Maundy Thursday John 13:1-35

"I give you a new commandment, to love one another as I have loved you".

Jesus, after the last supper, after kneeling humbly to wash the feet of his disciples, after realizing that he had been betrayed and that he would very soon be crucified commanded his disciples to love one another just as he had loved them. This commandment was only kind of new when Jesus gave it. His disciples would have been familiar with the commandment to love God above all else and to love their neighbors as themselves but this was new, to love each other just as Jesus loved you. What does that mean exactly? Just how did Jesus love?

Jesus loved the ones who sought to lead his church by stooping down and washing their feet. By making himself a humble servant to them. Strange when you first hear the story, Jesus rises from the table. He ties a towel around himself and he kneels to wash the feet of the ones that he loved, the ones that would carry on his message.

Foot washing generally worked like this: when a traveler would arrive at his destination as a guest he would often be provided with a basin for washing or a servant to do the washing if the traveler was a very honored guest. Foot washing was a sign of hospitality, of welcome to the house and an intimate gesture that your presence was long awaited and pleasing to your host. But Jesus stopped during dinner to do this for his disciples who if anything were more like his servants than he was theirs.

But maybe this is not so strange when you think about Jesus holding out his hands for a drink from the woman at the well, a woman so ashamed of herself that she would never meet the eyes of the Rabbi much less pour water into his hands for him to drink.

Maybe it isn't so strange when you think of Jesus stooping down to pick up little children that even his disciples were pushing aside so that he could promise them the kingdom of God even in their youth.

Stooping down with a towel wasn't a strange act for a man who had stooped down to make mud in order that he might heal the eyes of a beggar sitting at the city gates.

Stooping down to wash feet even seems pale compared to the picture of Christ bent over in tears at the grave of his friend Lazarus calling him out, calling him back to life.

In fact stooping down with a towel to bring comfort and peace to those who loved and followed him in a moment of great pain and distress might be just where you would expect to find a man who prayed for those who called for his death and who died promising care for his disciples and the love of God to a common criminal.

Stooping down with love and care to wash the very feet of those whom he had every reason to be above Jesus did just what Jesus always did, he offered all of himself in order to free those who were trapped in pain, fear, sickness and death. This is the day that we hear about the final things that Jesus did on earth as a free man before he was arrested and led to the cross and the final things sound just like the things that came before them and not too different than the things that came after them.

Even to the point of death Jesus offered himself in love to the children of God. He offered his broken body in the last supper and he offered fellowship with him in the washing of the disciples feet. And we are called to be imitators of this love. We are called to follow where Jesus left off as teachers, healers, workers for peace and justice, servants and loving brothers and sisters to God's children.

This is an incredible job almost an impossible job but for the promise of Christ that we get at the very beginning of the text that his love will abide with us to the end of the age. We are wrapped in, washed by, fed with and alive in the love of Christ now and in all that we do. How can we help but let that spill over to our neighbors and to all those around us? This is how we obey the command to love our neighbors through trust and remembrance that Christ first and most fully loved us even to the depth of the cross and through to the Joy of Easter. Amen