April 17, 2014 (Maundy Thursday) – John 13:1-17, 31b-35
John 13:1-17, 31b-35
To the Utmost
Maundy Thursday – April 17, 2014
First Lutheran Church – Winnipeg, MB
Having loved his own who were in the world, writes John,
he loved them to the end.
But it can also be translated this way: he loved them to the utmost.
Even the one who will betray him, Judas Iscariot, as it says in the very next sentence.
Even Judas he loves to the utmost.
It’s Thursday evening of Holy Week,
and Jesus wants his disciples to know how much he loves them.
And he wants to show them what that looks like.
And he wants to them to know that this is how they are to love one another,
and how they are love to love everyone – even their enemies,
even those who will betray them.
You get up, you take off your good robe, you tie a towel around yourself,
and you kneel down and wash the feet of the person you love.
It’s such an intimate act on this intimate evening of a last supper.
But it is an act that seems difficult to understand.
Peter thinks so.
He understands that since in the normal course of things Jesus is his social superior,
he is the one who should be washing Jesus’ feet.
But Jesus tells him, If I don’t wash your feet, you have no share with me.
In other words, if you want to share in my life, you have to let me serve you.
If you want to share my life with others, first you have to let me give my life to you.
My life of service and of love.
Jesus knows we can’t give what we don’t have.
He wants to serve us first so we can take what we’ve been given by him and give it to others.
I’ve said many times that Christian life is not rocket science, it’s not complicated.
It’s simple, for sure – but it’s not easy.
It’s seems simple enough to wash another’s feet once your own have been washed.
But it’s not easy.
And yet that is precisely what Jesus is calling us to do on this evening.
He will wash your feet through the hands of a brother or sister here this evening.
And then he invites you to give the same gift that you have been given.
He will feed you at this table and then
invite you to give the same gift you have been given by feeding the hungry.
He will give you his forgiveness and
invite you to give that same gift to those who have wronged you.
He will give you his peace and
invite you to give that same gift to those who desperately need it.
He will give you his abiding friendship and
invite you to give that same gift to all who are in any need of abiding companionship.
He will give you his love and
invite you to give that same love away as freely and as
unconditionally as it has been given to you.
Peter considered it scandalous that his teacher should wash his feet,
assuming the position of a slave toward Peter.
On this night we must consider it scandalous that the light that shines in the darkness,
the One through whom all things came into being,
the resurrection and the life, the glory of God, the second person of the Trinity,
the very image of the invisible God – we must consider it scandalous that
this one stoops to wash our feet,
assuming the position of slave toward us.
Yet, if God is love, this is what love means.
For Jesus it has no other meaning than
to serve one’s neighbours whoever they are bodily, humbly, viscerally.
On this evening, this evening of quiet intimacy,
Jesus invites you to let him serve you to the utmost – by letting him wash your feet.
And on this evening of deep instruction,
Jesus invites you to let him and his love take up residence in you and
serve others in the same way.
The truth is that Jesus is not too good to wash our feet.
The truth on this night is that Jesus is just good enough.
And invites us to be just as good – to set ourselves above no one, to serve as he served,
To love as he loved: to the utmost.
And in this way to share in his life.
So together let us say, “Amen.”
Pastor Michael Kurtz
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