Holy Week Poem: Thursday

Foot Washing and a New Commandment - Tidings

Maundy Thursday: Towel and Sword

Night gathers early.
The room is dim.
Bread on the table.
Wine holding the last light.

Outside,
boots on stone.
Empire still turns.

Now too:
Propellers in the dark.
A drone circling above sleeping roofs.
The long whistle of a bomb.

Glass
becoming rain.
A child waking into fire.

Inside,
a bowl of water.

He stands,
slips off
his robe,
and takes up
a towel.

No one speaks.
The one
we call Lord
kneels.

Hands
in water.
Water
on skin.
Dust
giving way.

This is where kingdom begins.
Not banners.
Not force.
Not the old grammar of power.
Water.
Hands.
A towel.

He touches what the road has hardened.
He washes what the world refuses to see.

The feet that followed.
The feet that will flee.
The feet that will carry
betrayal into the dark.
Still he kneels.

Then bread.
Before the body, the bread.
Before the wound, the sign.
Before the breaking, the table.

Even Judas
reaches out.
Even that hand
receives bread.

Already turning for the coin.

Silver.
Profit.
The price of a life.

Outside:

screens
lit blue.
Men in rooms far from blood.
A thumb on a button.
A market opening at dawn.
War shares rising.
Someone cashing in before morning.

Inside,
only this:

Love one another.
As I have
loved you.

Church-this is the part
we cannot escape.
He knelt
with a towel.

Why do we rise
with missiles?

Why do we bless
steel, when he blessed
bread?
Why do we chase
the coin, while cities burn?

He gave us a basin.
We build arsenals.
He gave us a table.
We build
borders,
walls,
checkpoints.

He gave us
bread and wine.
We trade in oil,
in bodies,
in fear.

The night
deepens.
The trees
seem to listen.

Peter reaches for the sword.
Still believing force can save.

Steel flashes.
A body flinches.
An ear falls.
And then:

No.

Put it away.
Not like this.
Never like this.

Not by conquest.
Not by fear.
Not by bombs
released from clean hands.
Not by drones that never see the face.

The towel is still wet.

The bowl still trembling.

The hands that washed feet
will be bound before dawn.

The body
that knelt
will be stripped
by noon.

He refuses the sword.
Empire kills him anyway.

Still
he does not
return violence.

Still
he gives himself.

Still
he breaks
like bread.

Still
he pours out
like wine.

Church-
the towel is still in our hands.
What are we making with it?

It waits there.
Heavy with water.
Heavy with dust.
Heavy with mercy.I

want to believe

we still know
what it is for.

Rev'd Jon Swales Easter 2026

Jon reads his poem here: https://youtu.be/8sxHN-xskNo

Rev'd Jon Swales is a prophetic theologian and poet who ministers to marginalised and vulnerable adults at Lighthouse, Leeds www.cruciformjustice.com