I grew up with yearly foot washing as a part of the Easter week. It was considered an important ordinance of the church.
For me, my first time to be a part of it was memorable.
There was a dear Saint in our congregation that we often gave a ride to church, so she and I had a special relationship. She always had pink wintergreen mints in her purse for me, and with them came the assurance of how much she and Jesus loved me.
My mother prepared me for my first foot washing, telling me about Jesus washing his disciples’ feet and how the actual service would be, including that there would be a curtain across the fellowship hall separating the men from the women, and someone dipping clean warm water into a basin. A long linen towel would be wrapped around my waist and then I would kneel down and dip water with my hand up over the person’s feet I would be washing. Then, she said, I would dry their feet, set the basin aside, and stand to give that person a hug.
We would all be singing some of the hymns about surrender, commitment, and the love of Jesus.
When the Thursday night before Easter came, we gathered in the fellowship hall, our chairs in a circle, and a basin for warm water placed at each seat. I sat between my mother and Lilly Moser so I would not be apprehensive.
All went as mother had explained. I was 4 years old and in the company of sincerely committed women of the church. I took this ordinance very seriously.
All went well. I washed Lilly Moser’s old and swollen feet, dried them with the very long towel tied around my tiny self, then stood to hug her. She smelled of lavender as she wrapped her arms around me.
Then came the moment for which I was not prepared… Lilly got down on her swollen, arthritic knees and began to wash my feet. Everything in my young heart was silently crying, “Oh, no! You are not supposed to wash my feet!!” I had heard the Peter part of the story and suddenly knew why he so objected to Jesus’s act of servanthood. I never forgot how difficult and cheerfully Lilly got up from the hard floor and enveloped me with her genuine love for me.
“Where He leads me, I will follow…” the women around me sang, “…follow all the way.”
