A blood sacrifice had once saved the people.
He thought on this as the others ate and talked quietly among themselves, as the women came to refill the cups with wine and the baskets with the unleavened bread. When his eyes fell on Christ Jesus he was taken by his radiant presence and another thought came, like a fish glimmering below the surface of a stream:
He is that image handed down from generation to generation. Jesus is the true Passover lamb! He must die to save Israel!
Full with this realisation he looked about him but realised that none of his fellows had seen it, they were hanging on his master’s words.
‘I have desired to eat this Passover with you,’ he said to them, ‘before I suffer my sacrifice…for I say to you that I will not eat again until the Kingdom of God has fulfilled its task in my body.’
He took a basket full with unleavened bread and gave thanks for it and began breaking it into small pieces and handed it to those present.
‘This bread is like my body, which I shall sacrifice for you. A time will come when you will not see me though I am within your hearts. When you eat of the bread, which is made from wheat, remember what I am telling you, that you will be eating of my body, which will have become one with the earth.’
Taking the jug of wine then he gave thanks and filled a jasper cup and said, ‘Drink this among yourselves.’
He lifted the cup high.
‘When you drink wine made from grapes remember, you will be drinking of my blood, which I will have shed for you. Look at this cup. In times to come, when you shall not see me, take comfort, for I will be with you in your soul in the same way that the wine sits in this cup.’ His countenance looked about the group. ‘I will be in the hearts of all, even those who do not love me.’
‘We all love you!’ said Philip.
‘You may say that, Philip, but even now one among you at this table will betray me.’
John saw anxiety scurry over those faces in the group, like a light disturbs mice in a dark room. Whispers and looks and wisps of glances were exchanged and all around men fell into disbelief, moving their hands this way and that way.
‘Who is it Lord. Is it, I?’ one man after another asked.
At this point John felt as though he were entering a dream. Quietly Lazarus-John, the beloved of his Lord, came into the room. To John’s mind he carried a basin and a pitcher and on seeing him the others began to mumble and to argue among themselves, not as to the betrayer but as to who was closest to their master. In his heart John, son of Zebedee, felt no desire to be greater than the one who was raised from the dead. In fact, he had felt a certain kinship with the beloved of his master. His raising had meant that some strange mystery was affixed to Lazrus, which John did not fully comprehend, but which he knew in his soul to be of profound significance.
In this dream, he saw his master lay aside his garments and gird himself with a towel. He saw him pour water into a basin, which he brought to the table. No man knew what he was about to do until he knelt and started removing the sandals from Andrew’s feet. Andrew seemed astonished when his master washed them. All were amazed as his master proceeded to the next disciple, and the next.
He continued to wash their feet, one by one, and while he did so he said to them, ‘Who is greater, the one who sits at the table or the one who serves him? Is it not he who sits at the table? But I sit at the table and yet I also serve those whom I love. For you are like my feet and hands and arms,’ he said to them, ‘what would I do without you? Just as the head must bow down in loving, humble service to all that lives below it, so must I bow down before you who are a part of me…’
He came to Simon-Peter and Simon-Peter, aghast, fell to shaking his head, ‘No! No! I shall never let you wash my feet!’
Christ Jesus looked up with merry eyes, ‘But Peter, my brother, if I do not wash your feet you cannot be a part of me!’
Simon-Peter changed his mind, ‘Lord! Not my feet only, then,’ he said, and put both his feet into the bowl, ‘but also my hands, and my head! My whole body!’
There was a quiet murmur of laughter among them.
‘Your feet are the lowermost part of your body, they help you to stand on the earth,’ he instructed, wiping them with the towel, ‘When they are clean your body rejoices. But your soul defiles your body when it is bound by passions.’
John of Zebedee came awake now and saw that Christ Jesus sat at the table as before and he was saying, ‘For this reason your soul must not be your master, but you must rather be the master of your soul, or you will pollute your body. All of you who sit with me represent various degrees of perfection. You, I can lead to the Father, for you are clean and unpolluted, all except the one whose soul has mastery over his body and whose passions have taken control of him.’