+ Maundy Thursday – April 18, 2019 +
Beautiful Savior Lutheran, Milton
Series C: Exodus 12:1-14; 1 Corinthians 11:23-32; John 13:1-17, 31-35
In the Name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
“Talk is cheap,” we say. Or, “actions speak louder than words.” “Don’t just tell me you love me, show me.” We say these things because though we often think of love as an emotion and a feeling, love is more than a feeling. Love is an action.
Love is changing your baby’s diaper. Love is taking your children to church, praying, and reading Scripture with them at home. Love is picking up chicken noodle soup from the store when your wife is sick. Love is brewing the extra strong pot of coffee for your husband after an exhausting day or night. Love is visiting someone who’s sick, or calling or sending a card to someone you haven’t seen at church in a while.
God’s love for us, though far greater, is similar. God’s love for us is more than a feeling, though he has compassion on us, loves us, cares for us. For us, God’s love is an action.
God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. (Romans 5:8)
God loved the world in this way…that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. (John 3:16)
The same is true of Jesus’ love as we hear in John 13. Jesus’ love is an action.
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. Jesus rose from supper. He laid aside his outer garments, and taking a towel, tied it around his waist. Then 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.
Behold the God who loves truly and perfectly. His love is seen in action. The Father has given everything into Jesus’ hands. Just like the children’s song goes. “He’s got the whole world in His hands.” Every power is at His disposal. Every authority under heaven and earth is His. He has created everything. And He holds everything in His eternal hands.
And what does Jesus do with his hands? He removes his outer garments. He wraps a towel around his waist. He fills a bowl of water. He reaches out with his hands and removes the sandals from the scummy, dirty, travel-worn feet of His disciples. He holds their feet in His holy hands. He dips his hands in the water. He washes their feet.
What wonderous love this is. God descends to take up the feet of sinful men into His holy hands.
He came to Simon Peter, who said to him, “Lord, do you wash my feet?” 7 Jesus answered him, “What I am doing you do not understand now, but afterward you will understand.” Peter said to him, “You shall never wash my feet.”
We can understand Peter’s protest. God should not wash his feet. That’s not how a proper God behaves. This is beneath God. God should not be getting his hands dirty. This is slave labor, a servant’s task. If God descends to take human flesh and then stoops to the lowest position, the foot-washing place, the whole economy of human hierarchy is turned upside down.
But for Jesus, love is an action. Love is being made man for us. Love is Jesus eating and drinking with sinners and tax collectors, healing the unclean, washing grubby feet. Love is Jesus who gets his hands dirty for us. Love is the Son of man who came not to be served but to serve and give his life as a ransom for many.
“Do you understand what I have done to you? You call Me Teacher and Lord, and you are right, for so I am. If I then, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet. For I have given you an example, that you also should do just as I have done to you.” And, “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. By this all people will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.”
“As I have loved you,”Jesus instructs his disciples and us. Love as sinners among sinners. Love those who cannot and will not ever deserve your love. Love to forgive those who are completely unforgiveable. Love with your hands. Love in order to remove the filth, the guilt, the shame of your brothers and sisters. Love in order to get the dirt of your fellow man onto your own hands so that he might be clean. Love because your love will never be repaid. Love sacrificially. Love and never expect anything in return. Love as I have loved you, Jesus commands.
This is a tall order. This kind of love doesn’t just sound hard. It sounds impossible. Who of us can say we love like that? No one. Except Jesus. He loves this way for you. Behold the man who loves those who are completely unlovable. Behold the man who loves those who, in just a few minutes, will abandon Him, will flee to save their own lives. Behold the man who loves the rebellious, the sinful, the lost, lonely, least, and last ones. Behold the man who loves those who could never deserve it. Behold the man who is God and who, in order to love His creatures perfectly and completely, has become man. Behold the man who loves the world completely and perfectly in His death on the cross.
If we want to love like this, like Jesus did, like He commands His disciples to love, we’ll never get there relying on our own selfish love. If we want to love like this, we must first be loved like this.
Jesus’ love for you is still action. “As I have loved you”is here, on the altar. Jesus’ love poured out for you on the cross fills the chalice. His body laid down in love for you in death is given to you in the bread.
Behold the man, who on the night when He was betrayed, took bread, blessed it, broke it, and gave it to His disciples: “Take, eat; this is my body given for you. Take, drink; this is my blood shed for you for the forgiveness of all your sins.”Behold the man, veiled in bread and wine, given and shed for you for the forgiveness of your sins, for life and salvation.
Jesus’ love for you is action. Living for you. Dying for you. Rising for you. Feeding and forgiving you in his body and blood. Raising you from the dead on the Last Day.
In the Name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
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