If You Know These Things
Rev. Mark Schaefer
Kay Spiritual Life Center
April 8, 2004
John 13:1-17, 31b-35
Today is Maundy Thursday.
We call it Maundy Thursday because it’s one of those old English words that’s been worn down from the Latin ‘mandatum’ that means “commandment”. It is on this Thursday that we read the story of Jesus giving the commandment that we love one another as he has loved us. Now, it so often happens that as a church, we can get accustomed to the rituals and the remembrances and the calendars and the liturgies of the church. We know that this is a time of the year when we again read the words of Jesus that we are to love one another as he has loved us. The danger of a cycle of readings like that is that we can begin to associate this text simply with special occasions. We can associate Jesus’ command for us with a special kind of need. And one that we read on one Thursday in particular. And sometimes we might wonder whether we just fall into a liturgical rut. We trot out these scriptures because they’re on the schedule to read, and we might wonder whether we’ve become so familiar and so comfortable with them that we forget to actually listen to what they are saying to us. Jesus makes a very interesting observation when he speaks to the disciples. He says, “You call me your lord and teacher, and you are right, because that is what I am.” But then he goes on to describe what that means. What it means to call Jesus Lord and teacher. In the Gospel of Matthew a very similar statement that “Not everyone who calls me ‘Lord, Lord’ will see the Kingdom of Heaven but only those who do the will of my Father.” Here Jesus is making a connection between what it means to be saying “Lord,” and what it means to do the commandments of God and to live lives of faith.
We have a story of Jesus washing the feet of his disciples. There is no more humbling act in the ancient world than that of washing the feet of another person. It’s what servants do. It’s what household slaves do. In John’s gospel, Jesus is many things. He is the Son of God, the Messiah and God’s agent in the world. In the very beginning of John’s gospel, we read, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word was God.” And that the Word takes on our flesh and becomes man. What then does it mean that the Word of God in flesh, the Son of the Living God, should reach out in humility, should wash the feet of the one who would betray him? What does that mean for us, who proclaim Christ to be our Lord and our Teacher? If it does not mean that we turn around and we go back into the world as servants, in humility, in compassion, if it does not mean that we wash others’ feet metaphorically, perhaps even literally, if it does not mean that we are willing to serve one another, that we are willing to take on the burden that Christ bore for the sake of others, then what does it mean when we say that Christ is our Lord and Teacher?
Jesus says, “If you know these things, you are blessed.” Well there are a lot of things that we ‘know.’ There are a lot of things that we proclaim on a regular basis in church. We proclaim Christ crucified. We proclaim that the one who comes to us knows our life, sorrow, suffering and death on a cross, that he was raised to new life on Easter for our sakes and for our salvation.
We know that in Christ God is acting for our salvation, transforming our reality and showing us the depths of God’s love in his self-sacrifice. If we know that, how much more blessed are we if we respond to that message and live out what it means? How much more would it mean to be a disciple of Christ if we serve one another, if we put our money where our mouth is, if we walk the walk and did not simply talk the talk? If we know these things, how blessed we would be if we would do these things.
