The Wonder of Dust and Dirty Feet | Lent Devotional Day 44

Exploring the Meaning of Jesus’ Death
April 2, 2026
Written by: Ben Hartley

The Wonder of Dust and Dirty Feet

Scripture:

1 Before the Festival of Passover, Jesus knew that his time had come to leave this world and go to the Father. Having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them fully.
2 Jesus and his disciples were sharing the evening meal. The devil had already provoked Judas, Simon Iscariot’s son, to betray Jesus. 3 Jesus knew the Father had given everything into his hands and that he had come from God and was returning to God. 4 So he got up from the table and took off his robes. Picking up a linen towel, he tied it around his waist. 5 Then he poured water into a washbasin and began to wash the disciples’ feet, drying them with the towel he was wearing. 6 When Jesus came to Simon Peter, Peter said to him, “Lord, are you going to wash my feet?”
7 Jesus replied, “You don’t understand what I’m doing now, but you will understand later.”
8 “No!” Peter said. “You will never wash my feet!”
Jesus replied, “Unless I wash you, you won’t have a place with me.”
9 Simon Peter said, “Lord, not only my feet but also my hands and my head!”
10 Jesus responded, “Those who have bathed need only to have their feet washed, because they are completely clean. You disciples are clean, but not every one of you.” 11 He knew who would betray him. That’s why he said, “Not every one of you is clean.”
12 After he washed the disciples’ feet, he put on his robes and returned to his place at the table. He said to them, “Do you know what I’ve done for you? 13 You call me ‘Teacher’ and ‘Lord,’ and you speak correctly, because I am. 14 If I, your Lord and teacher, have washed your feet, you too must wash each other’s feet. 15 I have given you an example: Just as I have done, you also must do. 16 I assure you, servants aren’t greater than their master, nor are those who are sent greater than the one who sent them. 17 Since you know these things, you will be happy if you do them.
(John 13:1-17)

Reflection:

The Sunday before Lent began this year, our congregations in The Gathering listened to pastors preach about Jesus washing the feet of his disciples. It is Scripture we usually hear at Maundy Thursday services, but this year it came before Ash Wednesday.
 
It had never occurred to me before that Ash Wednesday, which begins Lent, and Maundy Thursday, which comes at the end, both invite us to consider DUST. On Ash Wednesday we get dust or ashes put on our foreheads; on Maundy Thursday we get dust – or its sweaty equivalent – tenderly wiped off our feet.
 
Both liturgical actions are, at the very least, awkward. Who among us appreciates being told the hard truth, “From dust you have come, to dust you shall return?” Clumsily taking off a sock and a shoe and hobbling forward is not elegant. Too many of us avoid the ritual entirely because we, like Peter, can’t handle even the thought of doing this. The awkwardness and struggle of these rituals is part of the point of good liturgy. It jolts us out of our pedestrian imaginations into the wonder of a radically Christian imagination.  

There is something else that resonates when I contemplate Ash Wednesday and Maundy Thursday together. The service of Ash Wednesday is sometimes called “the imposition of Ashes.” Maundy Thursday comes from the Latin term, mandatum, from which we get the English word, “mandate.” Ashes are imposed. Mandates are given. In churches today, pastors try hard to make showing up at church easy, hospitable, and non-threatening. “No pressure,” we say, when we invite a friend. But on Ash Wednesday and Maundy Thursday Christianity loses the fluffiness we try to put in it. Being a disciple of Jesus is an imposition and involves mandates.
 
And yet, there is a gentleness to the pastor’s touch on my forehead when I hear the words reminding me of the ashes I will become. The tenderness of water and hands on my dusty or grimy feet often moves me to tears. These rituals remind us we are deeply cherished by the Creator of the cosmos. The last two stanzas from Jan Richardson’s Ash Wednesday poem, “Blessing the Dust” (that I’ve amended slightly for Maundy Thursday) expresses this well.
 
…Let us be marked
not for false humility
or for thinking
we are less
than we are

but for claiming
what God can do
within the dust,
within the dirt,
[put on and cleaned off]
within the stuff
of which the world
is made
and the stars that blaze
in our bones
and the galaxies that spiral
inside the smudge
we bear – [and the feet tenderly washed]

—Jan Richardson
from Circle of Grace: A Book of Blessings for the Seasons

Prayer:

Holy God. Help us to draw near to you with the dust and grime that fills our daily lives. Grant us courage to receive the grace of your gentle, cleansing love. Embolden us to follow the mandates of our calling to be servants in this world you so dearly love. For the sake of Christ we humbly pray, Amen.

Here’s the full poem by Jan Richardson for contemplation:

BLESSING THE DUST

All those days
you felt like dust,
like dirt,
as if all you had to do
was turn your face
toward the wind
and be scattered
to the four corners

or swept away
by the smallest breath
as insubstantial—

did you not know
what the Holy One
can do with dust?

This is the day
we freely say
we are scorched.

This is the hour
we are marked
by what has made it
through the burning.

This is the moment
we ask for the blessing
that lives within
the ancient ashes,
that makes its home
inside the soil of
this sacred earth.

So let us be marked
not for sorrow.
And let us be marked
not for shame.
Let us be marked
not for false humility
or for thinking
we are less
than we are

but for claiming
what God can do
within the dust,
within the dirt,
within the stuff
of which the world
is made
and the stars that blaze
in our bones
and the galaxies that spiral
inside the smudge
we bear.

—Jan Richardson
from Circle of Grace: A Book of Blessings for the Seasons
janrichardson.com/books

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