St. John’s Lutheran Church, Toluca, IL – Maundy Thursday
Exodus 12:1-4 [5-10] 11-14 ; Psalm 116:1-2, 12-19 ; 1 Corinthians 11:23-26 ; John 13:1-17, 31b-35
Gospel
1Now 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. 2The devil had already put it into the heart of Judas son of Simon Iscariot to betray him. And during supper 3Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands, and that he had come from God and was going to God, 4got up from the table, took off his outer robe, and tied a towel around himself. 5Then 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. 6He came to Simon Peter, who said to him, “Lord, are you going to wash my feet?” 7Jesus answered, “You do not know now what I am doing, but later you will understand.” 8Peter said to him, “You will never wash my feet.” Jesus answered, “Unless I wash you, you have no share with me.” 9Simon Peter said to him, “Lord, not my feet only but also my hands and my head!” 10Jesus 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.” 11For he knew who was to betray him; for this reason he said, “Not all of you are clean.”
12After 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? 13You call me Teacher and Lord—and you are right, for that is what I am. 14So if I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet. 15For I have set you an example, that you also should do as I have done to you. 16Very truly, I tell you, servants are not greater than their master, nor are messengers greater than the one who sent them. 17If you know these things, you are blessed if you do them.”
31b“Now the Son of Man has been glorified, and God has been glorified in him. 32If God has been glorified in him, God will also glorify him in himself and will glorify him at once. 33Little 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.’ 34I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. 35By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”
NRSV
Our King Has No Clothes
A long, long time ago, according to the stories told among God’s beloved people generation after generation, God created us, humankind, very good. So much was God’s joy and loving adoration for us that we were granted a glorious garden, flourishing with everything we needed to just enjoy our everlasting existence in the presence of our creator. I suspect God thought everything was perfect. Then God asked us for one thing, one thing only, do not eat that fruit from the tree of knowledge of good and evil.
Well, we humans did, and I suspect that broke God’s heart. So much was God’s disappointment that God banished us from his presence to make a living of our own. The relationship with us that God so much looked forward to have was fractured. However, remember, God is Love, and therefore, both are eternal. So God never stopped trying to reconcile with us.
God tried it multiple ways: floods, promises of faith, freedom from bondage by parting the waters; then food from the desert, water from rocks, and the instructions written down in stone so our relationships could be wholesome again. Over and over, God kept faithful to God’s own promises.
Well, we humankind did not. Throughout the history of our relationship with God, we broke every single one of our promises, and we paid the price for them. One would think that God would have quit by now. Except God never does. Humans, on the other hand, quit on God all the time. Nonetheless, we heard it before. God is love, and both are eternal. So God decides to do a new thing, a completely new covenant.
God said this, “[This covenant] will not be like the covenant that I made with their ancestors when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt—a covenant that they broke, [no]. But this is the covenant that I will make with [my people]: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. No longer shall they teach one another, or say to each other, ‘Know the Lord,’ for they shall all know me, I will forgive their iniquity, and remember their sin no more (Jeremiah 31:32–34).
In other words, God devised a plan to fully reconcile with us. The central piece of this divine plot would be that all of us, from the least to the greatest, would see him with our own eyes and fully experience his presence. Once all was accomplished, and everything witnessed, we would understand the extent of God’s mercy and love for us and therefore no longer turn away from him.
God sets everything in motion by coming down and being born among us in the form of Jesus. Right there, we have a sense of what God is up to. The plan was based on a succession of events, one more humbling than the next. See, God’s first act to prove his love for us was to give up his absolute divinity to be with us and feel what we feel. And so Jesus did, hunger, thirst, frustration, burnout, anger, compassion, love, he felt everything. God came to be at eye level with us.
Now the hour is approaching. Jesus and the disciples just had shared the Passover meal, the one by which they were to remember what God has done for them, the freedom that they came to take for granted. In that meal, Jesus announces, this is my body, this is my blood, the blood of the new covenant. I am God’s new and sufficient act of mercy for the ages, Jesus says.
Then God’s next move is astonishing. Jesus strips himself of his clothes. God exposes his skin, and the disciples get a first glance at the body about to be broken. That is not only astonishing but also embarrassing. God knows it. God was there when the first humans became aware of their nakedness and covered themselves out of shame. God so much wanted to reconcile with us that God was willing to more than humble himself. God much wants to reconcile with us, that God is willing to put himself to shame, so we begin the process of understanding how much he loves us.
Sure, at this stage of the holy narrative of redemption, which includes Judas the betrayer and Peter the denier, for nobody is beyond God’ grace, the disciples still don’t fully comprehend what is happening. We, however, now do. As Jesus knew then, we now know what is about to occur. We are fully aware. It will take a lot of courage, and a lot of love, for him and for us to see it through.
In the meantime, we take with grateful and joyful hearts what Jesus has already offered for our common reunion with the Lord our God; and we pray that the Spirit in us will be sufficiently nourished to face the communal journey still ahead of us. Taste and see. Thanks be to God. Amen.
Bridging Faith 