The love of Jesus in the midst of the world’s hatred

Sermon for Maundy Thursday

John 13:1-14:21, 15:1-25

The first 15 verses of John 13 are the ones traditionally read on Maundy Thursday, along with St. Paul’s words to the Corinthians recalling the institution of the Lord’s Supper. We will celebrate the Supper tonight. But since we just reviewed the Lord’s Supper last week at Vespers, and since we’ve been following the Apostle John all week long in his recounting of Holy Week, I thought it would be useful for us to hear more from his Gospel, to see a fuller picture of Jesus’ final evening with His disciples on that first Maundy Thursday, even as we focus on the first 15 verses.

Jesus had a lot to say to His disciples that evening, from the love of Jesus for His disciples, to the love that Jesus demands of His disciples for one another, to the hatred that the world has for Jesus, and for His disciples.

But it begins with love—Jesus’ love for His own, who were in the world. Love from beginning to end, from start to “It is finished!” Who are “His own”? In chapter 1 of John’s Gospel, “He came to His own, and His own did not receive Him.” There, “His own” are the people of Israel, the ones who had been brought into that Old Testament with God long ago, the ones who were supposed to receive their promised Christ with joy and thanksgiving, but who were about to crucify Him instead.

But some did receive Him, John says, and to them He gave the right to become children of God. They became “His own” in the truest sense—the apostles and, really, all who truly believed in Him. He was about to endure the agony of Gethsemane, and of Golgotha, for love of them, because, by His sacrifice, by His suffering, He would earn for them a place in the heavenly mansions, and these who believed in Him would be spending eternity with Him there, and not only they, but all who would believe in Him through their preaching. He would endure the agony for love of the whole world, in the sense that He died for all, that all should become His own through Baptism and faith. But above all, He would do it for love of those who actually did and would believe in Him, the ones whom He calls His “friends.” That means that you, too, who believe in Christ Jesus were in Jesus’ heart on Maundy Thursday evening, together with His beloved apostles.

His apostles, whose feet He proceeded to wash. What a humbling sight! To see the One through whom the heavens and earth were made stooping down onto His hands and knees like a servant and performing the lowly task of foot washing. It reminds us of the Epistle we heard on Palm Sunday, and the point of the foot washing was really the same point Paul was making to the Philippian Christians: Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus, who, being in the form of God, did not consider it robbery to be equal with God, but made Himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bondservant, and coming in the likeness of men. And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross. “Let this mind be in you.” That’s essentially what Jesus told His apostles. You call Me Teacher and Lord, and you say well, for so I am. If I then, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet. For I have given you an example, that you should do as I have done to you. Most assuredly, I say to you, a servant is not greater than his master.

Of course, Peter objected at first. “Lord, You should not be washing my feet! You should never stoop down to serve me!” But that’s precisely what Jesus came to do, to stoop down to serve sinful mankind. Yes, the Greater came to serve the lesser. The rich Man came to serve His poor servants. The Son of Man came not to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many. And so He told Peter, If I do not wash you, you have no part with Me. In other words, if you will not accept My service that I render to you, then you are no Christian. Because to be a Christian is to submit to the Lord serving you, because you realize that, although you are the one who was supposed to be serving God, you had failed, and the only way to be saved is if God stoops down to serve you, through the humble service of Jesus.

And if the Lord of all so willingly stooped down to serve His lowly servants, if the Lord of all so completely loved those who were beneath Him, how could His disciples fail to serve one another, or to love one another? No, He calls on His servants—apostles and laymen alike—to “wash one another’s feet,” that is, to serve one another in abject humility. He gave them a “new commandment,” to love one another.

What makes His commandment “new”? Well, it’s new for several reasons. It’s new in the sense that it’s being issued under a New Testament. Under the Old Testament, under the Law, love was required of the Israelites as their part of the agreement, as a condition of justification. But in the New Testament, which Jesus was just about to institute on that very night, justification is pronounced, God’s forgiveness is given, not on the basis of our love, but on the basis of faith in God’s love for us in Christ Jesus.

It’s a new commandment, in the sense that it has a new paradigm, a new pattern to show us what love truly looks like. God loved the Old Testament Israelites. He loved Adam and Eve. He loved the patriarchs. He loved David. But in all the wondrous works God did for people in the Old Testament, all the miraculous demonstrations of redemption and salvation, God didn’t have to give up anything. He didn’t have to sacrifice anything of His own. So no one could see just how deep His love for mankind ran. But in the incarnation of the Son of God, in His humiliation, in the suffering He had already undergone before Holy Week, in the suffering He would endure on that very night and into the following day, God gave up more than we can imagine. He suffered things that He didn’t have to suffer, but chose to suffer, for love of sinners. As I have loved you, Jesus says to His disciples, so—in this same way—you must love one another.

And that’s another thing that’s new about it. The command to love has a new focus: “one another,” fellow Christians. More than anything else, Christians, who know the love of Christ, are to be known for their love of one another, are to be devoted to one another above anyone else in the world. So every single church that calls itself Christian should take stock of itself, and each member should ask himself, have I kept this commandment? Am I keeping it? Am I determined to keep it? Because, if you’re content to disobey this commandment, to treat fellow Christians with scorn and contempt, or even with apathy, then you might as well stop calling Jesus your Lord. If you love Me, He says, keep My commandments. His command for Christians to love one another is at the top of the list.

Of course, the only way you’ll be able to do that is if you remain grafted into Him by faith, like branches attached to a vine, which brings us to that famous I AM statement of Jesus that you also heard this evening: I am the vine, you are the branches. When we were under the Law as the way to God, as the way to be accepted by God, we were doomed to failure, because doing good works in order to gain God’s favor is like a branch trying to produce fruit on its own, without being attached to the vine. But under the Gospel, under the New Testament in the blood of Christ, God has accepted us and made us His own through faith in Christ, and now believers are able to keep the Lord’s commandments, by His power that works in us. The way of the Law led to death, but the way of the Gospel, the way of faith, the way of Christ leads to eternal life.

And that’s just what Jesus said about Himself, in that other famous I AM statement that you heard earlier: I AM the way, and the truth, and the life. Jesus had begun to speak to His apostles about His departure—which included His departure to the grave, but then also His departure from the earth to the right hand of God the Father. And He gave them that beautiful picture of what He would be doing while He was “away”: Let not your hearts be troubled. Believe in God; believe also in me. In my Father’s house are many rooms. if it were not so, I would have told you. I am going to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also. And you know the way to where I am going. Thomas objected, Lord, we don’t know where You’re going. How can we know the way? But they did know the way, because the way is Jesus, and they knew Him.

And yet, there was one there who didn’t know Him, not really. Judas Iscariot knew Jesus to be many things, but he didn’t know Jesus as the Way, the Truth, and the Life. He didn’t believe, and, therefore, he was unclean before God. He wasn’t even there to hear most of what you heard this evening, because he had already left to go tell the Jews about the Garden of Gethsemane, where they would be able to find Jesus and arrest Him within a few hours. Judas, unlike the other apostles, was still of the world—the world that hated Jesus and still hates Him, the world that hated His apostles, the world that hates all who truly love Jesus. They hated Me without cause, Jesus lamented. He had only done good. He had only spoken the truth. He had only acted in love. But if you don’t love the truth, then you can’t love Jesus. And if you don’t love Him, then, the truth is, you hate Him.

Tomorrow, we’ll see the culmination of the world’s hatred toward Jesus. But the more the world’s hatred is put on display, the more the love of Jesus shines into the darkness, that He was willing to endure all of man’s hatred for love of His friends, including those who were not yet His friends, including those who hated Him at the time but later were made to see His love and to be converted by it. May the love of Jesus shine brightly in you and through you, that, in the midst of this world’s hatred, His love, and your love, may shine as bright as the day into this present darkness, too. Amen.