Loading...The true weight of this holy week begins tonight. Whether you choose to allow someone else to wash your feet and to wash the feet of another, this night is filled with reminders, so many reminders, of love, pain, and protection.
This is the night when Jesus gets down on his knees and washes the feet of these people who have journeyed with him for years, months, weeks, or even only days. People who have questioned him, doubted him, side-eyed him, and wondered about him. He even washes the feet of the one who betrays him. All these have felt his trust in them, his hope in them, and his love for them despite their awkward relationships with him.
Isn’t that comforting? That the people who walked this world with Jesus–with all their uncertainty—experienced such abiding love? I don’t know about you, but I think it is a wonderful message that holds true today. I can struggle with understanding, with doubt, with self-reliance, and know, deep within me, that Jesus would get on his knees and wash my feet because he is the epitome of what service done with love looks like. ***
This is the night when Jesus has a meal, surrounded by his friends, including the one who betrays him, and teaches them what is necessary to keep him alive in their lives with the simplest of foods—bread and wine. Food that can be interpreted in any culture and represent the relationship between humanity and God.
What a blessing to be able to share this simple meal nearly every week to be fed the food of love, to sustain us each day, to be in relationship with God. To come to that table to receive nourishment beyond calories and protein to give us strength to follow the way of Jesus by showing love, mercy, kindness, fairness, to all those we meet along the way. Just like Jesus. ***
We didn’t hear the rest what happens in this part of John’s Gospel, but I want to give you more to think about.
This is the night that Jesus is betrayed by Judas, but not before Judas receives the bread and the wine, not before Judas is washed ever so gently and kindly, still loved, even through his betrayal. Jesus never condemns him. Judas must come to terms with his actions and when he realizes that Jesus never stops loving him, he makes the choice to end his life, perhaps believing that he was not worthy of God’s love.
How many of us have ever behaved in a way that seems unforgivable? Our behavior is often a temporary response to something that has happened to us or around us. I was reading Madeleine L’Engle’s book A Swiftly Tilting Planet last week and read this: ‘“I am angry.” Ritchie looked past [his brother] Brandon to his mother. [Who was making herbal tea.] “Your herbs will not stop my anger.”
“You have cause to be angry,” his father said, “Anger is not bitterness. Bitterness can go on eating at a man’s heart and mind forever. Anger spends itself in its own time. …”’ (p. 138)
Anger spends itself in its own time. It burns out. It eventually subsides.
I find this part of L’Engle’s story important. It reminds us that how we hold onto our behaviors and attitudes reflect what we believe. Sometimes, those reflections can seep into our hearts like bitterness, like poison, if we do not pay attention. We have a choice, like Judas, like Ritchie in the book, to let our pain and anger fester within us, poisoning us into believing we are not worthy of anyone’s, let alone God’s love.
Judas made a permanent decision about a temporary situation, and we need to hear clearly that Jesus never stopped loving Judas. But Judas could not see that. We can see the depth of God’s abiding love for Judas now, and we can weep at Judas’s belief that what he had done was unforgiveable. ***
This is the night when Jesus gives his last instructions to his followers, when he says in John 15: “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. You are my friends if you do what I command you. I do not call you servants any longer, because the servant does not know what the master is doing, but I have called you friends, because I have made known to you everything that I have heard from my Father. You did not choose me, but I chose you. And I appointed you to go and bear fruit, fruit that will last, so that the Father will give you whatever you ask him in my name. I am giving you these commands so that you may love one another.” (15:12-17)
It is the night when, in their presence, he prays to God about them, aloud, giving them courage knowing that God will not abandon them as they continue the work Jesus began. In John’s chapter 17 Jesus prays: “I am asking on their behalf; I am not asking on behalf of the world but on behalf of those whom you gave me, because they are yours. All mine are yours, and yours are mine, and I have been glorified in them.” (John 17:9-10)
This might be my favorite part of what happened that night. The instructions, the prayer, are not only for those who heard the words that night. They are also for us when his prayer goes on: “I ask not only on behalf of these but also on behalf of those who believe in me through their word, that they may all be one. As you, Father, are in me and I am in you, may they also be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me.” (John 17:14-21)
They are our marching orders, directing our feet, our hands, our hearts to continue the work of Jesus. The prayer was for us, too, to give us confidence that who we are as Jesus Followers comes with a prayer for courage and strength and the knowledge of God’s protection as we continue to do what Jesus taught. What a gift! ***
This is the night when Jesus goes to Gethsemane’s garden to pray, leading his friends to this peaceful place where olive trees wind upon themselves and the fragrance is spicy and sweet. A place of quiet in the middle of a bustling city. Jesus goes there to continue his prayer in private, only asking the others to stay awake, to watch, to be near.
But they have full bellies and are tired from the roughly two mile walk, and they fall asleep. Jesus scolds them, but I suspect he did it lovingly, recognizing that these people who have been following him for a long time are comfortable, resting in his presence. They may not have known what was coming next, but they felt secure.
Following Jesus can be exhausting. It seems like he was always on the move, teaching, guiding, walking from place to place. Our lives are often a lot like that. We are busy people. We get tired. And we still try to be in communication with God. We worship, we serve, we pray. And yes, sometimes, we fall asleep when we pray, secure, comfortable, trusting that we will always be heard, held, and loved. ***
This is the night when Jesus is arrested, dragged to the home of Caiaphas, questioned, whipped, stuck in a prison cell to wait for daybreak when his fate would be sealed by some of the Chief Priests, the Roman laws, and Pilate…and the people. It is the night when all those who followed him ran away or denied knowing him, a behavior that seemed selfish. It seemed they were looking out for themselves rather than there to support Jesus.
Jesus told his followers that it would be hard to follow him. They would experience persecution, they would be hated. He prepared them saying that standing up for what is right and good and of God would come with vitriolic words, physical abuse, broken friendships, threats to their well-being. Following God would mean putting God before family, before government, before the world.
The disciples who ran away to protect themselves did not behave any differently than most of us would. We often look at this as cowardice because they didn’t protect or stand up for Jesus. But I wonder if they scattered that night because of what they heard from Jesus—that it was now up to them to continue the plan, to tell the story, to teach the people.
We know how hard it can be to stand and speak up for what we believe Jesus has taught us. But if we take the words and teaching of Jesus seriously, we know that we have been tasked and called to continue the work he began. To show others what it means to love God and to love one another as we have been loved by God.
That’s hard work, especially when we can become angry and afraid, like those men were that night. Especially when it feels like the world is coming to an end, which is very likely what they thought as Jesus was being dragged away into the night. ***
This is the night when Jesus was bound to a wall in a cell under Caiaphas’s house with other criminals. Beaten, broken, waiting for dawn. I can only imagine his prayers in those hours were for God’s people to remember that love conquers all, and that they will eventually have the strength to move forward and be his hands and feet. Prayers that he did enough. Prayers that God would abide with them and everyone who was and is to come.
We have the benefit of knowing the rest of the story, and we can jump to the time when the tomb is found empty. But I hope that you will linger in these next few days, in the cell, at the trial, with the beatings.
On the walk from the square, dragging a heavy cross up a hill.
Listening to the sound of nails piercing flesh with the slam of each hammer stroke. Unafraid to look up at the crown of thorns on his head, breaking the skin so drops of blood mingled with sweat would drip down his face.
Hopeful as you hear his kind words to the men hanging on either side of him, saying they will be with him in heaven.
Weeping the moment he takes his last breath.
Patiently watching as his body is removed from the cross and a stranger takes him to a tomb.
Falling to your knees as the stone is rolled across the door.
All for love. Amen.
