Maundy Thursday, 2023
Exodus 12:1-4, 11-14
1 Corinthians 11:23-26
John 13:1-17, 31b-35
Psalm 116:1, 10-17
In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.
Do you know what I have done to you? That’s what Jesus asks the disciples after washing their feet. Do you know what I have done to you? And I think it’s safe to say the answer is no. No they don’t.
It’s easy to miss how radical this whole foot washing scene really is. But that’s because we don’t really connect with it, since we’re not in the habit of washing people’s feet, or having our own feet washed. We are miles away from our personal experience here.
But Jesus is going way beyond merely subverting the system. He’s actually overthrowing the whole thing. Normally, a servant would wash the disciples’ feet when they entered someone’s home for dinner. It would be a crazy idea for the disciples to wash each other’s feet. But Jesus is taking this way beyond that. The master, the teacher, the Lord is doing what a servant normally does.
And you can see how radical this is because of Peter’s reaction, when he says, “You will never wash my feet.” For Peter, and for the others, Jesus has lost his mind here. This is crazy talk, and I imagine Peter feels like he’s trying to bring Jesus back to reality. You will never wash my feet. Not tonight, not tomorrow, not ever!
Do you know what I have done to you? That question really sticks with me again this year. Not done for you. Not done so that you might understand. Done to you. Do you know what I have done to you? It suggests that the disciples have been changed somehow. Jesus has done something to them. And there’s no going back.
And what he has done to them is connected to this: I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. He says it’s a new commandment. But is it? We hear it on this day every year. It isn’t new to us. But we need to hear it every year, because it is a chance for us to start anew. To recognize what Jesus has done to us.
It’s one commandment. Not a whole list of rules and regulations. Just one thing: Love one another as I have loved you. As I have loved you. And how is that? In that act of washing his disciples’ feet. Humbling ourselves for one another. Which is not a thing we normally do! We are trained from birth to raise ourselves up, put ourselves first, get what we can get. To have the servants wash our feet, rather than us washing theirs.
Do you know what Jesus has done to you? He’s turned all that on its head, that’s what! He subverts the whole system we’ve been raised up in. Saying leaders should follow. The strong should become weak. The rich, poor. Do you know what Jesus has done to you? He’s ruined everything!
I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. That is a new commandment. And it is a radical way of being in the world. So radical, in fact, that we cannot possibly do it on our own. And that’s why we need Jesus. You and I need to have Jesus do to our hearts what he did to the disciples’ hearts that night. We need for God to break into our lives and turn us around. To overthrow our sense of what is up and what is down. Because in our me-first self-preservation above-all-else way of living, we’ve got it all wrong. Jesus is saying we’ve got it all backwards.
Jesus asks us tonight, “Do you know what I have done to you?” Yes, Jesus, we do. You have shown us a better way. And we ask you to continue to show us your better way, every day. Make us into people capable of living into your commandment, that we might love one another, as you have loved us.
Amen.
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