...To The End--March 28, 2024

...To The End--March 28, 2024

"Now before the festival of the Passover, Jesus knew that his hour had come to depart from his world and go to the Father. Having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end." [John 13:1]

"He loved them to the end."

Those words stand over the whole rest of the story--of this day in Holy Week, and of the life of Jesus.  Everything else that follows is a glimpse of how Jesus loves, in real life, flesh-and-blood ways.

On this day in the church's life, traditionally called "Maundy Thursday" from the Latin "mandamus," for command, Jesus expresses love for his disciples--who are now friends--in several powerful ways.  Immediately after this verse from John, Jesus washes his disciples' feet--taking the lowliest servant's role and subverting the old notions of rank, prestige, and status in self-giving humility.  It is love in real action--performing an act of kindness that leaves all ego and talk of projecting "greatness" behind.  And Jesus does this for his disciples, including for his betrayer Judas, even knowing that his has mere hours left with them before he is taken from them by the lynch mob and the police.   He takes the time to show tenderness to them, even though his own heart has got to be bursting with sorrow and anxiety, because he loves them.  And so, yes, even all the way to the end--until his very last moments with them, Jesus is putting their needs and comfort before his own.  That is to say, he loves them.

The act of washing feet begins a chain reaction of love, in fact, because Jesus has in mind for his followers to continue in his own example, too.  As he has done for them, they are now to do for one another, and for all who will be drawn into the Beloved Community Jesus is creating.  This will be their signpost in the world; this will be the calling card of the Jesus-movement: love that stoops to humble positions to serve rather than lording over others to bully or dominate them.  This is what Jesus wants his community to be known for.  And it all follows from the way Jesus starts it: loving his disciples to the full... all the way... to the end.

This is also the night, as the storytelling goes, when Jesus takes the leftover pieces of bread from the Passover meal, and inscribes them with new meaning that also comes from his love.  He offers them the bread as his own body, "broken for you," as the story says," and the cup of wine as his own blood, "shed for you." In other words, even though it will look to the watching world like Jesus is a helpless victim overpowered by the empire, the crowd, and the Respectable Religious Leaders, Jesus wants his followers to know that this is his gift, his choice, and his love at work.  He gives himself away at the cross.  In fact, later on this very night, when Jesus is in the garden with his disciples, he will literally put himself between the danger (the mob armed with swords and clubs) and his disciples, telling the authorities that he is the one they want, and they can let everyone else go.  Jesus' love doesn't only choose the lowly and menial task of washing feet; it also chooses the dangerous role of putting his body between his friends and the bloodthirsty vigilantes who have come for him (rather like the mama hen keeping her brood under her wings, as we talked about the other day).

All of these are what Jesus' love looks like--the basin and the towel, the broken bread and poured cup, the protection in the garden to draw the heat off of the disciples by focusing it on himself, and the cross that looms on the horizon, too.  All of this is what John the narrator has in mind when he says that Jesus "loved them to the end."  Jesus loved perfectly, completely, fully, leaving nothing on the table and holding nothing back.  And truthfully, that's what he had been doing with every word, every action, and every breath for his whole life: Jesus has been loving us in a million different ways.  And in a sense, then, every moment of Jesus' life has been cruciform--cross-shaped--in the sense that all of Jesus' words, actions, and choices have been different instances of the same self-giving love.  The servant with the washbasin, the host who feeds at the table, the one who loves his enemies and even his betrayer, the willing protector who trades his own life for his friends' safety, the figure bleeding out on the cross: these are all what it looks like for Jesus to love completely.  And for each of us, this is what it is for us to be loved by this same Jesus, too.

As you hear the stories told tonight, and perhaps as your own feet or hands are washed in worship, or as you receive the bread and cup in your own hands, let it sink in again: all of this is what love looks like.  This is how we know we are beloved.  And this gives us a starting point for what our love will look like out in the world as we walk, feet still dripping wet from the basin, into a world that has been waiting to know what it is like to be loved completely... fully... to the end.

Lord Jesus, let your love sink in and shape us, so that we may also love as you do--completely and fully.