The “Maundy” of Maundy Thursday is
actually derivative of our word mandate or command. At some point in my life, I
came to the conclusion that Maundy Thursday is every bit as important as Palm
Sunday, Good Friday or even Easter Sunday for that matter. Indeed, the lessons
of each are essential to a life of faithful discipleship. We understand well
the life changing significance of those other events; the triumphal entry and
the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus, but what then we ask is the
essential provided by Maundy Thursday? That word “Maundy” or command
specifically references a moment Jesus shared with the twelve on the eve of His
crucifixion. It was a special moment, a brief
moment nestled between the crowds who sang “Hosanna!”
just days before, and the masses of people who shouted “Crucify!” the day following.
I. Indeed, this was a very different
moment. Jesus takes this one last opportunity away from the crowds and the
people and the noise to eat with his closest friends, to share with them what
at first appears to be a rather ordinary moment. At a certain point in the
night, he gives the command, the mandatum that would come to mark that
event forever. He says, John 13:34:“A new
commandment I give to you, that you love one another, even as I have loved you,
that you also love one another.”
At
first glance, there may appear to be nothing really new here at all; it may
seem to be merely a restatement of the Old Testament commandment to love our neighbor as
ourselves. But there are 6 additional words that Jesus includes here and those
6 words change not only the lives of the disciples but our lives as well.
It's
worth noting that up until this point in the Gospel of John, the author has
never stated explicitly that Jesus loved his disciples. We all know that verse
in John 3:16 where Jesus talks about God's love for the entire world, but on
this night, in this moment, things all of a sudden get profoundly personal. It's
not about the world. It's not about Israel. It's not even about the person
sitting next to you; it's about you.
For
those sitting at the table with Jesus that night, it's clear that before they
could ever understand what this new commandment compelled them to go out and
actually do, first they had to wrap their minds around what that command
revealed about them. See, what is new here is that before this commandment to
love others is about others, it's about us; “even
as I have loved you,” so with this commandment, it’s all about the love of
Jesus becoming truly personal in your life. Jesus chose this graphic display of
individual servanthood to communicate to the twelve that before it can ever be
about the person sitting next to you, it must be about you. Before you can ever
hope to make God’s love real in the minds and hearts of others, it will have to
be real, truly and personally real, in your own life.
They had to grasp the depths of it; “even as I have loved you,” Jesus said.
Now truly, the question is: how did Jesus love them? At the very start of the
story in John 13:1, John writes, “Having
loved His own who were in the world, He loved them to the end.” That
statement might better translate He loved
them to the greatest possible extent. It's less a statement about time and
more a statement about depth, a statement about how far this love would
actually reach into a person's life. What does it look like to love a person
like that? Part of what is so special about this night is that in the middle of
all the chaos Jesus pauses to make it very clear; to show them.
As evening begins, it doesn't seem
like there was anything too out of the ordinary. Jesus knew what the next few
days would hold, but for everyone else, it was business as usual. Now we
obviously don't know the details of that moment—what went on over dinner or
what they talked about—but we do know that in the middle of the meal, Jesus
interrupts it; He shakes up the ordinary.
II. Jesus gets up, and takes off his
outer garment, leaving him clad only in a tunic, a shorter garment that was
actually what servants would have worn to serve a meal. Jesus is now dressed as
a servant. Paul would later write to the
Philippians (2:7), that Jesus made himself nothing by taking the very form of a
servant. It's worth noting the language Paul uses in this passage. Notice he
doesn't just say Jesus came and served. No, he actually puts on the very nature
of a servant. He actually changed his clothes. He actually becomes a servant.
There's a difference between
choosing to serve and choosing to be a servant. When I choose to serve, that
might be a good thing, but at the end of the day, I'm still in charge. I still
decide whom I will serve and when I will serve. As I was thinking about that, I was
reminded of my early teen years. There were certain things I was expected to do
every day after school. But I never started anything until shortly before my
parents would arrive home. Oh, they would always find me hard at work, whatever
the chores of the day, but I was always in charge of my agenda.
See, when you choose to serve, you
are still in control. You still choose when and how you will serve. But when
you become a servant, then serving actually becomes a way of life. You
relinquish the need to be in control, the need to gain anything from those whom
you serve.
In many ways, this was a game with
which the disciples were quite familiar. In those days, it was customary for
the servant of a host to wash the feet of their guests; it was a sign of
hospitality. Roads were dirty. There was no sewage system in that day. There
were no paved streets, and walking was the primary mode of transportation. Dirty
feet were pretty much the order of the day, so it was customary before a meal
for a servant to wash the feet.
It wasn't a pleasant job, and you
wouldn't have wanted anyone except the people you didn't much care about, to
see and touch your feet. Perhaps, if you were trying to gain the love or
respect of someone, then maybe you would wash their feet, but you certainly
wouldn't want the person whose love you were trying to earn to wash yours. That
was just how it worked, or maybe not. Indeed, Jesus showed them a new way.
He had no need to manipulate, no
need for image maintenance. John writes, “Jesus
knowing … that He had come forth from God and was going back to God, got up
from supper and laid aside His garments;” He took on the very nature of a
servant. The ones who make themselves servants don't have anything to prove,
because they know who they are.
Jesus knew he had come from God, and
was going back to God. And indeed, His capacity for servanthood was directly
related to his security in that identity. His capacity to love was fully
related to the knowledge that he himself was so loved; so extraordinarily loved,
that he needed nothing beyond that love. It exists only in the person who knows
God in such a way that they don't need anything from the object of their love.
Again, before the commandment to
love others is about others, it's about us. Before it's about the person
sitting next to you, it's about you. We love because he first loved us. You
cannot share the love of Jesus with others unless and until you first embrace
it for yourself.
Jesus knew the months to come would
not be easy for these disciples. He knew they would be called to love the
unlovable. He knew that for many the mission would include persecution and
death. He knew that they would need this moment when God’s love became deep
down and personal; the same love that sustained Jesus. In fact, he knew the
mission will only be possible if they had this moment. So slowly, Jesus began
working his way around the room washing feet: one by one, washing their dirty,
grimy feet.
III. After church one Sunday, when I
was perhaps six years old, my mother took me along to visit a fellow church
member who was a patient in a local nursing home. I remember nothing of the
person who was the purpose for the visit, but as we walked down the hall, my mother
saw someone else and for whatever reason, we entered that patient’s room.
Seated in a wheelchair, was an old
man and seated next to him was an elderly lady with the old man’s feet in her
lap; To suggest that his feet were not pleasant to look at would have been a
gross understatement. I recoiled a bit and attempted to
leave the room, but my mother’s presence behind me blocked my exit, so there I
stood. I suppose the elderly woman, sensing my discomfort, thought an
explanation was in order, so she looked at me and volunteered, “John is my husband, but he doesn’t remember
me anymore. I know his feet hurt, so I rub them when I visit and that makes him
smile.”
I don’t remember anything more about
that man or woman, but I remember that moment. Even though I didn't have the
vocabulary to name it as “love,” that picture has stuck with me because it was
different, because it was extraordinary, because that lady had shaken up the
ordinary for me. I knew she loved her husband by the way she held his feet, how
she cared about the part of him that was the most broken.
We all have broken parts of
ourselves that we'd rather not have anyone see. For the disciples, this was the
case as well. In that room with Jesus on that night, there were hearts full of
contradiction. There was one saying all the right things outwardly, but
inwardly plotting great evil; that was Judas. There was another, albeit with
the best of intentions, yet when push came to shove on the day following, fear
would get the best of him, and he’d do the very thing he promised never to do; that
was Peter.
Later on that night, Jesus would
tell the group that “one of you is going
to betray me.” He was talking about Judas, but apparently Judas wasn't the
obvious choice. John writes that his disciples stared at one another, at a loss
to know which of them he was talking about.
In the past whenever I’ve read that
line I’ve just sort of assumed they were all wondering because they were sure
they were not the one. As I was reading that passage this week I couldn't help
but think, what if they're confused
because deep down, what they're really wondering is: “Am I the one?” Does He
know my fears, my doubts, my innermost thoughts? Does He know the secret places
in my heart where I have hidden the things of which I am ashamed? Am I the
one?”
One of life’s greatest fears is that
we'll be found out: that our dirty, grimy feet will be exposed. The fear is not
just the exposure, but that such exposure will leave us unloved. Perhaps this
is why when it's Peter's turn to have his feet washed, he puts up a fight. As
Jesus says to Peter, “Give Me your feet.”
Peter says, “Never shall you wash my
feet.” Jesus tells Peter, “If I do
not wash you, you have no part with Me.” In other words, unless you
experience my love for you; in no sense can you embody my love as servant to
others.
It was Jesus here both expressing
and demonstrating the depth of love that would be required for true
discipleship. Peter then responds, “Lord,
then wash not only my feet, but also my hands and my head.” I am convinced
that each of the disciples had a moment that night when they knew they were
loved and they would cherish that moment going forward; but what about us? What
do we know of such love?
IV. The command Jesus gave to the
disciples that night changed the world profoundly and forever. It goes far beyond
loving our neighbor as ourselves; because it elevates the command to a new and
higher plane as Jesus challenges them, and now us, to love, “even as I have loved you.”
It should go without saying that in
our world servanthood is no longer about foot washing. Oh, some churches
practice it symbolically, but the reality of true servanthood, whether then or
now, requires a myriad of difficult and sacrificial responses. Yet it begins
for us exactly as it did for the disciples by allowing Jesus to love us deep
down and personal; and in that sense Jesus is still saying, “Give Me your feet.”
Between the commotion and
celebration of Palm Sunday and the noise and celebration of Easter, let things
get profoundly personal. We need to allow ourselves to be loved with a love
that shakes up the ordinary, a love that loves to the utmost, a love that
reaches deep into all the shadows and the contradictions of our life. A love in
which Jesus comes to you and to me; comes to us and says, “Give Me your feet.”
This is the Word of the Lord for Today; Amen and Amen.
This is the Word of the Lord for Today; Amen and Amen.
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