After he had washed their feet, had put on his robe, and had reclined again, he said to them, “Do you know what I have done to you? You call me Teacher and Lord, and you are right, for that is what I am. So if I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet. For I have set you an example, that you also should do as I have done to you.” (John 13:12–15)

 Pilate asked him, “What is truth?” After he had said this, he went out to the Jews again and told them, “I find no case against him. But you have a custom that I release someone for you at the Passover. Do you want me to release for you the King of the Jews?” They shouted in reply, “Not this man but Barabbas!” (John 18:38–40)

 Holy Week has a way of refusing our tidy spiritualizations.

 Maundy Thursday is not “a nice symbol.” It is a scene with a body in it: Jesus getting up from the table, taking off his outer robe, tying a towel around his waist, and doing the work nobody respectable volunteers for. Water. Dirt. Skin. Touch. A towel. A bowl. The kind of intimacy you can’t keep theoretical even if you try.

 And Good Friday—at least in John’s Gospel—is not primarily the story of Jesus losing control. It’s the story of Jesus not losing his resolve while everyone else scrambles for self-protection: the disciples, the authorities, the crowd, and the political leader who is about to “do what he has to do.”

 There’s a through-line between the basin and the cross. It’s the same love. The same truth. The same refusal to play by the world’s power games.

 And if I’m honest, those power games are what I’ve been thinking about lately—not in the abstract, but in the kind of real-life mess that makes you lose sleep and pray sentences instead of prayers.

 A couple of years ago I got a heart-stopping phone call in the middle of the night from a friend. She needed someone to come to a local station and pick her up. When I arrived, it became clear she had been through a frightening situation at home and had done the brave thing: she asked for help.

 She was shaken. There were visible marks forming on her wrists. She spoke in a near-whisper, hunched in those hard chairs that seem designed to make a person feel small. She declined medical attention. I didn’t love that decision, but it was her decision, and the officer respected it while carefully documenting what he could.

 I made a quick call home. My family quietly pulled out the couch and made up a bed—no questions, no commentary, no “well, why didn’t she just…?” Just blankets and space and a door that locked.

 It is a strange thing to remember: what I offered that night was not a solution. It wasn’t justice. It wasn’t healing. It wasn’t a neatly tied-up ending.

 It was simply somewhere safe to land.

 And I can’t shake how much that feels like the shape of Maundy Thursday—Jesus, in the last hours before everything collapses, choosing not to preach at people from a distance but to care for them up close. Not as a grand public gesture, but one person at a time. Hands on feet. Water on skin. Tender attention that says, without words: you are not invisible; you matter; you are precious.

 One of the easily-missed details in John 13 is how personal this is. Jesus doesn’t wash feet like he’s checking off a group task. He kneels in front of each disciple, one by one, and attends to them individually. The care is intimate and specific, the kind that doesn’t allow anyone to hide in the crowd.

 And Peter, bless him, resists—not because he’s evil, but because he doesn’t understand what kind of Lord Jesus is. Peter doesn’t want a Lord who kneels. Peter wants a Lord who wins.

 When Jesus kneels anyway, it’s like he’s saying: You will not be saved by staying in control. You will be saved by love that comes close enough to touch the parts you’d rather hide.

 That night at the station, my friend looked like someone trying to fold herself into nothing. The posture of fear does that. The posture of shame does that. Even when the shame does not belong to you, it clings. It finds your shoulders and drags them forward.

 So I sat with her. I didn’t have eloquent theology. I didn’t have a clever answer. I had presence, and a ride home, and a couch.

 In the months and years since, I’ve watched from the sidelines as the situation became an ongoing unraveling: a separation that turned acrimonious, a lot of arguing about money and parenting and details that look neutral on paper but don’t feel neutral when you understand what’s been happening underneath. And always, always, the unspoken thing—the big, heavy thing that people avoid naming because naming it would require choosing reality over comfort.

 And then this week there was a court appearance about the kids.

 My friend came prepared. She’d worked for months. She was not optimistic, but she was ready. The other party came prepared too, with a polished legal presence and the kind of resources that shape outcomes before anyone even speaks.

 But what none of us were ready for were the spectators.

 There were a lot of them. Enough that the judge considered closing the courtroom. They weren’t random; they were there on purpose. And many of them were church people—people connected to a congregation that once held both sides in the same community.

 Only now the lines were drawn. And it was like watching a crowd form.

 Maybe they told themselves they were just being supportive. Maybe they told themselves they were “standing by” someone. Maybe they told themselves they didn’t know the full story, or that it’s not their place, or that families are complicated.

 And families are complicated. That’s true.

 But it is also true that sometimes “it’s complicated” becomes a spiritualized way of saying, I don’t want this to cost me anything.

 Sitting there, hearing a vulnerable person try to speak carefully and calmly about things that don’t translate well into courtroom language, I felt something in my chest crack open.

 Because the whole thing started to feel like another scene I know too well:

 Pilate asked him, “What is truth?”

 Pilate’s question is not really a sincere one. It’s a dismissal—almost a “whatever” kind of shrug. He doesn’t ask because he’s open to being changed by the answer. He asks, and then he walks away. In that reading, the “truth” Pilate recognizes is whatever power can enforce, whatever keeps the peace, whatever prevents a riot, whatever protects his position.

 So he asks the question—and then he leaves it hanging.

 And the hanging question feels painfully familiar.

 It’s the same kind of walking away that happens when someone says, “Well, I wasn’t there,” as though not witnessing harm personally is the same as harm not being real.

 It’s the same walking away that happens when leaders prioritize institutional quiet over actual protection.

 It’s the same walking away that happens when a crowd gathers—not necessarily to shout, but to loom. To communicate, wordlessly, who is believed and who is not. Who has social cover and who does not.

 Pilate famously says he finds no case against him, and yet Jesus ends up condemned anyway. That’s another Good Friday truth we prefer to ignore: innocence does not automatically protect you in a system built to protect itself.

John’s Passion story emphasizes Jesus’ steadiness. The scenes shift between betrayal, arrest, questioning, denial, condemnation but Jesus stays focused. He tells the truth. He refuses to become merely a pawn in someone else’s political or religious calculation. Even when he is treated unfairly, he remains clear about who he is and what he’s here to do.

 There’s also a sharp moment in the interrogation: when Jesus is hit, he doesn’t pretend it didn’t happen. He questions it. He names it. Because nonviolence is not the same thing as accepting mistreatment as if it were normal or deserved. Jesus refuses retaliation, yes—but he also refuses silence.

 That matters to me, because there is a kind of religious talk that confuses “humility” with “staying quiet while harm continues.” There is a kind of piety that baptizes denial. But Jesus does not romanticize harm. He doesn’t call it love. He doesn’t pretend it’s holy. He exposes it.

 And then there is the crowd.

 Pilate offers a choice—Jesus or Barabbas—and the crowd chooses the one who feels more familiar to the world’s way of operating. The tragedy here is not only that Jesus is condemned, but that the machinery of power involves so many participants: the authorities trying to protect their influence, the political leader trying to protect his position, the crowd trying to protect its sense of certainty and control, and even the disciples trying to protect themselves.

 There are so many ways to “hand someone over” without ever touching a hammer.

 That’s what I felt the courtroom was reenacting.

 Not because anyone was literally shouting. Not because everybody had the same motives. Not because people can’t be complex. But because the combined effect of a crowd—especially a crowd with religious credibility—can become its own kind of pressure.

 And if you’ve never been the person who feels the weight of the room, you might not realize how loud it is.

 Maundy Thursday and Good Friday belong together because they expose two competing ways of being religious.

 One way looks like Jesus: love that kneels, love that gets close, love that treats each person as precious, love that serves without humiliating, love that tells the truth without resorting to violence.

 The other way looks like the crowd: religion that keeps appearances intact, protects the powerful, avoids discomfort, and calls that “peace.”

 You see, the foot-washing isn’t just a sentimental object lesson; it upends the social order. In that world, a host doesn’t do a servant’s work. And yet Jesus does. His actions teach what his words will later command: “Love one another.” Not romantic love. Not vague goodwill. But committed, costly, unselfish love that shows up in actual practices of care.

 And yes, this kind of love isn’t naïve. It can be risky. Light exposes what darkness wants hidden. Love that tells the truth will not always be applauded. Sometimes it provokes backlash precisely because it refuses the silence that keeps the system comfortable.

 Which brings me back to that question Jesus asks after he’s finished washing feet:

 “Do you know what I have done to you?”

 Maybe part of the answer is this: Jesus is showing us what power is for.

 Not for dominating. Not for image management. Not for winning. Not for gathering a crowd to intimidate someone weaker.

 Power, in the kingdom of God, is for love. The kind of love that lowers itself. The kind of love that touches dirt without recoiling. The kind of love that treats each person as precious. The kind of love that does not abandon people when things get complicated or costly.

 And then Jesus says it plainly: if I have done this, you ought to do it too.

 Not as theatre. Not as a once-a-year ritual we can perform while leaving the real hurts in our community unaddressed.

 But as a pattern.

 And here is the part I want to say with care, because it’s where people can do a lot of damage with good intentions: “wash one another’s feet” does not mean “endure whatever is done to you.” It does not mean “stay silent for the sake of peace.” It does not mean “protect the image of the community.” It does not mean “forgive quickly so we don’t have to deal with consequences.”

 If anything, Maundy Thursday is a judgment on every spirituality that uses “love” as a cover for denial.

 And Good Friday is a judgment on every system that shrugs at truth while claiming it values justice.

Pilate asks, “What is truth?” and then acts like truth is negotiable.

 Jesus testifies to truth and then is killed for it.

 So if you are reading this and you are carrying a story you cannot tell publicly, I want to say gently: you do not have to make yourself invisible. You do not have to earn care by being “perfect.” You are precious before God. You deserve safety and support and real help.

 And if you are reading this and you are tempted to join a crowd—tempted to “show up” in a way that adds pressure rather than protection—please pause. Ask yourself who is being asked to shrink. Ask yourself who benefits from your presence. Ask yourself whether you are following Jesus into the basin, or following the world into the spectacle.

 Because the measure of our discipleship is not how correct our theology sounds on a good day.

 It’s whether, when love gets real and messy and close, we are willing to pick up the towel.

 As we walk through these holy days, lets see if that we can find the courage to be the ones who stay near the basin. Lets  be a people who offer a safe place to land, who listen with hearts wide open, and who refuse to let the noise of the crowd drown out the quiet, steady voice of Truth.

Blessings today and remember you are Loved, Rev. Lynne

(my thanks to the work done by www.workingpreacher.org for forming much of my thinking for this blog).

Audio File:  Office Hours the Basin and the Spectacle | Podcast by Lynne Gardiner | Listen on audio.com