“The Mandate of Maundy Thursday”
John 13:1-17, 31-35
3/20/08
Today is Maundy Thursday. Well, we all know
what Thursday is. But what does “maundy” mean?
It comes from the Latin word mandatum from which we get the word
“mandate” or “command.” And so, Maundy
Thursday gets its name from the command which our Lord gave to His
disciples on this night in which He was betrayed. But what is
this command? From this evening’s Gospel text, we might
conclude that the mandate which Jesus commands His disciples to keep is
the washing of feet. But this act doesn’t have the word
“command” attached to it. Jesus simply says, “I
have given you an example, that you also should do just as I have done
to you.” Unlike the Lord’s Supper which comes with
the words “Do this in remembrance of me,” the washing of
feet does not have the words “do this” connected to
it. For this reason, the Christian Church as a whole does not
consider feet-washing a Sacrament nor does it practice feet-washing as
a regular part of its liturgy. The Roman Catholic Church,
however, does include the rite in their Maundy Thursday services.
So, to what is the word “command”
attached in tonight’s text? What is it that has the mandate
of the Lord? It’s found in these words: “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.” The mandate
of Maundy Thursday is the command to love one another (that’s
fellow believers in Christ) just as Christ loved us. “By
this,” says Jesus, “all people will know that you are my
disciples, if you have love for one another.”
Well, easier said than done. The old
commandment was that we were to love our neighbors as ourselves.
And if we’re honest with ourselves, we can all see just how badly
we’ve botched that one. If we can’t keep the old
commandment, how are we going to keep the new one? The new one
seems even more impossible to keep, because here Jesus tells us to love
one another just as He has loved us, and who can love as Jesus loves?
Let’s look at this love of Jesus... How
has Jesus loved us? You can probably think of many acts of love
that Jesus performed for people. Here in tonight’s Gospel
text is one of those acts - feet-washing. But I’d like to
focus on three main ways in which Jesus demonstrated His love for
us. They are: by proclaiming the truth of God’s Word
to us, by keeping the requirements of the Law for us, and by giving His
life on the cross for us.
First, Jesus loved us by proclaiming the truth of
God’s Word to us. Now, some might not think this is a very
loving thing to do, especially when the buzz word today is
“tolerance.” Speaking the truth of God’s Word
wasn’t always appreciated in Jesus’ day either, especially
when He proclaimed the truth about our sin. Words like “woe
to you, you brood of vipers” and “you are of your father,
the devil” certainly don’t sound like kind words, let alone
words of love from Jesus. And yet, it is because of His love for
us that the Lord must use words like these to expose our sin, so that
we might confess our sins and hear His words of forgiveness.
It’s a loving thing that the Lord does, when He proclaims the
truth of God’s Word and exposes as false the gods and religions
that we hold onto today, so that we might turn from those idols to the
true God, the God and Father of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, and
live. The truth may hurt, but it’s spoken out of
love. Because He loved us too much to let us die in our ignorance
and sins, Jesus faithfully proclaimed the truth of God’s Word to
us, in order that we might acknowledge our sin and trust in Him alone
for salvation.
This leads us to the second way in which Jesus
demonstrated His love for us, and that is by keeping all the
requirements of the Law for us. Since according to God’s
Word we are sinners, enemies of God, unable and unwilling to keep
God’s Law, Jesus did for us what we could not do for
ourselves. Out of His love for us He fulfilled all righteousness
for us. He overcame the temptations of the devil and the world,
and He perfectly kept all of God’s commandments for us. He
delighted in His Father’s will and walked in His ways to the
glory of His holy Name. He loved God with all His heart, soul,
strength, and mind, and He loved His neighbor as Himself. And He
didn’t do this for Himself. He didn’t do it to prove
that He could do it as God. Nor did He do it to show us that we
too could do it, if we just tried hard enough. He did it for us,
on our behalf, in our place, as our substitute, as if we ourselves had
done it. And that’s how God sees you now baptized into
Christ - with His perfect obedience given to you. Because Jesus
kept all the requirements of God’s Law for you, you who trust in
Him are no longer an object of God’s wrath, but an object of His
love and mercy.
Then, the third way Jesus demonstrated His love for
us is by giving His life for us on the cross. Jesus’ whole
life had been a self-sacrificial one, one in which He lived not for
Himself but for others. As He said, “The Son of Man came
not to be served but to serve and to give His life as a ransom for
many.” He also said, “Greater love has no man than
that he should lay down his life for his friends.” And the
Apostle John here says that Jesus, “having loved His own who were
in the world, He loved them to the end.” The
“end” to which Jesus loved us was to the utmost, to the
point of giving His life into death on the cross in order to save
ours. Jesus showed the extent of His love for us in pouring
Himself out completely for us, both in His life and in His death.
He not only gave His life for His friends, but for His enemies, for us
who were hostile towards God, dead in our trespasses and sins.
And on the cross He took from us the wrath of God which we deserved on
account of our sins and suffered it in our place. He died the
death we deserve - being forsaken by God - so that we might be
reconciled to God and live, now and forever. The next time you
want to know how much God loves you, consider what Jesus did to
demonstrate His love for you, and then you’ll know.
This brings us back to Jesus’ command to
love. We are commanded to love one another just as He loved
us. And yet, who can love this way but Jesus alone? On our
best day we can’t even come close to loving as Jesus loved
us. We could wash a million pairs of feet and still not come any
nearer to loving one another as Jesus loved us. Besides, our love
for ourselves is so great, that we can never perform an act of love so
selflessly that we are not at the same time thinking about how that act
will benefit us. So, is Jesus commanding us something we cannot
do? Should we just throw our hands up in despair and not even
try? Here again God’s Word speaks the truth about us:
We cannot in and of ourselves love as Jesus loved us. But as we
are on the receiving end of His love for us, as Jesus pours His love
into us, then we will begin to be able to love one another as He loved
us.
And this is where the connection is made between the
Lord’s Supper and the Lord’s new commandment, because it is
in the Lord’s Supper that Jesus and His love are poured into you
as you eat and drink His body and blood. In John’s Gospel
it doesn’t seem to be immediately apparent that there is this
connection between the Lord’s Supper and the Lord’s command
to love one another, because John is the only one of the four
evangelists that makes no overt reference to the Lord’s
Supper. He does, however, record that Jesus calls Himself the
Bread of Life, who says, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you
eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life
in yourselves.” Here, though the Lord’s Supper is not
specifically mentioned, it is clear that Jesus gives us life through
the eating and drinking of His body and blood. The connection
between the Lord’s Supper and the Lord’s commandment, then,
becomes clear, when we consider that it’s only those who have
been given life through the eating and drinking of Christ’s body
and blood who can love as He loved us. A dead person can’t
do anything. And you were dead in your sins. But as the
Lord fed and continues to feed you on Himself through His Word and His
Holy Supper, you have life, you have Christ’s life. Christ
lives in you, and now you can love one another as Jesus loved you,
because Jesus’ love is having its way with you.
In Psalm 23, David writes, “my cup
overflows.” What would happen at the table if your host
continued to pour wine into your glass without stopping? It would
overflow and it would not only get you but those sitting at the table
with you wet. And that’s the way the Lord’s love
works with you. Through His Word and His Sacraments Jesus
continues to pour more of His love into you than you can contain, until
it spills out from you and gets those around you wet with it.
You’ll begin to speak the truth of God’s Word in love to
your brothers in Christ, loving them enough to tell them when they
err. You’ll begin to humble yourself towards your brothers
and live to serve them, even washing their feet if necessary.
You’ll start keeping the commandments of the Law for your
brothers’ benefit, without thinking about yourself and what you
might get out of it. You’ll start to sacrifice yourself for
your brothers, considering them and their needs as more important than
your own. And you will forgive your brothers their trespasses
against you, just as the Lord has forgiven your trespasses against
Him. By doing such works of love for your brothers, you will show
that Christ’s love has had its way with you and that Christ lives
in you and is loving through you. You will show that you are
Christ’s true disciples.
As you come to the Lord’s Table tonight, then,
be filled again with His love for you as He feeds you on His body and
blood for the forgiveness of your sins. Do this in remembrance of
Him, in remembrance of what He has done out of His love for you.
And having been on the receiving end of that love that He is pouring
into you, let that love flow out towards one another, to your fellow
believers, into whom the love of Christ has also been poured, and in
such a way you will demonstrate Christ and His love to the world,
proclaiming His death until He comes again. Amen.