BETWEEN TWO WORLDS | Maundy Thursday | 02.04.2026 | John 13:1–17 | Samuel Zumwalt |

Now before the Feast of the Passover, when Jesus knew that His hour had come that He should depart from this world to the Father, having loved His own who were in the world, He loved them to the end. ² And supper being ended, the devil having already put it into the heart of Judas Iscariot, Simon’s son, to betray Him, ³ Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into His hands, and that He had come from God and was going to God, ⁴ rose from supper and laid aside His garments, took a towel and girded Himself. ⁵ After that, He poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples’ feet, and to wipe them with the towel with which He was girded. ⁶ Then He came to Simon Peter. And Peter said to Him, “Lord, are You washing my feet?” ⁷ Jesus answered and said to him, “What I am doing you do not understand now, but you will know after this.” ⁸ Peter said to Him, “You shall never wash my feet!” Jesus answered him, “If I do not wash you, you have no part with Me.” ⁹ Simon Peter said to Him, “Lord, not my feet only, but also my hands and my head!” ¹⁰ Jesus said to him, “He who is bathed needs only to wash his feet, but is completely clean; and you are clean, but not all of you.” ¹¹ For He knew who would betray Him; therefore He said, “You are not all clean.” ¹² So when He had washed their feet, taken His garments, and sat down again, He said to them, “Do you know what I have done to you? ¹³ You call Me Teacher and Lord, and you say well, for so I am. ¹⁴ If I then, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet. ¹⁵ For I have given you an example, that you should do as I have done to you. ¹⁶ Most assuredly, I say to you, a servant is not greater than his master; nor is he who is sent greater than he who sent him. ¹⁷ If you know these things, blessed are you if you do them.

(John 13:1-17 Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved)

BETWEEN TWO WORLDS

Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.

When you were born again (anew, from above) by water and the Holy Spirit, you became a child of God, a son because of the Son, and you received the Holy Spirit as you were joined to the Lord Jesus’ saving death and glorious resurrection. Holy Baptism was not your work, not something you did as an outward sign of an inward action. The Father, who so loved the world that is hostile to Him, so loved you that He chose you to be His own. Where before there was only the you born dead in your trespasses, a child of wrath, a sinner from the moment of conception in your mother’s womb, now there was a new creation. Yes, the old you remained in the world, obsessed with me, myself, and I, but that you was and is living on borrowed time, because the end is coming when that old you will take your last breath or Christ will return in glory to bring an end to the old.

Those who only have an old existence, those still dead in their trespasses, often lead seemingly charmed lives in which, even in their apparently most altruistic moments, are in control. Think of the liberal billionaire philanthropists, whose god complexes just cannot be hidden, as they decide what the world should be like … as if the ability to create great wealth carried with it not the twisted intellect and death dealing of the Nazi doctor Josef Mengele but the omniscience and omnipotence of the gods of ancient Greece. Each iteration of Satan’s pride is damnably subject to the law of unintended consequences. Like the lords of Communist China, the only individuals who matter to them are those at the top. Think of Stalin’s famous line that one death is a tragedy but a million deaths are a statistic. Yes, the world that is hostile to God can be so in control, self-congratulatory, and outwardly shiny right up to that moment that rapacious death takes their breath away. Qoheleth, the preacher of Ecclesiastes, curmudgeonly reminds us all things must end.

Called from death to life in Holy Baptism, we now live between two worlds. Yes, the old life within is subject to the siren song of the demonic with all the hungers and passions of the old life. Like Judas, who betrayed the Lord Jesus, the call of the old life can be so strong and so subject to self-delusion. Even having been at table with the Lord Jesus, Judas went out into the night, the darkness having so possessed his heart. Did he tell himself he was not really betraying Jesus? In these forty days of Lent, have we not easily left the Lord’s Table to hasten to the world’s all-you-can-eat buffet, where false gospels promise the world just as Satan promised Jesus what he didn’t own and couldn’t give? Is that battle inside between the old and the new not easily tilted to what seems secure?

Maundy Thursday, or Holy Thursday, is that defining moment when the Lord Jesus makes clear He is not on the way to a throne like Caesar’s but to His enthronement on the cross. And, those at table do not understand this even when He takes on the role of a Gentile slave, who upsettingly washes their feet. They know the religious establishment and most of Jerusalem want to kill Jesus as an idolater. Perhaps in the gloom of that night and the Lord’s own strange display of utter humility, they finally knew there would be no kingly throne for Him, no spoils of a campaign for them, no end to Roman oppression. So, even after three years of walking seminary, his disciples are confused. What is the One, who could even raise a dead man, going to do? They wonder what does this mean?

When compared with them, we are in a more advantageous place, dear children of God, and those of you on your way to the baptismal font. We see the Lord Jesus pointing them from the old life with its quest for worldly power to the new way of the Suffering Servant foretold in Isaiah 52-53. Our Lord was reorienting His disciples from the old world that is passing away to the new world, where eternal life consists of limitless humble service as it originally was lived in the Garden of Eden. To set both them and us free would be the death of Him. To draw them and us into the new life would be the death of us with Him.

So, dear children, you already wash feet in those moments in which you serve the neighbor as the Lord God wills you to serve, whether in changing diapers, cooking meals, or doing all those quotidian tasks that provide the neighbor’s daily bread. It is deeply satisfying to live in the new world in which we are what we were originally created to be. But this new life is not a mere ethical program that can be measured by our hitting certain performance goals. The new life is the eternal life and love of the Triune God at work in us from the moment a new creation came into being in Holy Baptism. That new life is growing within us as we receive our Lord Jesus’ true Body and most precious Blood and as His Word calls us out of the old life that is certainly passing away.

The discipline of Lent is not like a forty-day rehab program in which we get weekly time off on Sundays for good behavior on all those other days. Lent shows us what we are apart from Christ and how our need for a Savior never expires until these old bodies do. Growing in the grace and knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ, His Father, and the Holy Spirit is not a pious pretense. We actually can grow more and more into the likeness of our Servant Lord Jesus by the work of the Holy Spirit in God’s Word and His Sacraments. This does not mean we will become sinless in this life. We won’t. But we can grow in those discipleship marks we recite at the end of each weekend Eucharist. Namely, striving to pray daily, worship weekly, reading the Bible, serving at and beyond St. Matthew’s, being in relationship to encourage spiritual growth in others, and giving of God’s time, talent, and resources.

Yes, on this night when our Lord was betrayed, Judas left His table, and was seduced by the old evil foe, and he chose the old world, and, later, seeing the consequence of his betrayal, he listened to the one who comes only to steal, kill, and destroy.

So, we all know our weakness this night, our failure to be the people our Father designed us to be, and the end of all that is hostile to God. But our Lord Jesus, the Servant Son, sees our empty hands and the regret we bear for all that remains old in us, and He says, “This is my Body. This is my Blood given and shed for you for the forgiveness of sins.” And, then, He fills us with the power of His endless life and love as we eat and drink and so receive Him. We may be yet between two worlds, but the life to come has already begun in us in our Baptism, and it is growing day after day. We are not yet what we will be, but, thank God, we are not what we used to be.

In the name of the Father, and of the +Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

©Samuel D. Zumwalt
szumwalt54@gmail.com
St. Matthew’s Evangelical Lutheran Church (AALC)
Wilmington, North Carolina USA