to hold the light of Easter morning and become, again, a resurrection people.
“I cannot make any more sense out of “triumphant Christians” than I can out of “conquering servants” or “warrior babies.” If Jesus meant for his followers to rule the world, then why did he teach them to wash feet?” asks Rev. Barbara Brown Taylor.
Let us keep waking into this week as a people who know our own darkness. Let us serve each other so intimately, simply, right where we are so that we may also find our own light.
Blessings on your Holy Week journey,
Sarah Christopher
Associate Pastor
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