Jesus Blesses His Disciples
Maundy Thursday – April 1, 2010
Maundy Thursday – it's kind of a weird name. Some churches just call it Holy Thursday. That would make more sense, wouldn't it? It's easier to say; we have some idea of what the word “holy” means. But we in the Lutheran church call this day when we remember Jesus' last meal with his friends and followers Maundy Thursday. It's because Maundy is an old English form of the Latin word, mandatum, (man-day-tum) which means “command.” So you see where that comes from in this reading from the gospel of John.
But let's set the scene a little bit. Here in this 13th chapter of John, Jesus has gathered all of his disciples with him for one final meal. He knows what's coming – John says that Jesus knew that his hour had come to depart from this world and go to the Father. Jesus knows it's his last night, so he takes this chance to be with his friends, to eat with them, to talk to them, to help prepare them for what's coming. So you know what he says in this meal is important to him. It's kind of like his last will and testament, his last chance to share some words of wisdom with his disciples. And what does he say? Here at the end of our gospel passage, Jesus says, “I give you a new commandment.” This new commandment is why we call this day Maundy Thursday. “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.”
Not only is it important enough to give this command to love each other at his last meal, it's apparently really important to Jesus, because he repeats it not once, not twice, but three times. Love one another. Love one another. Love one another.
But that's not as easy as it may sound. This loving one another business is hard work. Because Jesus isn't describing that warm & fuzzy feeling we sometimes describe as love. He's not talking about that emotion that flows naturally between people who have things in common and enjoy each others' company. The love that Jesus is talking about goes much deeper than that. For Jesus, love is more than a feeling, it's a verb. Jesus' kind of love is active. It's a love that puts itself at the service of others. It's a love that doesn't stand on ceremony, that doesn't let pride get in the way. It's a love that is willing to take on the role of a servant, getting down on the floor, and kneeling at someone's feet, and washing away the grit and grime of the day. Loving one another means loving as Jesus has loved them, and this foot-washing is the example Jesus gives his disciples of what it looks like to love that way, love in action.
And you know it couldn't have been easy for the disciples. Even though they've been following Jesus for 3 years, they still didn't get it all the time. They had a hard time with this humble love Jesus lived. All through the gospels, we see them arguing with each other about who would be the greatest, competing with each other for the #1 leadership position. John's gospel tonight shows us how hard it was for them to accept Jesus acting like a servant, how they resisted his washing their feet. And you don't see any of them leaping up to take his place either, do you?
This command to love each other is a challenge for us too. Because loving the way Jesus loves means getting ourselves, with our pride and our sense of propriety, out of the way. It's hard to love the way Jesus describes, the way Jesus lives. Jesus willingly, lovingly, put the needs of others ahead of himself. He came, he says, not to be served, but to serve. That's what he commands us to do.
And truth be told, we don't always want to do that – there are lots of times when we want to be served, not serve - even with the people we are closest too, the ones we love the most, let alone the people who get on our nerves and drive us nuts. But that's what Jesus calls us to – to look out for the needs of the people in our lives, to find ways that we can help, even when it's not convenient, even when we'd prefer to do something else, even when it means doing something that's the equivalent of washing someone's feet. That's up-close & personal love, love that grows out of the love Jesus has for each of us.
This is a hard commandment, because like all of God's commandments, it is hard to fulfill. But like all of God's commandments, it comes with a blessing. After Jesus washes his disciples' feet, he reminds them that they call him Teacher and Lord, and that's it's right for them to call him that, because that's what he is. Then he says, “servants are not greater than their master, nor are messengers greater than the one who sent them.” But then here comes the good part – “If you know these things,” Jesus says, “you are blessed if you do them.”
You are blessed if you do them. Jesus promises his followers that there is a blessing in living as Jesus lived, in serving as Jesus served, in loving as Jesus loved. I think those original disciples probably had a hard time with this at first. And yet something must have clicked after Jesus died and was raised again, because we see them living this out. They become the kind of community that is known by the way it loves each other, by the way that it takes care of each other. And they don't keep it to themselves – this love spreads, and with it, the good news of life and love and salvation spreads throughout the known world. The disciples are blessed with a new way of life, with seeing the impact they are having on the world through Christ. They come to know the joy of serving that can't be taught, the joy that can only come through the experience of faith made active in love.
This blessing is for us too – we are blessed when we do these things Jesus has taught us. I know that at the outset, it doesn't always look or feel that way. Loving the Jesus way can feel more like a burden than a blessing. And yet I think of the joy I have witnessed in this place as people here love one another the way that Jesus commands. I've seen the blessings flow as folks bring flowers to our homebound, or pack up meals from our potluck fellowship nights and deliver them to people who are homebound or ill. I've seen it as people in St. John's go out of their way to pick up other people who need a ride to church or the doctor. I've seen it in the ways some of you have cared for aging parents or disabled spouses, or looked out for relatives who are in need. And I know some of you don't think anything of it – it's just what people do, but this is where the rubber of Jesus' command to love meets the road of reality – in the ordinary, day to day events of our lives, when we make the time to love each other through our actions, not just our words. You may not even always want to do them at 1st, but when you do, you tell me you are glad that you did. You feel good. You find that you yourself are blessed, even as you are a blessing to someone else. And you are blessed when you do these things, because they draw you ever closer to Jesus, the one who gave us this command, the one who lived it first, the one who gives himself away for us, so that we might be free to give ourselves away to others. Thanks be to God.
Amen.
No comments:
Post a Comment