What Wondrous Love Is This?
Rev. Mark Schaefer
Kay Spiritual Life Center
April 13, 2006, Maundy Thursday
John 13:1-17, 31-35
John 13:1-17, 31-35
Now before the festival of the Passover, Jesus knew that his hour had come to depart from this world and go to the Father. Having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end. The devil had already put it into the heart of Judas son of Simon Iscariot to betray him. And during supper Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands, and that he had come from God and was going to God, got up from the table, took off his outer robe, and tied a towel around himself. Then he poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples’ feet and to wipe them with the towel that was tied around him. He came to Simon Peter, who said to him, ‘Lord, are you going to wash my feet?’ Jesus answered, ‘You do not know now what I am doing, but later you will understand.’ Peter said to him, ‘You will never wash my feet.’ Jesus answered, ‘Unless I wash you, you have no share with me.’ Simon Peter said to him, ‘Lord, not my feet only but also my hands and my head!’ Jesus said to him, ‘One who has bathed does not need to wash, except for the feet, but is entirely clean. And you are clean, though not all of you.’ For he knew who was to betray him; for this reason he said, ‘Not all of you are clean.’After he had washed their feet, had put on his robe, and had returned to the table, he said to them, ‘Do you know what I have done to you? You call me Teacher and Lord—and you are right, for that is what I am. So if I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet. For I have set you an example, that you also should do as I have done to you. Very truly, I tell you, servants are not greater than their master, nor are messengers greater than the one who sent them. If you know these things, you are blessed if you do them.
When he had gone out, Jesus said, ‘Now the Son of Man has been glorified, and God has been glorified in him. If God has been glorified in him, God will also glorify him in himself and will glorify him at once. Little children, I am with you only a little longer. You will look for me; and as I said to the Jews so now I say to you, “Where I am going, you cannot come.” I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.’
I. BEGINNING
Today is Holy Thursday, traditionally called “Maundy Thursday”. Maundy is a worn down English corruption of the Latin wordmandatum, which means “commandment”—a reference to the reading from the Gospel of John that we read this night, in which Jesus gives to his disciples a ‘new commandment.’
II. THE TEXT
John’s version of Jesus’ last meal with his disciples differs from that of the other three evangelists, Matthew, Mark, and Luke. According to John’s chronology, the Passover begins at sunset the evening of Good Friday, as opposed to the night before. So, in John’s version of the story, the Last Supper is not a Passover Meal, for the Passover has yet to begin. His telling of the story also lacks the Eucharistic imagery of the other gospel accounts and provides instead a story about footwashing.
And during supper Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands, and that he had come from God and was going to God, got up from the table, took off his outer robe, and tied a towel around himself. Then he poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples’ feet and to wipe them with the towel that was tied around him.
Jesus then begins to say that each must do as he has done for them. “For I set you an example…”, he says. He speaks of his time being at hand, of the Son of Man being glorified and of his departure “where you cannot follow.” And then follows it all up by saying:
I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.’
Jesus commands us to love one another has he has loved us. This is the commandment, the mandate, the mandatum, at the heart of Maundy Thursday.
III. LOVE
So what is this love? What is the love with which Jesus loved us and which we are supposed to share with one another?
It is a love that is different from the kinds of love we tend to be familiar with. First of all, this love is not an emotion. Jesus is not telling us to be fond of one another, or “in love” with one another. He is not telling us that we should feel passionately about one another. He is telling us to love one another. And Jesus is not talking about how we feel.
He is talking about how we relate to one another. Love in the Biblical understanding is a behavior, a way of living in right relationship with one another. So, first of all, the love that Jesus shared with us is about doing more than it is about feeling.
That I suppose, is actually the easy part to figure out. The hard part is this:
We are a rebellious people. We break the covenants we have with God. When Moses went up the mountain to receive the law for us, we fashioned a calf out of gold and worshipped it. When he led us through the wilderness we grumbled and complained. When we entered into the Promised Land we forgot how it was we got there and who delivered us there. When the prophets called us to repentance and justice for the poor and the marginalized, we rejected and murdered them. We were never satisfied with God alone and always sought to add other gods to our lives. We neglected the widow, the orphan, and the stranger. We did not do justice to the alien. We lost faith in God. When God sent his Son to us, we did not listen to him. We rejected him and handed him over. We crucified him. When we were formed by the Spirit into a community of faith, we immediately found ways to divide the body. We sought to spread the good news by force and turned the cross upside down into a sword to slay others we deemed outsiders. We continued to ignore the poor, the marginalized, the oppressed. When latter day prophets like Martin and Oscar came to us, we murdered them. We have constantly tarnished the image of the One who made us.
And Christ went to the cross for us.
Jesus went to the cross in order that God might demonstrate how much we are loved. In order that God might demonstrate that death does not have the final say, that violence and brokenness do not have the last word, Christ went to the cross that we might glimpse the power of Resurrection.
Would you be willing to go through that for a stiff-necked people like us? That my friends, is love.
It is a wondrous love that defies our understanding.
This is the love that Jesus calls us to share: that self-sacrificial love that gives of ourselves freely for others. Not just for those who love us, but for those who hate us too. Not just for those who understand us, but for those who misunderstand and misrepresent. Not just love for those who accept us, but for those who reject us.
It is for all of those to whom we are called to give of ourselves utterly. To sacrifice, to give of ourselves so that they might see something of God’s love and purposes in the world, the way that Christ gave of himself for us that we might see the Resurrection that lies beyond Crucifixion.
IV. END
Is any of us capable of that kind of love? I know I’m not—and I get paid to be holy. I know that I am not able to love with such perfect compassion those who do not show compassion to me.
But God gives us the grace to love like that. God empowers us to love by freeing us from our fear. By freeing us from our guilt and our anxiety. By freeing us from the grip of sin, we are free to love. To love extravagantly, without reservation. To love those who are unlovable. To extend compassion to those who are uncompassionate. To extend grace to the ungracious.
That is the love that Christ shared with us and that he calls us to share with one another.
It is a love that baffles me even as I join in the words of the old hymn:
What wondrous love is this, O my soul, O my soul!
What wondrous love is this, O my soul!
What wondrous love is this
that caused the Lord of bliss
To bear the dreadful curse for my soul, for my soul,
To bear the dreadful curse for my soul. (–Alexander Means)
