^“When they had sung a hymn, they went out to the Mount of Olives.”

When I was growing up, we always sang a hymn after communion. It was, after all, what Jesus and the disciples had done after the first communion. We never did, however, go to the Mount of Olives. The one seemed a rule, the other a travel luxury.

For the disciples, however, the one was what they always did. Not after communion, mind you, but at the end of the formal meal part of the religious celebration of Passover. The other was what they always did. Not after communion, mind you, but on their way out of Jerusalem, toward Bethany, toward friends, toward the familiar.

For the disciples, apart from some peculiar words and actions by Jesus, this was a normal special night. Special in the sense that we have Christmas traditions. Normal in the sense that we do them every year. What we know of that night are the handful of peculiar things that the Gospel writers wrote down to tell to people who knew the familiar parts of that night quite well.

Out of the hours of that supper, the foot washing, bread eating, wine drinking, and Judas identifying took only a few minutes. They didn’t understand until later how much they meant.

Why do I belabor this?

Because that still happens.

In the middle of today, Jesus may whisper something to you about serving, about dying, about denying, about singing. As you are in the middle of a very familiar meal, a conversation that happens all the time. In the middle of that Jesus may say, “when I talked about washing feet, I was talking about his.”

It may not be with words. Those have already been spoken. It may be with an “oh.”