Our Mandate - Sermon for Maunday Thursday (April 2, 2026)

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).
 
Amid all the craziness and chaos at work in our world these days… all the uncertainty, and greed… all the suspicion… and deception… and the violence and bloodshed apparently tearing humanity apart… amid all this, Jesus Christ, God’s Son invites us all to draw near in faith and dine with Him. He calls us to join Him and one another at His Table… to receive together the nourishment we need… a place already prepared for us… a sincere welcome extended… and God’s gracious gifts and blessings beyond compare. 
 
Tonight, on the night that Jesus Himself was betrayed… the night which saw the first birth-pains of His passion… before He was abandoned by all, and crucified in our place… our Lord Jesus chose to share a meal with His disciples… a sacred meal, pointing back to the Exodus… God’s saving love offered to Israel at Passover in ages past… and pointing now towards God’s saving love offered to all in His own body and blood. 

That night, He also chose to rise from the table, and to take on the role of a servant… stooping down to wash the filthy feet of His apprentices… not shying away from this lowly task, but tenderly caring for those who so often only seemed to care about themselves. He did this to show us the way… to show us what God’s love looks like in practice… not serving ourselves, but humbly… graciously… mercifully tending to one another’s needs.
 
“Do you know what I have done to you?” Christ says, “You call me Teacher and Lord—and you are right, for that is what I am. So if I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet. For I have set you an example, that you also should do as I have done to you. Very truly, I tell you, servants are not greater than their master, nor are messengers greater than the one who sent them. If you know these things, you are blessed if you do them.” (John 13:13-17). 
 
In a world apparently hell-bent on abandoning God’s good ways, Jesus our Lord calls us to join Him at His Table… and to join Him in putting God’s good ways into practice. This high calling is not just a suggestion. Just an optional extra add-on.

No, as Jesus invites us to dine with Him, and to be cleansed by Him… to draw near in faith and share in the gifts of His heavenly Table… He also gives us the gift of a commandment… a mandate… our ‘marching orders’ as Christians, so to speak: John 13:34, “I give you a new commandment, that you love one another...” 
 
What kind of gift is this? A commandment to love each other? Wouldn’t being commanded to love make it insincere? Forced? Fake? The kind of make-believe sentiment that falls apart as soon as things start to get difficult?
 
Well, if love was just a feeling… an impulse or desire, then yes, this commandment might seem kind of futile. Sort of like commanding someone to appreciate country music… or to enjoy eating dulse… or to cheer for the Maple Leafs. Yes, some of us would find those things pretty easy… while others might be repulsed by the mere thought. Our culture tends to see love along these same lines… as little more than our personal desires and tastes. ‘We love what we love.’ ‘To each their own.’ ‘The heart wants what it wants’… or so the old sayings go.   
 
But love is far more than an inclination or feeling. Love is an act of the will. It’s a choice to act upon. A gift that can be deliberately offered and received… yes, when it’s easy, but even when it’s extremely hard… and even when it’s not at all deserved. We can choose to love… to practice love… to embody it in our day to day lives… or not. In this light, suddenly, Christ’s commandment to love one another doesn’t seem all that foolish anymore.
 
Christ Jesus gives us this commandment, this mandate to love one another because it’s so easy to make the opposite choice… to refuse to love one another… to misuse, or abuse… or to simply ignore each other, and leave those around us to fend for themselves… or to demand that others do our will… and serve our interests… and lower themselves to clean up our filthy feet. Time and again, we humans… even those in the Church… tend to choose not to love one another.
 
And yet, amid all of our failures to get things right, and the messes we’ve made of ourselves, and of God’s good world… Jesus comes to us, and humbly shows us what God’s good ways… what God’s love looks like up close.

He does not just command us to figure out for ourselves how to love one another. He shows us how. He lives out God’s love for the whole world to see, and calls all who believe in Him to do the same. “I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another.” (John 13:34).
 
And how has Christ loved us?

Humbly… generously… mercifully cleansing the feet of His followers… stooping down to wipe away all their filth. Not preoccupied with His own status, or comfort, or with some other agenda at work… but choosing to care for us in sincerity and truth… even when we least deserved it. 

Jesus loved us by setting us free from our slavery to sin… setting us free to become God’s faithful family… to share God’s good ways with us, and set us on the path to God’s blessings and peace. Jesus loved us by giving His body to be broken for us… by giving His blood to be shed for our forgiveness… choosing to go to the cross… to suffer and die, crucified… offering Himself in our place. That’s how He loved us. He laid down His life for us. He loved us to the end, with His saving love that will never end.

And the Good News is God’s saving love has proved to be even stronger than death, and Jesus Christ our Lord was raised again for us, to share His New Life with the world. 
 
Amid all the craziness and chaos of our time on this earth, as Christians this is our mandate: to love one another with Christ’s kind of love… a love that seeks to cleanse, to forgive, to uphold, to strengthen… to save. Christ’s love, not just offered when it’s easy, but when it really challenges us. The kind of love St. Paul describes, when he says that “Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends.” (1 Corinthians 13:4-8a).
 
And Christ does not just give us this commandment to love one another as He has loved us… He also gives us the power to fulfill this commandment… pouring this same love into our hearts by the gift of God’s Holy Spirit… strengthening us, and guiding us, and challenging us to love God’s way… far beyond our own capabilities. 

And finally, this commandment to love one another is not only given to us for our own sake. It is given to us as a sign of God’s saving love offered to the rest of our world too! “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).
 
Sharing God’s love with one another is how the world will know we really are Christ’s disciples. It’s not our eloquence… or influence… not the grandeur of our buildings, or the engaging nature of our services. It’s our love… Christ’s love at work in us… love offered with conviction, and intention. Love offered in humility, and in down-to-earth ways… love practiced in ways that reflect and reveal God’s own self-giving love offered to us all at the cross… bearing with one another… even suffering with and for one another… so that everyone around us might come to see God’s love at work, and draw near in faith to receive this love as well. 
 
In a moment, I will invite anyone who is willing to come forward to have their feet symbolically washed, remembering the humble, gracious, and merciful love that God has shared with us in Jesus Christ, and that He now calls us to share with one another. But whether we come forward, or remain seated tonight, may we all choose to take our Lord’s commandment to heart.
 
May we choose to believe… to draw near in faith and receive God’s saving love offered in Jesus Christ… and let Christ cleanse us from all that would keep us from walking in God’s good an holy ways.
 
May we take and eat Christ’s body broken and His blood shed to set us free. And may we choose to follow our Christian mandate: to share Christ’s love with one another… to humble ourselves, welcome one another, forgive one another… and care for one another… putting the love of Christ into practice in everything that we do. And with the Holy Spirit’s help, may our words and our actions inspire and invite our crazy, chaotic world to turn around and join us in God’s blessed life of love. Amen.