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Maundy Thursday, March 20, 2008
This Is Love …
a sermon on John 13:1-17,
31-35
by David C. Mauldin
Westminster Presbyterian Church, Mobile, Alabama
Jesus
was a deep thinker. He lived very deeply because he expressed in his actions the
deep truths of God. If we understand what he does, we will understand who he is
and what he is about. Yet so often, his clear, simple actions are so layered
with meaning that we get tangled up in a single layer or in a wrong meaning, and
we miss the point. If this happens to you, don’t blame yourself. Nicodemus was a
respected teacher and, it seems from the little we know of him, a thoughtful
man. Yet when Jesus spoke to him of being born from above, or born again (the
Greek word has both meanings), he became tangled and sounded foolish asking,
“How can someone who is grown go back into the womb to be born a second time?”
The disciples notoriously get mixed up. A case in point: Simon Peter in
tonight’s scripture reading. First he doesn’t want Jesus to wash his feet. He
has too much respect for Jesus to allow such a thing. Jesus states very bluntly,
“Look, you do not understand what I am doing. Later you will.” Peter isn’t
interested. He replies, “You will never wash my feet.” This won’t be the last
time tonight Peter makes a brash claim he will regret. Jesus explains, “Unless I
wash you, you have no share with me.” Participation is not optional. In the face
of Jesus’ determination, Peter not only relents, he goes too far the other way.
“Oh, well in that case … here, wash my hands too, and my head!” Jesus again has
to rein him in. Do you think Jesus ever got exasperated with his disciples?
Think he ever gets that way with us? On the night he was betrayed, Jesus got up
from the table, took off his outer robe, tied a towel around himself, poured
water into a basin, and washed his disciples’ feet. Such a simple thing to do.
Slaves and servants or the lowest member of the family hierarchy did the same
thing every day in every household in first century Palestine. It had to be
done. People did a lot of walking. They went in bare feet or sandals mostly. The
land was dry and dusty. Feet got dirty and had to be washed. In itself, there
was nothing remarkable about what Jesus did. Yet it was remarkable—even
profound—because of who did it and why. That same night Jesus shared a meal with
his disciples. Again, this is something extremely routine. They did this all the
time. But it gains meaning when we recognize it was a Passover meal. Suddenly it
is a celebration of God’s promises and faithfulness. It is about God saving his
people. When Jesus refers to the bread as his body and the wine as his blood—and
bear in mind that drinking blood was abhorrent to Jews; the
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Old Testament strictly forbids it—the supper gains additional meaning. Finally,
when Jesus dies on the cross, its significance becomes clear. Jesus had
appropriated the Passover to explain why he was going to die and what his death
would mean. In a similar way, his washing the feet of his disciples carries
several layers of meaning stacked on top of one another. They are all
interrelated. Take away one and you lose the others. But we can look at each one
by itself as we try to understand what Jesus intended to communicate by his
surprising act of humility and love. Thus, we will consider the foot washing as
an example, as an act of love, and as a sign. First, and most obviously, the
foot washing is an example we are to follow. Jesus hit his disciples over the
head with this one: “I have set you an example, that you also should do as I
have done to you.” Even this, however, has not turned out to be quite as simple
as we might have hoped. Some Christians, taking Jesus’ words here seriously and
literally, have concluded that Jesus intended to institute foot washing as a
kind of sacrament or ordinance in the church. The vast majority has not. We do
not. Why? And how do we know we are right not to do so? The simplest answer I
have is, the earliest church under the apostles did not practice foot washing.
At least if they did, nothing of it has survived in the New Testament. The Book
of Acts shows the first Christians baptizing and sharing the Lord’s Supper. It
says nothing about washing feet. Other Christians have realized washing feet is
not mandatory for the church, but have found it to be a meaningful act of
worship. Thus, often it is the leaders of a congregation who will on Maundy
Thursday wash the feet of all or part of the congregation. This can be an
intimate, moving experience. But again it is not simple, because by doing it the
leaders are self-consciously identifying themselves with Jesus. Jesus played the
role of a slave; now we play the role of Jesus. Humility becomes a badge of
honor. At least that’s a danger to watch out for. I believe that when Jesus
called his act an example, he meant it in a general, not a specific way. He
intends for us to imitate, not the specific act of washing feet, but rather
humble service. His act defined what leadership looks like among his followers.
It is not a rigid hierarchy based on power and privilege. It is not a pyramid
scheme in which those at the top reap the rewards. Instead it’s the opposite.
Leaders serve. Everybody serves in humility and love. If you don’t serve with
humility and love, you are not following Jesus. I have a modern day example that
I believe shows someone following Jesus’ example the way he intended. It is a
true story. A single mother with a newborn was struggling mightily to stay sane.
Every parent can attest to the difficulty of making that adjustment. Anyone who
does it alone faces exponentially more difficulty. One day a friend from her
church came by to see how this mother and her baby were doing. She was exhausted
of course. The friend said, “I want to do something to really help you. What
needs to be done the most?” The mother, near the end of her rope, answered
This Is Love … 3
honestly, “The bathroom needs to be cleaned.” You see the parallel. Cleaning a
bathroom is dirty, intimate work. You never want anyone from outside your home
to see your bathroom messy, much less filthy. To clean someone else’s filthy
bathroom is not glamorous work. But her friend did it. This friend cleaned and
scrubbed until the whole bathroom was shiny and fresh. That, I believe, is the
kind of thing Jesus wants us to do for one another. The first layer of meaning
is: Jesus set an example. The second layer of meaning goes deeper than the
first: Jesus loved his disciples. “Having loved his own, he loved them to the
end [or, to the utmost].” The foot washing works as an example because it was an
act of love. Love, of course, always takes the form of action. The feelings we
usually call “love” motivate us to love, but real love is always how you treat
someone. When you say, “I love you,” what you are really doing is making a
promise to treat the other person lovingly. And they hear it that way. Jesus
genuinely loved his disciples. Notice, by the way, that Judas was still present
to have his feet washed. Jesus loved even him. … Jesus loves even us. The gospel
starts a movie playing in our minds. We see Jesus wrapped in a towel, washing
his disciples’ feet, and we see what love is. Humble service, caring, all the
rest. Jesus has taught us how to love by loving us. And this leads us to the
third layer of meaning. The foot washing was an example, and it works because it
was a genuine act of love; but as an act of love and humility—and cleansing—it
pointed beyond itself to Jesus’ death and what that means. John of all the
gospel writers is most emphatic that no one took Jesus’ life; he gave it. He
went to the cross in much the same way he washed his disciples’ feet. He took
off his glory and wrapped himself in flesh. He stooped down. He humiliated
himself. He rendered a necessary service. He did it as an act of love. And, the
result is, we are clean. Washing feet was a sign. Its deepest meaning goes
beyond an object lesson on humble service. What Jesus did portrayed the
significance of his death. The Christian understanding of the cross goes back to
Jesus himself. His disciples did not understand at first, but after the
resurrection they could look back and make sense of cryptic things Jesus did and
said, things like the Lord’s Supper and washing their feet. At the time, they
were stuck in the first meaning, and probably they recognized the second as
well, though even these confused them. Later they would see how the whole thing
pointed like a sign toward the cross. Also, after his resurrection, Jesus opened
the scriptures to them to help them grasp the truth that had eluded them: The
Messiah had to suffer and die. This was more than evil perpetrated by wicked
men; it was the climax of God’s plan to rescue his people
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from sin, evil, and death. It was God’s answer to all that is wrong in the
world. It is how he would conquer evil and set things right again. So looking
back to the things Jesus had said and done, and looking to the scriptures,
Jesus’ disciples came to share his view of the cross. And it is the Christian
view to this day. On the cross God loved the world. On the cross he gave his
only Son. And the result is that all who have faith in him do not perish but
have everlasting life. Jesus died for you, to cleanse you of your sin and
reconcile you to God. Have you ever considered what a bizarre and unlikely
explanation this is for the crucifixion of a Galilean prophet? If he had not
been raised, if he had not given them these little signs, … well, it strikes me
as incomprehensible. They could have thought about it in so many other ways.
They might have said he wasn’t the Messiah at all and gone looking for
another—or given up on Messiahs. They might have said he was indeed a prophet,
and trusted God to receive his soul. So many possible ways to think about the
cross, but only one gets it right—the one that goes back to Jesus himself. “The
Son of God loved me and gave himself for me.” You see, then, how rich with
meaning the foot washing was. It is an example for us to follow. It was an act
of love for his closest friends (and one enemy). And it is a sign revealing his
love for us on the cross. Allow me to conclude by pointing quickly toward the
last part of our reading, the new commandment. We call today “Maundy Thursday”
because of this verse. Maundy is from the Latin mandatum, meaning “commandment.”
Jesus said: “A new commandment I give to you: Love one another as I have loved
you.” The part that was new, of course, was the example Jesus had given, not
only by washing feet, but also by dying for us. Jesus defined the mark by which
his disciples would be known: love for one another. When we fail to love, our
witness also fails. When we get love right, the world sees the power of the
gospel. Our lives, we ourselves, become a sign, pointing toward the cross and
Jesus’ love for all people. I am not going to say more about that because I have
always thought telling Christians they ought to love one another is like telling
high school students they ought to show interest in the opposite sex. They don’t
need to be told. Just get a few of them together almost anywhere and little
romances pop up like weeds on a poorly tended lawn. We don’t need to be told to
love. Jesus has already commanded us to do it. All we need is to be shown what
love really is, and Jesus did that for us, because without him, we wouldn’t
know. We would forever try to figure out love starting from our own self. Jesus
showed us how it’s done … by loving us. Jesus once told his disciples: “Greater
love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends” [Jn 15.13,
NIV]. Amen.
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