My Maundy Thursday Sermon from 2021

Jesus Washes His Disciples' Feet

One day during WWII, Winston Churchill made one of his most stirring radio addresses to the nation, after the British had suffered a humiliating defeat at the hands of the Nazis. It was a repeat of what he had said in the House of Commons. It helped to lift up the demoralized nation and turn it in a new direction that ultimately led to victory. The problem was Churchill did not make the radio speech. He was too busy. Reportedly, Norman Shelley, an English actor who could perfectly imitate his Prime Minister, made it for him.

As Shelley listened to and then imitated Churchill, we Christians are to listen to and then imitate Jesus, who said: “Love one another just as I have loved you.”

Jesus gave his disciples a mandate to love as he loved. The word mandate in Latin is mandatum, becoming maundy in English. Hence, Maundy Thursday is about divine, sacrificial love being a living example that is to become human love put into practice. We have a divine mandate to love one another as Jesus loved us.

On the night before his death, Jesus washed his disciples’ feet. He taught that each of us is called to imitate him by dying to ourselves and serving one another. He taught us that strength and growth in the Kingdom of God come not by power or by authority or even by miracles, but by humble, sacrificial service. 

To set the scene, Jesus and his disciples have come to the upper room for what will be their last supper together, a pre-Passover meal in John’s gospel. Unlike Matthew, Mark, and Luke, the timing in John’s Gospel has Passover falling on Friday night instead of Thursday. So this is a pre-Passover meal.

There are several explanations of this difference. One is that different groups of Jews had different calendars and did not agree on the exact date of Passover. Today Eastern Orthodox and Western Christians usually celebrate Easter on different Sundays. This year we celebrate Easter on April 4; they on May 2.

Another reason, that does not discount the first, is that John wants the death of Jesus on the cross to coincide with the slaughtering of the Passover lambs in the temple on Friday afternoon.

Jesus’ pre-Passover meal takes what God had instituted for his people at the time of the exodus from Egypt and transforms it into a new exodus from sin and death on a new day. Jesus hosts this meal the day before Passover because he knows he will be dead and buried the next day. In the economy and artistry of God in his use of profoundly meaningful symbols, I find this explanation makes the most sense.

The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world was killed upon the cross while the other lambs that can never take away the sin of the world were being slaughtered in the temple. The perfect sacrifice of Jesus will now put to an end the imperfect sacrificial practice that is intended to point to him.

Proper Eastern etiquette required that guests have their feet washed by a slave. Jewish slaves, however, were not required to perform this lowly task. Foot-washing was below their status. Therefore, none of the disciples offered to do this peer-to-peer foot washing that evening. No one even offered to wash Jesus’ feet. With the hindsight of the cross, we can appreciate what Jesus did in washing their feet. He symbolically prefigured his cleansing death on the cross in an acted-out parable.

It communicated the depth of his sacrificial love. He became a slave for them. In his own words, “The son of man did not come to be served but to serve. And to give his life as a ransom for many,” which means that he also became a slave for us.

Few dinner parties have ever received the attention this one did. While John does not mention Jesus giving bread and wine to his disciples to represent his body and blood, the three other gospel writers do. John, however, devotes five full chapters to the events of this evening, more than any other of the gospels do, demonstrating the immense importance of that fateful evening.

As the altar is stripped in about 30 minutes, as the symbols and elements we use in our worship are removed, we remember that the cross of Christ and his work upon the cross for us stands at the center of our faith.

There is one character at this meal, who even though he had his feet cleaned by Jesus, rejected Jesus. After witnessing and experiencing all that Jesus did, why did Judas, one of Jesus’ closest friends, betray him? It is hard to know exactly why.

Perhaps Judas was still smarting from the rebuke Jesus gave him after a woman anointed him with expensive ointment. Perhaps it was Jesus’ seemingly defeatist attitude about dying as he approached Jerusalem. Whatever the reason, Judas settled for a paltry amount to betray Jesus—30 pieces of silver from the chief priests.

Thirty pieces of silver was what Exodus 2:21 required to be paid to the owner of a servant accidentally gored to death by an ox. This price of 30 coins put on the head of God incarnate reinforces the theme of “Jesus as servant.”

Jesus chose Judas to be one of his own, bringing him into the inner life of the twelve. Judas walked with Jesus some three years, listening to his teaching, witnessing his miracles, and going out with other disciples to do the same. Judas knew Jesus and was known by Jesus. Judas stood at the precipice of witnessing the greatest act of divine love in history. Instead of following and loving Jesus, he used his position and privilege for selfish, homicidal purposes. He left the last supper and headed out to meet the high priest and his minions to report on where they could arrest Jesus in the darkness of Gethsemane.

Unlike Judas, if I am to be a disciple, a true follower of Jesus, then I must love what Jesus loves and I must love sacrificially.

How can I, how can you, how can we be different than Judas?

Paul explains it this way in 2 Corinthians 3:5-6:  There is nothing in us that allows us to claim that we are capable of doing this work [of loving sacrificially].  The capacity we have comes from God; it is he who made us capable of serving the new covenant, which consists not of a written law but of the Spirit.

When I learned that my capacity to love comes from the Spirit, I began to understand how I can live as a disciple of Jesus. Jesus not only gave each of us a mandate to love sacrificially but the capacity to do it through his Spirit. It is the Spirit of Jesus, living in us that transforms and equips us to follow his mandate of love. That is why love is a fruit of the Spirit.

In his evil betrayal, Judas set into place the passion of Jesus. Knowing this, Jesus declared, “Now is the Son of Man glorified.”  This glory is the glory of sonship and all that entails for Jesus in his arrest, beatings, interrogations, humiliation, mock trial, flogging, and crucifixion. All of this will bring glory to God in and through Jesus’ submission.

At this point we must step back in amazement. Who would have ever thought up this crazy scheme? What kind of Creator God would let his creatures “uncreate” him? Only a God totally committed to revealing his inner-most character and perfect love to his creation would do this. No human being could make up this story. Its author can only be divine.

“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.” The cross defines, or perhaps redefines, what love is. It is this kind of sacrificial love that Jesus calls his disciples to express toward one another.

As Norman Shelley was able to imitate Churchill, we are to imitate Jesus by loving one another sacrificially. Has anyone ever mistaken you for Jesus because of sacrificial love, of you not trying to get your way but supporting someone else who disagrees with you? How exactly does the love of Jesus look in you? Remember, Jesus’ mandate this Maundy Thursday: “Love one another as I have loved you.”

Let us pray:

Lord Jesus, you call each of us to depths of love that welcome all people inside and outside your Church. Help us to repent when we fail to love and to return again to you the Author and Perfector of sacrificial love, that we may start afresh and love anew the people you put in our lives. Through your Spirit, establish us as living temples of your love in a Church and in a world desperately in need of you and the exodus from sin and death you offer each of us at the cross through your sacrificial love. Amen.