Holy Thursday | Göttinger Predigten im Internet

Sermon for April 1, 2021, Holy Thursday | Sermon on John 13:1-17; 34-45 | by Andrew Smith |

Now before the Feast of the Passover, when Jesus knew that his hour had come to depart out of this world to the Father, having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end. ²During supper, when the devil had already put it into the heart of Judas Iscariot, Simon’s son, to betray him, ³Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands, and that he had come from God and was going back to God, ⁴rose from supper. He laid aside his outer garments, and taking a towel, tied it around his waist. ⁵Then he poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples’ feet and to wipe them with the towel that was wrapped around him. ⁶He came to Simon Peter, who said to him, “Lord, do you wash my feet?” ⁷Jesus answered him, “What I am doing you do not understand now, but afterward you will understand.” ⁸Peter said to him, “You shall never wash my feet.” Jesus answered him, “If I do not wash you, you have no share with me.” ⁹Simon Peter said to him, “Lord, not my feet only but also my hands and my head!” ¹⁰Jesus said to him, “The one who has bathed does not need to wash, except for his feet, but is completely clean. And you are clean, but not every one of you.” ¹¹For he knew who was to betray him; that was why he said, “Not all of you are clean.”

¹²When he had washed their feet and put on his outer garments and resumed his place, he said to them, “Do you understand what I have done to you? ¹³You call me Teacher and Lord, and you are right, for so I am. ¹⁴If I then, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet. ¹⁵For I have given you an example, that you also should do just as I have done to you. ¹⁶Truly, truly, I say to you, a servant is not greater than his master, nor is a messenger greater than the one who sent him. ¹⁷If you know these things, blessed are you if you do them.

³⁴A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. ³⁵By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”

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Why is this night different from all other nights? This is a question from the Passover service that perhaps even in Jesus’ day and certainly still today is asked at the Passover Seder dinners all around the world when Jews hear again the Good News of God’s mighty action in His rescue of them from slavery in Egypt. By the time of Jesus, they had been celebrating Passover for well over a thousand years. But this last Passover that Jesus celebrated with them must have been a very strange one indeed! Right in the middle of supper, or after supper according to the King James, Jesus strips down to probably his tunic, and starts washing the feet of some of the disciples. That’s not in any Passover Service. What a Passover Seder indeed! A servant might have washed the feet of the guests before the supper, as they entered but not after or during the meal and the head of the household was certainly not the one who was supposed to be washing feet! We can probably assume that Jesus had celebrated Passover with his disciples before, perhaps even twice although the Evangelists don’t record it. Because they don’t we could probably argue that those Passover Seders were much like what was expected in the area, probably much the same as what Joseph had done as the head of the household as Jesus had experienced growing up.

I have been trying for some time to come up with a modern-day equivalent to the shock that must have been in the minds of the disciples that night. And that shock came in the midst of the chaotic setting of the supper that week. When they had been up north, Jesus had announced it was time to go to Jerusalem and he mentioned something about the Son of Man being betrayed and handed over into the hands of sinful men and crucified. By last Sunday things were looking quite interesting. Jesus had just raised Lazarus from the dead and the crowd had welcomed him into Jerusalem, welcomed him like a king shouting hosannas to him and praising him as the Son of David. But by Thursday night the mood in town had definitely changed; things were quite a bit more tentative because Jesus had been stirring up trouble all week. He had cleared the temple of the moneychangers with a whip no less and calling it his Father’s house! Some of the disciples must have known that the religious leadership was not happy at all about them being in town, especially at Passover. He had been teaching in direct and open opposition to the chief priests, the scribes and elders all week, even at one point pronouncing seven woes on them. (Mt 23) By the time we get to Passover supper on Thursday night, Jesus announces to the disciples that one of them would betray him. We know there was a great deal of jockeying for rank among them, as Matthew tells it, even to the point of Mrs. Zebedee, James and John’s mother coming to Jesus to grant that her sons would have positions of prominence when Jesus came into his kingdom. I say all of this to try to better fix in our minds the context of the Lord’s Supper because otherwise I think we’re left with a rather tame impression that this was just Jesus’ Last Supper, which is certainly not the case.

We don’t know the exact chronology of the events of the supper that night and we don’t know exactly when Jesus instituted the Lord’s Supper by reading John’s Gospel because he doesn’t record it, but we have a pretty good idea of how a Passover Seder occurs. The unleavened bread goes around the table several times with blessings and the retelling of the story of the first Passover and the flight of Israel out of Egypt. Matthew, Mark and Luke tell us that at some point when the unleavened bread went around Jesus said, “Take and eat. This is my body.” On top of the foot washing—this was mind blowing—nothing could have prepared them for what happened shortly after that. We also know the Kiddush cup, a common cup of blessing, not entirely unlike the common cup we use in holy communion, goes around the table a few times but this one time Jesus takes the cup and says something that if they weren’t stunned before, when he says it, you should have been able to knock them over with a feather. He says, “Drink of it all of you. This is my blood shed for you for the forgiveness of sins.” Those of you who have invested something of yourselves in the study of the Old Testament, particularly the prohibitions against consuming blood in Leviticus, will find your study pays off tonight. Here was the Rabbi saying at Passover, “Drink my blood.” I don’t know of a modern equivalent except maybe if instead of the Lord’s Supper tonight we decided to re-institute ritual animal sacrifice on the altar. This was something completely different. Jesus was not merely evolving Old Testament theology into New Testament theology, he was completely fulfilling it and saying that he himself was the Passover and had been all along!

In Luther’s Small Catechism, he asks, “What is the Sacrament of the Altar? The response is: “It is the true body and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ under the bread and wine, instituted by Christ Himself for us Christians to eat and to drink.”

What is the benefit of this eating and drinking?

These words, “Given and shed for you for the forgiveness of sins,” show us that in the Sacrament forgiveness of sins, life, and salvation are given us through these words. For where there is forgiveness of sins, there is also life and salvation.

How could ordinary eating and drinking do such great things?

Certainly not just eating and drinking do these things, but the words written here: “Given and shed for you for the forgiveness of sins.” These words, along with the bodily eating and drinking, are the main thing in the Sacrament. Whoever believes these words has exactly what they say: “forgiveness of sins.”

It is the definition of catechetical to ask why is this night different from all other nights? Because this is the night when our Lord Jesus Christ took Passover and completed it with its proper meaning, with the meaning that it was always meant to have from its beginning. As we receive Jesus’ righteous blood, He marks us as his own and the destroying judgment of God will not destroy us. Jesus Christ is our Passover.

But what is this about foot washing that John has recorded for us? It seems to be a command from our Lord. The meaning to the foot washing is bound up inextricably with the interchange between Peter and Jesus. I don’t think any of the disciples would have hesitated to wash Jesus’ feet but I don’t think Jesus could have gotten any one of the others to wash each other’s feet. There was a great deal of bitterness among the disciples that night. Emotions were running high because of the week’s events. Again, one disciple was even accused of betraying Jesus and notice how each of them reacts to this information, not “It has to be Judas, I never trusted that guy,” but “Is it I Lord?” In their heart of hearts they each know they have not been faithful and instead of the more familiar, “Before the cock crows three times,” we have this more easily misunderstood passage about foot washing. Peter sees his master humbling himself to wash the others’ feet and he can’t put himself on that level. He can’t be like them; he can’t let his master do that. But Jesus answered him, “If I do not wash you, you have no part with Me.” That is, you are not in fellowship with me.

Simply, if we do not let Jesus serve us, we have no fellowship with him. Tonight is not about our observance; tonight is about our Lord serving us at his altar. Tonight is not about the Lord coming to our table; tonight is about us coming to his table as his guests to receive the gifts he gives, forgiveness of sins, salvation and eternal life. Tonight is not about observing ordinances like foot washing, making new Levitical laws where Jesus has fulfilled the entire Law; tonight is about the love that comes from being loved by God the Father and being forgiven of sins to free us from all our sinful history that we might be freed to be instruments of God’s love to our neighbors. Tonight is not about who is greatest in the kingdom of heaven; tonight is about who is a disciple. “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; as I have loved you, that you also love one another. ³⁵ By this all will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.” We love because he first loved us. What a tremendous reproof to the disciples who hours ago were arguing who might be the greatest among them.

Peter doesn’t understand but he knows that he will be missing out if he doesn’t let the Lord Jesus bestow this gift on him. Perhaps that is more truly the essence of faith, not complete metaphysical understanding of all things divine, but confessing that we are less if we want to have no part of Jesus having a part of us.

Tonight is also the beginning of the Triduum, the sacred ‘three days.’ These services, tonight, Good Friday tomorrow, and the Great Vigil of Easter on Saturday form a complete whole. I cannot urge you enough to be here for all of them. Fully participating in the Holy Week services is to be served by Jesus. That may sound a little sappy, but isn’t that what Jesus is doing tonight? He is connecting us with himself by his body and blood and also connecting us to one another. Because tonight is not just about Jesus humbling himself to wash his disciples feet; tonight is about Jesus humbling himself to bear the cross for our sins. Tonight points to Good Friday tomorrow. Good Friday is the end of all hope if it isn’t for the Vigil of Easter and the celebration of the resurrection of our Lord on Sunday.

Why is this night different from all other nights? Because tonight we remember the institution of Jesus Christ’s Passover by which connects us to himself by his body and blood and declares that whoever eats and drinks in his name will not die but live eternally. Amen.

May the peace of God which passes all understanding keep your hearts and minds through faith in Christ Jesus. Amen.

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The Rev. Andrew Smith

Heavenly Host Lutheran Church

Cookeville, Tennessee, USA

E-Mail: smithad19+prediger@gmail.com