what did Jesus know?
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what did Jesus know when he stripped his clothes and girded in a towel smirked with a servant’s smile? what did he know as water trickled through his fingers smeared with grime and sweat? did he watch the darkened liquid race over his hands and burrow in the cracks of calices worn from years of labor in his father’s shop? did he hesitate when fragrances of earthworn feet trailed past his bearded face and drown in his nostrils? did his heart race as layers of dirt and filth, built for days and days soaked, cracked, and simply wiped away? is that how he could smile at the pebble-of-the-church’s bipolar requests commanding with a question, pressing against this potent action? and did his heart race when he kneeled low before the face of one now given wholly over in his mind to the devil in disguise? did Jesus quibble? did he pause and wring the cloth, letting each brown drop plink-plink-plank into the bowl, counting the cost, waiting and washing, washing and waiting, for a murmur, a whimper, just a whisper from his poisoned brother? did each liquid ripple remind him of the cup of thick black wine fragrant, rotten, sopping with the filth of all mankind? did he realize, even now, what horror it would be to lift and sip and down the whole thing spirit, soul, body, til it wrenched inside, seared like fire through his veins; taking him down, down, down, yes, down to the lowest place; beyond even the bearded faces of nominal tradesmen; beyond wealth stolen by the dirty and desperate; beyond tombs washed in white; and tears bleeding from the corners of the whore’s swollen eyes; beyond space, beyond time, beyond broken ladders in the race toward heaven, beyond the bent bondage of kings like herod, as pharaohs upon pharaohs upon pharaohs who no matter how long you’d plague ‘em sayin’ ‘let my people go’ there’d never be a curse fierce enough to break the heart of unfeeling, unloving, unopened? and oh, did Jesus recall that desert moment just before hunger struck him when man’s inhumanity to man leaned thrice on his shoulder and whispered the one word by which he might escape this putrid fate of sipping deathwater? if only, if only, if only he’d taken that offering a mere three years ago— one knee, that’s all it would’ve taken, just one, maybe not even a knee just a nod, a gulp, a slouch of his shoulders, maybe after being deprived of touch, of food, of help, that very hour with barely a word he could’ve breathed away this fragrant fate wafting in his face? it could’ve been so easy, so fast, the most efficient way to get the kingdom going, get those keys and get the world growing again, while ever-knowing the fate of man would lay fettered to the wrists of no human. no, no, what he knew then he knew now, he knew it three years deeper and so familiar with man’s inhumanity, and who it was that tore the soul so pure, entangling it with insanity, in handcuffs of silver and gold, promises unmade, cajoled, the light of the godhead darkened just enough to curse the world he created for a serpent and a son for a battle lost to become a battle one with deathwater dripping, aromas of sweat and feces and failure rising from dirt, breath still trapped inside earth. and i wonder now, if he swallowed hard and opened his ear to hear that Voice in the garden who drawing near with a cup darker even than blood personally denied the request of the only Son of God, sending angels instead to strengthen the body and the soul for when flesh is weak the spirit is full of potential aching, shaking like the ripples forming in water dripping down his wrists and splashing on the floor of an ordinary room in this late hour, where the scents of lamb and bitter herbs wafted over befuddled men’s beards as they watched him undress his cloak and sash and in nakedness wrap himself with the garments of an ordinary servant and smirk at the guests of his private banquet, and the billions of faces those twelve represented; was it anything to him to bow before the chosen, and ache with the broken, and wash the dirt once stolen from the feet of adam, lifted by his hand and touched, and held, and known in this moment. did Jesus cower, cajole, gripe or complain? did he grimace, or sneer, or huff, or gag? did he pause to consider or did he already know, what the blood and that body could become when dipped low in the blackest wrath from his friends’ skin and soul speaking a lesson still being glimpsed and given over and over and over and over and over again? “you do not realize now,” he said, “but you shall understand,” and he bent, and he bared, and he washed, and endured with full obedience, knowing the smell, the faces, the pigment of those whom God embraced and gave to him. he stepped into something we’re only beginning to glimpse; those who felt the touch of his hand, the sound of his voice, and watched him bow low, spoke of this moment only in whispers (and shouts)— for now, you and i can only wonder with them, our dear Jesus, what did You know?