Cleanse Me From My Sin

“‘Do you understand,' he said,
'what I have done to you?..
If I, then, the Lord and Master,
have washed your feet,
you must wash each other's feet.'"
John 13: 1-15

John twice tells about washing of feet in his gospel. The first time the feet of Jesus are washed by Mary, the sister of Lazarus, and during the last supper he washes the feet of his disciples.
In pious reflections it is often stressed that Jesus showed in this way his humility, the humbleness of his heart. There, definitely is that hint in the story when Jesus says, 'It is I, the Lord and Master, who washes your feet!"
There is another explanation, particularly if you read it in the context of Mary's gesture. She washed his feet because she wanted to show her love. Jesus even said at the time that this story would be told wherever the gospel is proclaimed in remembrance of her.
During his description of the last supper John does not mention the institution of the Eucharist, but he tells us of the washing of the feet. He tells us how Jesus showed his disciples his love just before he would die for them on the cross. Jesus told them that we should do this to each other, to the whole of humankind, in remembrance of him, and, we might add, even of her!

THE STRIPPING OF THE ALTAR
After the Last Supper, events moved rapidly: Jesus prayed in the Garden of Gethsemane where Judas betrayed him with a kiss. He was arrested, beaten, mocked and tried. Condemned to death, he carried his own cross to Golgotha.
As Jesus' life was stripped from Him, so we strip our altar of the signs of seasonal church life, to symbolize Christ's purposeful, redemptive suffering and death for us.