Holy Week (D)

So when He had washed their feet, and taken His garments and reclined at the table again, He said to them, “Do you know what I have done to you? You call Me Teacher and Lord; and you are right, for so I am. If I then, the Lord and the Teacher, washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet. For I gave you an example that you also should do as I did to you. Truly, truly, I say to you, a slave is not greater than his master, nor is one who is sent greater than the one who sent him. If you know these things, you are blessed if you do them.” (From John 13)

“A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another, even as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this all men will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.” (From John 13)

“This is My commandment, that you love one another, just as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends. You are My friends if you do what I command you.” (From John 15)

This is Maundy Thursday, remembering the night that Jesus celebrated the Passover with His disciples, the night that He instituted the Lord’s Supper, the night that He gave a new commandment to His people, and the night that He was betrayed. The word “maundy” comes from a Latin word for “command” - hence the term Maundy Thursday with a focus on the new commandment that we should love one another as Christ loves us. While John chapters 13 - 17 contain many other commandments that Jesus gave on this sacred evening, this particular command is designated as a “new” command.

This is the mark of the Christian, this is how others are to know that we belong to Jesus Christ, by our love one for another - but it isn’t a nebulous form of love, it isn’t a “feel good” kind of love that can be here one moment and gone the next - it is a love with precise definition and character, for the measure of the love and the quality of the love is none other that the measure and quality of the love that Jesus has for us, for you, for me. It is the love that lays down its life for its friends. As the Apostle John writes in his first letter; We know love by this, that He laid down His life for us; and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren.

Jesus leads into this commandment by washing the feet of His Apostles, including the feet of Judas Iscariot. He then says that as He was washed their feet that they should wash one another’s feet. If He is our Master and He has done this, then we ought to do it, in fact, we’re commanded to do it.

I think that when we leave the house in the morning that we ought to carry a wash basin, a towel, and water with us; and that we should be attentive to whose feet we can wash each day. While I do think that physically washing one another’s feet is something that the church ought to do periodically when it gathers, or do in small groups, we ought to be washing feet every day of our lives - we ought to be refreshing others, washing the dust and dirt of life off of their hearts and minds and souls. We live in a dirty, toxic, polluted society and its hardness and lack of compassion, not to mention lack of plain courtesy, can cause a hard crust to form on our inner selves - we need to take our basin and water and refresh others; speaking a kind word, sharing Christ, praying with them and for them. How many people go through a day or a week and never hear a kind word, never receive a kind action, never know what it is to have someone actually care how they are doing?

But Jesus doesn’t just say, “Love one another,” He says, “Love one another as I have loved you.” If Jesus said it He means for us to do it, and there is no excuse for not loving as Christ loves. Throughout John chapters 13 - 17 Jesus makes clear that He is to be our source of life, that we are to abide in Him, that the Holy Spirit is coming to live within us, that the Father and Son are living in those in relationship with them - Jesus commands us and He gives us the power to fulfill His command - this is our calling, this is the mark of the Christian. This is actually what Maundy Thursday is about, or should be about...to partake of the Cup and the Bread is to partake of Christ and of one another in Christ, it is to partake of the New Covenant, of His body and blood - it is to live by the life of God in Christ.

Jesus Christ loves sacrificially. He does not love conveniently, He does not love only when things are easy, He does not love only when we think ourselves loveable; Christ loves us when we are unlovable, when we are untouchable...He lays His life down for us...this is how Jesus loves...how do we love?

The world has a right to judge Christians by their love for one another - what does the world see? In our lives? In my life? In your life?

Whose feet have I washed today?

Whose feet have you washed today?