Exactly What We Need - Sermon for Maundy Thursday (March 28, 2024)

Scripture Readings: Exodus 12:1–14 | Psalm 116:1–2, 12–19 | 1 Corinthians 11:23–26 | John 13:1–17, 31b–35

​“I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” (John 13:34-35).
 
This is the commandment of our Lord, and it is exactly what our world needs right now: a community of people who love one another the way that Jesus loves.
 
Of course this sounds great at first glance… but time and again we tend to shrink back when it comes down to putting His kind of love into practice. Then suddenly, love doesn’t seem quite so easy… or so appealing.
 
That’s because, as we know, love is messy. Love is challenging. Love is vulnerable. Love means getting close to folks, not just when they’re at they’re best… but even when it’s incredibly uncomfortable.
 
And love means letting others get close to us as well… and not just when we’re at our best… it means taking the risk that our masks might slip… that they might see through our careful defenses… a whole other level of discomfort!
This kind of love looks a lot like faith… taking the risk to entrust ourselves… our real selves, warts and all, to each other. Taking the risk to try our best to be trustworthy too… to do what we can to be there for one another… to have grace and patience with one another… to challenge and forgive one another… to offer to each other all that Christ Jesus our Lord has offered to us.
 
Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another.
 
Love is exactly what we need. What our neighbours need. What the world around us needs. But will we be willing to share it?
 
Our Lord pulls no punches in His high expectations for His people. And to make it clear what this love looks like, He humbly assumes the role of a servant… a slave… and one-by-one, the High King of Heaven stoops down to clean His disciple’s disgusting feet.
 
Imagine their discomfort… their confusion, their dismay… as their Master, the One they thought was about to bring God’s Good Kingdom to earth in triumphant glory, kneels down in front of them… wiping away the grit and grime from their road-weary toes… and arches, and heels… not just as a symbolic gesture, but as an act of deep compassion… of kindness… of attentiveness… of willingness to deal with they’re mess, right up close… reaching out in love to make them clean.
 
This is an almost unthinkable level of care and intimacy… inviting us to let down our guards… to allow ourselves to be exposed, cared for, and cleansed… first of all, by our Lord Jesus Christ, through the cross He endured to deal with all our messes… cleansing us by His precious blood. But then Jesus empowers us to share His love with one another… to put it into action in our lives. To let His love lead the way.  
 
Love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. This is what we need… as messy, and as uncomfortable, and as strange as it feels… this is what we all need: to share with one another what Jesus Christ our Lord first shared with us: God’s love.
 
And this is exactly what our world needs today… in the face of the ongoing devastation from the brutal conflicts in Gaza… Ukraine… Haiti… Myanmar… Sudan… and more… where armies not only destroy another other, but the lives of so many civilians… regular people, all made in God’s image, swept away by waves of violence.
 
And in the face of all the social divisions and hatred that keeps tearing our communities apart… fueling mistrust… fear… prejudice… and turning our human family against one another.
 
In the face of our world’s indifference to the poor… to the sick… to the elderly, the vulnerable… the environment… turning our backs on our responsibility to care for one another, and all of God’s creation… content to leave it to others to do the hard work of cleaning up the messes we have all made.
 
Our world needs us to be a people… a community who are willing to do the uncomfortable work of sharing God’s love with His messed up world.
 
Tonight we remember that Christ Jesus our Lord stepped into the mess we have made of God’s world… and stooped down to cleans it, one foot… one life at a time… and now He calls us to follow His example.
 
Tonight we remember that His life was broken and His blood shed to put our world back together… bound together by the forgiveness, mercy, and grace of the Living God, offered to us all in Jesus’ name.
 
Tonight we remember His commandment: to love one another as He has first loved us. And that this is how the world will come to know God’s rescuing love… when we His people take the first step of faith, and strive to love one another.
 
In a moment, I will offer us all an invitation in Jesus’ name to come forward and have our foot washed… as an uncomfortable, but powerful way to say yes to Christ’s gift of compassionate, cleansing love… and as a commitment to obey His command to share this love with one another… and with God’s world.
 
Whether we come forward, or stay in our seats tonight, may the Holy Spirit of God graciously work in all our hearts and minds to cleanse us from everything that keeps us from loving one another as Christ Himself loves us. Amen.