The Night Love Took A Towel

By: Dr. Rian Adams

Maundy Thursday, Footwashing, and a Son’s Grace

There’s a sacrament we almost forget. It doesn’t shimmer with stained glass or echo through processional hymnals. It doesn’t trend or photograph well. No gold leaf icons, no viral hashtags, no booming preacher voice. It arrives quietly—awkwardly, even—and only if we dare to take off our shoes. Footwashing. That’s its name. But its soul is deeper than ritual. It’s raw. Tender. Earthbound. Holy in a way that most of us aren’t quite comfortable with.

Maundy Thursday–The Hidden Sacrament.

Maundy Thursday brings it out of hiding every year. We gather, hear the command we’ve memorized—“Love one another as I have loved you”—and expect bread and wine, the stripping of the altar, the slow ache of Gethsemane. But in the middle of all that gravity? A bowl. A towel. And feet. Real ones. Tired, worn, dry. The part of us we try to hide. Most Episcopal churches offer it. Few lean into it. Some avoid it altogether because it’s just so human. Too human, maybe.

To wash someone’s feet is to say: “I will touch your dust.” And to have yours washed? That’s another level. That’s saying, “Here. This is the part of me that’s cracked. I didn’t lotion it. I didn’t plan for this. But I’ll let you hold it anyway.” And deep down, we all ache for that. Because even if we serve and pour ourselves out, something in us still longs to be seen. Not in a role. Not in our usefulness. But in our need.

When A Child Taught Me Grace!

A few years ago, I knelt on a cold concrete floor and washed my wardens’ feet. It was Maundy Thursday. I had hoped—God, I hoped—that the water would soften something between us… That grace might do what meetings and emails never could.

But when I finished, they were motionless, silent, and watching. The basin passed, and the towels moved, but no one came to wash my feet.

I told myself it didn’t matter. Priests serve. That’s the vow. But something in me—something tender and tired—cracked. Not from pride. But from that quiet ache that whispers, You’re human too. You need mercy, too.

I was exhausted then—physically, emotionally, spiritually. The low-grade hemorrhage of depression, the death-by-a-thousand-papercuts from a small but determined faction who made it clear our family wasn’t enough. Not productive enough. Not polished enough. Not their vision of “The Episcopal Church” enough. The unspoken message: You’re expendable.

And then—this boy. My boy. He didn’t quote Jesus. He embodied him. He didn’t preach grace. He poured it. No transaction. No test. Just a child, kneeling beside me, saying what no adult dared say: You matter. Even when you’re not useful.

That night, I understood. Maundy Thursday isn’t about performing. It’s not about pristine rituals or perfected relationships. It’s about the wild scandal of a God who kneels. Who meets us not at our best—but at our lowest. Our filthiest. Our most forgotten.

And in that thin space—between towel and tears, between child and priest—the Spirit came.

She did not arrive with fanfare. She came wrapped in boyhood. In silence. In grace that asked nothing, and gave everything.

Footwashing Is Sacramental.

Footwashing isn’t a “required sacrament,” but it is sacramental in every sense of the word. It is tactile theology. It is Eucharist for the soles of our feet. It is kenosis—self-emptying love—turned loose in the most awkward and vulnerable way possible. Because grace isn’t always sterile, sometimes it smells like oil, feels like warm water, and echoes in silence so loud it undoes you.

Maybe that’s why we avoid it. The Eucharist offers a little distance. But footwashing? It dares us to uncover our most human parts—our walk, our weariness, our wounds—and lets someone hold them without shame. And that’s terrifying. But it’s also the Gospel.

Jesus Taught Discipleship With A Towel

So what if this year, you let it happen? What if you let someone kneel before you, not as your inferior, but as your Christ? What if you knelt before another—not to prove something, but because love cannot stay standing when there is need? What if you dared to believe that this night—this Holy Thursday—is not just history? Not just a stop on the liturgical calendar. But a revolution wrapped in a towel.

We forget that Jesus didn’t just give us bread and wine. He gave us water. He gave us each other. He gave us a commandment—to love like He loves. And sometimes, that means kneeling. Sometimes, that means we stop hiding.

So take off your shoes.

Let yourself be known.

Let love touch the place you’ve tried to clean up, cover up, or carry alone.

Because this night…
this strange, sacred, quiet night…
isn’t about being clean.
It’s about being loved anyway.

And now, a poem—for the breaking open.

“The Basin Remembers”

The basin never forgets
the tremble in a child’s hands
as they lower it beneath the feet
of someone who’s forgotten they matter.

The towel remembers the weight
of feet too tired to pretend anymore—
the kind that have walked through grief,
through shame, through invisible wars.

The water knows the names
we don’t say out loud,
the sins we carry like stones in our shoes,
the prayers we whisper with clenched teeth.

It knows the secrets of our soles,
the maps of our wandering,
the ache of places we’ve stood too long
waiting to be chosen.

But oh—when grace touches skin,
when kneeling becomes resurrection,
when tears mix with the water
and make something holy…

Even heaven holds its breath.

Because in that moment,
the Gospel doesn’t need words.
Only a bowl.
A towel.
And a soul willing to kneel
until love is all that remains.