Maundy Thursday
John 13:1-15, 34-35
✠ In the name of Jesus ✠
One theme that consistently comes through in old love songs, and even many contemporary ones, is that the singer is going to stand by the one he or she loves forever, that their love will never die; it will last into eternity. And that expression of commitment is good and commendable. But we know only too well that reality doesn’t generally imitate the love songs. Since the fall, brokenness is more the rule. Even the long and happy marriage has its loveless moments. In all our relationships–family, friends, neighbors, coworkers–we know that our love falters and fails. We grow tired of having to do for others. We want some recognition or reward for what we’ve done. We want our needs to be considered first once in a while. Our love has its limits; it doesn’t last forever.
But not so with our Lord. His is perfect love. He is love incarnate. And so it written of Him, “Having loved His own who were in the world, He loved them to the end”–not just part way, but to the end, without fail. He did not falter or turn away from us in the least. He did not come to put His needs first, but ours, our need for being rescued from death and hell. His love endures forever.
That is so because the love of Christ is pure agape love. When we love, it’s usually because there’s something about the other person that draws us to them–their looks, their personality, their money, their intelligence, their common interests with us. We love them because of something about them. And when that something changes, then our love can change, too. But that’s not how it works with God. His love is not based on something in us. For there is nothing in us that would merit His love. Rather He loves us because of something about Him. His love makes the unlovable lovable. His love creates the worth of the one He loves. It’s not what’s in our nature but what’s in His nature. It’s as the hymn says, “My song is love unknown, my Savior’s love to me, love to the loveless shown that they might lovely be.” You are lovely in God’s eyes because He has made you lovely in Christ.
“Having loved His own who were in the world, He loved them to end.” Here in the upper room Jesus gives a picture of that love, a picture of the cross. Knowing that the Father had given all things into His hands, Jesus puts His hands to service. First He lays aside His garments, even as He would be stripped of His garments the next day by the Roman soldiers. He had taken the form of a servant in becoming man, and now He very literally takes the form of a lowly servant and bends down to wash the feet of the disciples and to wipe them with the towel around His waist. He who is the greater puts Himself beneath the lesser in order to serve them. For that is the way of love–real, manly, godly love.
The disciples’ feet were dusty and soiled; the dirt was ground in. Such is the condition of our fallen nature; sin is ground in and ingrained. We’ve grown accustomed and callous to it. We can’t get the stain out. So Jesus bends down to us in His humbled, crucified humanity to serve us. He reaches down to the dirtiest and most deeply soiled places in our lives, down to the soles of our feet, where we touch the earth which we go to in our death. And He cleanses that dirt from us by the power of His love. He takes it away from us, and He takes it all upon Himself. He becomes the stained, dirty Sinner on the cross; as a Servant He suffers our lethal judgment to take it away from us forever. And then He baptizes us into His death that we may have all the benefits of His suffering. He immerses us in His mercy; He washes us in His sacred blood, which alone can remove the stain, to make us clean and holy children of God. He loves us to the end, to the death, to that last triumphant cry, “It is finished!”
But even that is not the end of Jesus’ love. For the same Lord who offered Himself up as the Passover Lamb and spilled His blood on the wood of the cross so that death would pass over us–this Lamb of God now feeds Himself to you that His life may fill your body and soul. Jesus is still in our midst as He was with the disciples in the upper room, serving us and giving Himself to us. For the cup that we bless is more than just wine–it is the communion of the blood of Christ. And the bread that we break is more than just bread–it is the communion of the body of Christ.
The Sacrament of the Altar is not simply a sign and a reminder of God’s love. It’s the real thing. It is Christ truly, literally present here to love us to the end, even the end of the age. It is one of the chief ways the love of God is poured out into our hearts by the Holy Spirit. So in the Holy Supper, you are not only reminded of the love of God, but you are given the love of God. The Father didn’t only send His Son to the cross, but He sends Him in His flesh and blood to our altar so that we may receive this goodness and love of God, so we may live in God and He in us.
That is what St. John means when he says that Christ loves His own, and that He loves them to the end. The Greek word there is telos, meaning the goal, the culmination. The end, the ultimate goal is that communion with God which occurs at His table–where we feast on His body and blood, and He consumes in us our sin and death, where our fellowship with God is real and true and our life with God is nourished and strengthened, where we are prepared for everlasting communion with God in the glory to come, the final telos.
Last of all, Jesus said, “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another as I have loved you.” The command to love isn’t new. It’s been there in the Law from the beginning. What makes this commandment new, then, is the “as I have loved you” part. What is new is Jesus’ real presence and union with us as a Vine to the branches. As we receive the overflowing love of Christ, as He lives in us and we in Him, we learn real love, love to restore hurting relationships, love to confess your sin, love to forgive and be forgiven. As His sacramental love has its way with us, we bear the fruit of Christ’s love toward one another.
So let us then partake of the love of Christ which is most surely and fully and concretely offered to us in His Supper. And then let us do good to all, especially those who are of the household of faith, so that all may know that we are disciples of Him who loves us unfailingly, to the end.
✠ In the name of Jesus ✠