John 13:1-17,31b-35

Maundy Thursday | April 6, 2023 | Jh 13:1-17, 31b-35 | Paul Bieber |

John 13:1-17, 31b-35 Revised Standard Version

13 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. ² And during supper, when the devil had 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, laid aside his garments, and girded himself with a towel. ⁵ Then 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 He came to Simon Peter; and Peter said to him, “Lord, do you wash my feet?” ⁷ Jesus answered him, “What I am doing you do not know now, but afterward you will understand.” ⁸ Peter said to him, “You shall never wash my feet.” Jesus answered him, “If I do not wash you, you have no part in 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 has bathed does not need to wash, except for his feet, but he is clean all over; and you are clean, but not every one of you.” ¹¹ For he knew who was to betray him; that was why he said, “You are not all clean.”

 ¹² When he had washed their feet, and taken his garments, and resumed his place, he said to them, “Do you know what I have done to you? ¹³ You call me Teacher and Lord; and you are right, 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 also should do as I have done to you. ¹⁶ Truly, truly, 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.

“Now is the Son of man glorified, and in him God is glorified; ³² if God is glorified in him, God will also glorify him in himself, and glorify him at once. ³³ Little children, yet a little while I am with you. You will seek me; and as I said to the Jews so now I say to you, ‘Where I am going you cannot come.’ 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. ³⁵ By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”

also

Exodus 12:1-14

Psalm 116:10-17

I Corinthians 11:23-26

Psalm 22

In the Night in which He Was Betrayed

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

This evening we begin our celebration this year of our Passover, the Christian Passover, Jesus’ Passover from death to life. We call these three Services—Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, and the Easter Vigil—one Liturgy spread over three days. If that is so, then it’s one Liturgy with three sermons in it, which might seem to be a bit much. But each sermon is placed to interpret the events of each of the three days. This sermon is here to interpret what happened in the night in which Jesus was betrayed.

We begin with the story of the institution of the Jewish Passover, the Passover of God’s ancient people from Egyptian slavery to the freedom of the promised land; well, the journey to the promised land. So important is this Passover to our Passover that the story of Israel’s deliverance at the Red Sea is the one reading of twelve that may not be omitted from the prophecies read at the Easter Vigil.

The Passover Lamb is sacrificed and its flesh is eaten. Its blood serves as protection from the power of death. What we hear from Exodus this evening are the instructions for the celebration of a day of remembrance to be celebrated in perpetuity.

It was this remembrance that Jesus and his disciples were celebrating in the upper room in the night in which he was betrayed. (Yes, some of you are aware that Mark, followed by Matthew and Luke, have a different calendar than John; that’s for a Bible study, not a sermon.) Only twice does Paul write that he’s handing on exactly what he received: the account of Jesus’ resurrection and the account we hear this evening of the institution of the Lord’s Supper, a paradoxical celebration: a remembrance with bread and cup of the Lord’s death—until he comes.

We heard on Sunday about Jesus’ self-emptying: his complete humanity, his taking the place of a servant, his obedience even to death. Now we hear that in the night of this supper Jesus knew that his hour had come, the goal of his ministry from the very beginning. As he begins his departure from this world and return to the Father, he loves his own in the world to the end. He shows this self-emptying service, this self-giving love, as he washes his disciples’ feet.

This washing is a preparation for the supper. Jesus shows that he is among them as one who serves. Even if you bathed before coming to the festive meal, the dusty streets of first century Jerusalem would make it necessary for a slave to wash your feet before you sit at table. It’s a matter of the purity required to participate in the celebration.

Jesus is not reversing himself on the issue of ritual purity, about which he had so many controversies with the Pharisees. Jesus is interested in purity of heart—the pure in heart are blessed. So is the washing of feet an acted parable of moral purity? Some think so, pointing to Jesus’ command that we ought to follow his example and wash one another’s feet. And they point to Jesus’ new commandment, the mandatum, from which Maundy Thursday takes its name. Is not the call to love as Jesus loved a call to the highest moral attainment?

It is so important to resist our temptation to turn Christianity into nothing more than an exhortation to live a good, moral life. Of course we should strive to live a good, moral life; that’s what the Ten Commandments teach us. But Jesus’s new commandment is not a call to moral attainment, but to a new foundation for our very existence. Paul said it best, to the Galatians:

I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me; and the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. (Gal. 2.20)

Having been baptized into Christ’s death and resurrection (for one of us, soon to be baptized into Christ’s death and resurrection), we have been cleansed. God’s gift of grace cleanses the heart. We are touched by the Spirit deep within. Jesus says it: If you have [been] bathed, you are clean. Purity of heart is God’s gift. The mystery of Christ that transforms us renews us from within, unleashing a new life, a new foundation of being.

What, then, is the footwashing? Having been baptized into Christ’s cross and rising once and for all, we are cleansed of the accrued dust of daily existence by confession and forgiveness, like the rite with which we began this Liturgy. Washing our feet makes us fit to sit at table at the festive celebration.

The Supper whose institution we celebrate this evening is the action Jesus commanded us to do in remembrance of him. It is his body, given for us, the true Passover Lamb. It is the sacrament of the new covenant in his blood, shed for our forgiveness. The new covenant is based on the obedience of the Son, who made himself a servant among us and took all human disobedience upon himself even unto death, suffered it to the point of receiving its deathly wage in himself—and conquered it for us, for death could not hold him.

It is God the Son’s total gift of himself that has overcome all that our impurity and disobedience has brought upon us. He washes our feet tonight to make us fit to sit at table at the great high feast, the Marriage Supper of the Lamb—when he comes. How do we know that? Because we hear his words, given and shed for you, and receive them with a believing heart. That is a pure heart.

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

—

The Rev. Dr. Paul Bieber

San Diego, California, USA

E-Mail: paul.bieber@sbcglobal.net