Grace, mercy and
peace be to you from God our Father, and from our Lord Jesus Christ.
I’d like to begin
our sermon tonight with two passages from our Gospel reading about love.
The first comes directly from the Holy Spirit through John who says about the
events that happened on this night:
Now
before the Feast of the Passover, when Jesus knew that his hour had come to
depart out of this world to the Father, having loved his own who were in the
world, he loved them to the end.
And
we also read the words of Jesus, instructing his disciples:
A
new commandment I give to you, that you love another: just as I have loved you,
you also are to love another. By this all people will know that you are my
disciples, if you have love for one another.
Prayer: Dear Lord
Jesus, breathe out upon us all your Holy Spirit, to me that I may preach well,
and to all of us that we may hear well. Amen.
Tonight, we come to
celebrate so many wonderful things. First, Maundy Thursday is the day when
Jesus celebrated the Passover with his disciples. Passover, which we read about
in our Old Testament reading, was that wonderful festival which celebrates the
event when the people of Israel were rescued from the land of Egypt. Moses
threated one final plague upon the Egyptian people, where every firstborn son
would be killed by the angel of death. The people of Israel were commanded to
paint the blood of a lamb over their doorposts, so that when the angel of death
came by, he would “pass over” their homes. So they had a special festival where
the killed a lamb, and also ate unleavened bread, bread without any yeast, just
as the people of Israel did all those many years ago.
Second, on Maundy
Thursday, we remember that wonderful occasion where Jesus himself actually
celebrated this festival, this Passover, with his disciples. While this was
taking place, Jesus actually celebrated his Last Supper with his disciples, and
turned the whole Passover meal into something new. This was not simply
something where Christians would eat a lamb and eat some unleavened bread, but
now on Good Friday, Jesus himself gives himself as the Lamb of God, who takes
away the sin of the world. The blood of Jesus is not painted on our doorposts,
but it is painted on our own bodies by Jesus himself. And so before Jesus goes
to die for the sin of the world, he gives them simple bread and simple wine,
and he says to them: This is my body which is given for you. This is my
blood which is shed for you for the forgiveness of sins. What a wonderful
gift he gives to them! Jesus speaks his last will and testament to his 12
disciples, just like an old man who is about to die. Jesus does not commend to
them a carpentry business, like his earthly father Joseph gave to him. Jesus
gives them his own body and his own body as a bequest, as an inheritance. And
he bequeaths his body and blood right into their own mouths, and gives the
disciples the tools not for building wooden houses and furniture, but for
building his own kingdom.
As a pastor, I’m
not much of a builder. I often think that there are some children who are
particularly lucky when they have a father who knows how to build—their dads so
easily whip up a cubby house and swing set! Here is Jesus—and he gives his body
and blood to his disciples so that they can go out into all nations and
carefully build up the church. Jesus is not talking about buildings here, but
his wonderful baptised community, who are the living temple of the Holy Spirit.
Jesus sends them out to build this living temple of the Holy Spirit, and to
build into it one person as one stone at a time, one frame and one plank at a
time for the rest of the world’s history until Jesus returns.
The third thing we remember on Maundy Thursday
is where one of the twelve disciples, called Judas Iscariot, goes out to betray
Jesus for 30 pieces of silver. Every Sunday when we celebrate the Lord’s Supper,
we mention this little detail in the words of institution: Our Lord Jesus
Christ on the night when he was betrayed. And Judas eventually leads an
angry crowd to Jesus’ favourite place of prayer, the Garden of Gethsemane at
the Mount of Olives, by pretending to greet him in a friendly way with a kiss.
Behind the kiss is the backstabbing action of betrayal.
The fourth thing we
remember on Maundy Thursday is where Jesus does a wonderful, mysterious thing
in washing his disciples’ feet. And says to his disciples: I have given you
an example, that you also should do just as I have done to you.
The fifth thing
then we read is how Jesus gives his disciples a wonderful, encouraging sermon,
which is written in John chapters 14, 15 and 16. In this sermon we read so many
well known saying of Jesus, like: In my Father’s house are many rooms. I am
the way, and the truth, and the life. Peace I leave with you; my peace I give
to you. I am the true vine. Abide in me, and I in you. I have said these things
to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation.
But take heart; I have overcome the world. At the beginning of this sermon
we read the words: A new commandment I give to you.
The sixth thing we
remember is how Jesus prays a wonderful prayer for the church, which we read in
John 17. This prayer is often called the high priestly prayer of Jesus.
And lastly, then,
we remember how Jesus went out to the Mount of Olives, prayed and prepared himself
for his cross, sweated blood, and then was arrested and taken captive.
The actual word
“Maundy” comes from the Latin word “Mandatum”, which is the word for
commandment. It’s where we get our English word: “mandate”. This word often
gets used in politics when a new government is elected, and they say that the
people have given us a “mandate” to change this or that. So what’s the mandate
that Jesus gives, what the commandment that he gives?
It says: A new
commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you,
you also are to love one another. By this all people will know that you are my
disciples, if you have love for one another.
I am always struck
by this passage every year on Maundy Thursday. How have I loved other people? How
does Jesus love me? What has he done for me? If this is how Jesus has loved me,
how have I shown that love to other people? Do people recognise that I am a
disciple of Jesus by the way in which I love other people? What about us as a
group? Do we Christians altogether love each other in the way that Christ has
loved us?
Surely this bible
verse gives wonderful encouragement, but it also sets the bar and the standard
so incredibly high. During this week, as we gather to remember Jesus’ suffering
and death for the sin of the world, we see his tremendous love that he shows to
us. It is love that empowers Jesus in all his weakness to keep going and to lay
down his life for his sheep. It is love that makes him stretch out his hands
and feet for you, only to have them stabbed all the way through with iron
nails. This is the wonderful love of Jesus that is the heart and the centre of
Christianity. Nobody in the world really knows what love is, nobody can even
begin to understand and comprehend this amazing, deep, profound love. St Paul
writes: While we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the
ungodly. For one will scarcely die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a
good person one would dare even to die—but God shows his love for us in that
while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
Jesus knows that
everything he is doing is for our good and for our blessing, and he knows even
more deeply that everything he does is going to be so unappreciated. Every
person who will ever live will be so ungrateful for everything he has done. And
we Christians, no matter how thankful we are to Christ, no matter how much we
praise him and thank him, we will never have even scraped the surface of what
his suffering and death really demands of us. And yet, Jesus knows all of this,
and he dies for us anyway. It is all for you, and for the forgiveness of every
single one of your sins. And this act of sacrifice is the heart and the centre
of our Christian faith.
The forgiveness of
sins is a hidden word. It is spoken constantly in the church, and it enters
your ears, and it hides itself in your heart. Our hearts are like soil and the
forgiveness of sins is planted in it like a living seed. And through faith in
this wonderful forgiveness of Jesus, we are saved.
But what sort of a
tree, what sort of plant should grow out of this faith? Is our faith going to
produce rotten fruit? Is it going to produce sour grapes? It is going to bring
about simply a good appearance, an external show? No… faith in Christ can only
bring about good fruit. And so, when the faith is right, when faith is centred
on Christ and his wonderful works of love for us, then what has to come about,
what must come about is good fruit.
So when faith goes
through a time of testing, a time of hardship, a time of struggling, what fruit
comes from it? The fruit of patience. If during a time of hardship, faith cries
out God and asks him for help, or thanks God for some wonderful blessing we
have received, what fruit comes from it? The fruit of prayer. If faith looks to
God’s greatness, and compares it with our human weakness, what fruit comes from
that? The fruit of humility. If faith is concerned about not falling into
unbelief and losing God’s grace, then what fruit comes from that? The fruit of
holy fear of God.
So also then, when
faith shares the blessings that it has received with other people, and when
faith gives to someone else some gift out the treasure that we have been given,
then what fruit grows from that? The fruit of love.
And this is the
particular fruit that Jesus teaches us about: love. And this fruit particular
comes from the way in which faith grows from living together with other people.
Jesus says: A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another. We
might ask: What’s so new though about this new commandment? Well, this is
what’s new—Jesus says: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one
another. Nobody who has ever lived in the history of the world has ever
seen this kind of love before. That’s why Christian churches always have a
cross on them, and why Christian things and people are always surrounded by
pictures of the cross: because it reminds us of this love that can only come
from heaven that Jesus showed while he was nailed to it. And Jesus now
encourages us, as we live together as Christians: just as I have loved you,
you also are to love one another. By this all people will know that you are my
disciples, if you have love for one another.
Now, let’s stop
here for a moment. We often hear this in the wrong way—we see it as
advertising. And we say, if only we in our congregation would love each other
more, then people would know that we are Jesus’ disciples, and then we would
have more people, and then we would have more money, and then we would be a
successful church. This is idolatry.
The future of the
church is not money, it is Christ. The church is not a business, it is the
temple of the living God. The church’s mission is not to bring people to a
certain club or congregation, so that the particular club (like any sports club
or social club) can continue, but to bring people to meet Jesus Christ. The
future of the church is not the love of money, and drawing people into certain
congregations so that we as separate institutions can be richer—the future of
the church is Jesus Christ, yesterday, today and forever.
I have had it said
to me sometimes throughout my ministry, that I shouldn’t preach about
contentious topics, because otherwise people will stop coming to church, and
then there won’t be any more money in the plate, and then I won’t have a
salary. This is not Christianity. This is paganism, and paganism produces
rotten fruit. What a person like this really means to say is that pastors
should conduct their ministry not in such a way as to preach faith and
repentance, so that the fruits of the Holy Spirit can grow from that, but that
we should conduct our ministry in such a way that in the future we can make
sure we can buy ourselves that Lazyboy recliner that we think we deserved after
all those years. That’s not what we pastors are called to do.
People will not
know that we are Christ’s disciples from how much money we have, but from how
we love one another, whether or not we had any money at all. Jesus shows his
love for us, and dies for us, even when we had no love for him at all. That’s
Christian love. And it’s by this (not by anything else) that all
people will know that [we] are his disciples, if [we] have love
for another. And Jesus forgives us with all of that divine, powerful, holy,
fiery love, for all our lovelessness, and coldness, and hatred. The future of
the church is not even our love, but it’s Christ’s love. He is our Lord and our
Teacher. Because without his love, and the message of his suffering and death,
and his pure, free forgiveness, the fruit of Christian love just can’t come out
of it. The Holy Spirit knows the difference between Christian faith, and an
empty show. And if there’s an empty show going on, the Holy Spirit wants the
world to recognise where the empty show is so that people will avoid it. On the
other hand, where there is Christian faith, then the Holy Spirit wants to
gather people around Christ, and show to the world that by this all people
will know that we are his disciples, if we have love for another.
And so in our
reading tonight, Jesus not only teaches us to love, commands us to love, and
encourages us to love, but he demonstrates it to us.
Of course, he shows
us this wonderful love most profoundly in the Lord’s Supper. This is the body
of Christ, given for you. This is the holy and precious blood of Christ, which
is shed for you for the forgiveness of sins. And these holy and precious gifts
are given to you to eat and to drink. He commends these amazing gifts into our
hands, when we so obviously don’t deserve it. He gives these things to his
disciples, who are all going to flee from him that night and desert him as soon
as he is arrested. And yet, when he is risen, he gathers them together again,
forgives them, sends them out with the Holy Spirit, to shine his light into the
world, the light which is hidden in jars of clay.
And so, when we
come to the Lord’s Supper this evening, Jesus will also give this wonderful
supper of light to us, to shine in our weak bodies. We will go out as jars of
clay with the precious light of Christ’s body and blood shining in us.
And so, we read: Now
before the Feast of the Passover, when Jesus knew that his hour had come to
depart out of this world to the Father, having loved his own who were in the
world, he loved them to the end. During supper, when the devil had already put
it into the heart of Judas Iscariot, Simon’s son, to betray him, Jesus, knowing
that the Father had given all things into his hands, and that he had come from
God and was going back to God, rose from supper. He laid aside his outer
garments, and taking a towel, tied it around his waist. Then he poured water
into a basin and began to wash the disciples’ feet.
Jesus’ love is so
incredible—Those hands created the universe! We read: the Father had given
all things into his hands! Those hands now are the hands which carefully
wash the disciples’ feet. It’s so incredible that Peter can’t even comprehend
it and he says: You shall never wash my feet. But after it has all been
done, Jesus says: Do you understand what I have done to you? You call me
Teacher and Lord, and you are right, for so I am. If I then, your Lord and
Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet.
Let’s pray:
Dear Jesus, help us
to do this. Your love for us is so far beyond what we can ever imagine or
comprehend. You have come to us, to serve us and clean us up. Come and create a
living faith in us, and wash us clean through your life giving words and through
your holy sacraments of baptism and the Lord’s Supper. Teach us through your
Holy Spirit, to live as your people and to love one another. Amen.
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