brought here together by christ’s love
by love are we thus bound
The intensity continued to build, hard as that may be to believe. So even those stone-hearted disciples couldn’t miss the significance of that night. As the Passover drew near, Jesus gathered these twelve for a meal.
Although they couldn’t have imagined it would be the last one they shared together with this Jesus; none of them could have missed the gravity of that evening, either…
So they gathered with this Jesus they had been through so much with, and tried to make heads and tails of everything that was beginning to spin wildly out of control.
Suddenly though, in the middle of the meal, this Jesus stops, takes off his robe, gets a basin and water, and begins to do something embarrassing, embarrassing and inappropriate; he washes his disciples’ feet.
As everything was coming to a crescendo, nothing was getting any more coherent for the disciples that night.
Sure, at that time it may have been custom for whoever was hosting a meal to arrange the washing of their guest’s feet. What was inappropriate, though, was for a teacher to was the feet of their disciples. Those in power were not supposed to degrade themselves with such a lowly task.
Looking on their leader in such an abased and vulnerable position could not have been easy for those twelve who hoped to follow Jesus all the way to his ultimate triumph…
On this evening, as everything was building to a terrible culmination, the poor disciples were still in a fog. And who could blame them?
After some awkward tussling back and forth, the disciples consent and let Jesus do this discomforting thing…
Then Jesus takes his place back at the head of the table, and explains the necessity of it all. And not only that, because he explains his followers must be prepared for the same kind of lowly service to one another, and the world.
In a few short days everything will finally come to a head; the Roman soldiers will come and seize Jesus, he will be interrogated by those using power to advance their own petty interests, he will be beaten and mocked, he will have a cross hoisted upon him, and he will be killed.
Just as terrible, while all this is going on, Judas, one of the twelve, will betray Jesus; Peter, the spokesperson for the disciples, will deny Jesus three times, and every single one of the disciple will cut and run, abandoning Jesus…
That loving act of Jesus' seems not to have mattered one whit when the chips were down.
As Jesus said on that fateful night to Peter, “You do not know what I am doing, but later you will understand.”
For us, and probably Peter too, the understand seems to come only too late. When it mattered most, Peter wasn’t willing to follow Jesus’ path of humble love. In fear, he lied, insisting he wasn’t even one of Jesus’ disciples…
The understanding does seem to come too late, doesn’t it?
Washing the feet of these twelve who not only fail to understand, but betray, deny and desert; appears to have been a pure waste.
As with Peter, though, Jesus will not be deterred by our protests, either.
Yes, Jesus will rise from that terrible death; but this is not the time to jump ahead to easy answers. Now is the time to come into that dark room with Jesus and the disciples, on their last gathering; and fully aware of the horror of what will follow, cling to these last Words Jesus gives his followers.
What we will need to be sustained, Jesus says and acts out, is his love - the love of the one who refuses to save himself at the expense of the rest of us. The only thing that will hold us together, Jesus insists, is the very same love the disciples will drop to the dirt as they turn tail, and flee.
Then as of now, Jesus’ final Word to is hard to believe; trust me I know. This love of Jesus never seems to be enough when the chips are down…
The longer I am called to be the pastor here at Trinity, the more I learn how tenuous our life together is…
Every day we are threatened by so many forces that threaten to tear us apart; an unexpected bill, a failure in some cog in the basement, a leak in just the right place, a failure of one wall or another to bear its load.
That isn’t even to say anything our life together; a rumor spread, a toe stepped on that either won’t heal or won’t be allowed to, an argument that won’t be put to rest.
The fact is, the number of things that threaten to pull us apart, greatly outweigh the number of things that hold us together…
And here, on this last meal, Jesus washes his disciples’ feet and calls them to love one another, as he has loved them.
And here, as we gather in this building where so many other services have been held, so many fights have been waged, so many hugs shared and tears shed; we too hear Jesus’ last Word, ‘to love one another as he has loved us…’
Last year, after the Maundy Thursday worship, after everyone left, I went in the sanctuary and sit in dim light as the sun had sat. I imagined myself there, in that room with the disciples and Jesus.
Only unlike the disciples, I knew what would come next, I knew the ending.
At least that’s what I thought…
As I looked at the table where we shared so many meals, stripped of everything; I realized how easily it all could come true. The bill we couldn’t pay, the offering that was rescinded.
I imagined the pain and anguish of closing this place. Sitting there, I realized I’m not so different from those disciples that night. They knew the ending too, of course. Jesus had told them so many times.
In spite of all the forewarnings, though, it was just as hard then as it is now, to believe Jesus; that his love, oh so vulnerable, is all we have to hold us together and sustain us. That’s it.…
Soon we will read in John’s Gospel of Jesus’ last meal with his twelve disciples, how he called them to love one another. As that Gospel is read, I will take a towel and basin and offer to wash the feet of anyone who comes forward.
It will be awkward, and not a little embarrassing.
But in the end, when the chips are down, when that cog fails or the plaster crumbles; if Jesus is to be trusted, and he is, than it will be all we have, and it will be more than enough: the love that Jesus has given us.
Amen
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