Maundy Thursday – 28 March 2024

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John 13:1-11

It was just before the Passover Festival. Jesus knew that the hour had come for him to leave this world and go to the Father. Having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end.

2 The evening meal was in progress, and the devil had already prompted Judas, the son of Simon Iscariot, to betray Jesus. 3 Jesus knew that the Father had put all things under his power, and that he had come from God and was returning to God; 4 so he got up from the meal, took off his outer clothing, and wrapped a towel round his waist. 5 After that, he poured water into a basin and began to wash his disciples’ feet, drying them with the towel that was wrapped round him.

6 He came to Simon Peter, who said to him, ‘Lord, are you going to wash my feet?’

7 Jesus replied, ‘You do not realise now what I am doing, but later you will understand.’

8 ‘No,’ said Peter, ‘you shall never wash my feet.’

Jesus answered, ‘Unless I wash you, you have no part with me.’

9 ‘Then, Lord,’ Simon Peter replied, ‘not just my feet but my hands and my head as well!’

10 Jesus answered, ‘Those who have had a bath need only to wash their feet; their whole body is clean. And you are clean, though not every one of you.’ 11 For he knew who was going to betray him, and that was why he said not every one was clean.

I am stuck on Peter’s response to this very unexpected action Jesus does in this upper room on Passover night. I am wondering how you are responding to Jesus tonight.

To their total surprise, Jesus, the one who ‘knows that the Father had put all things under his power as he was about to return to the Father’ through this valley of the shadow of death he was choosing to walk, now takes the posture of a slave in the house.

I would have been uncomfortable. Promising leaders with personality and power are not slaves to anyone. Like a political leader going around those factories with a hard-hat on and his expensive business shirt sleeves rolled up to look more ‘worker-like’ for the entourage of journalists there to make this moment a winner in terms of portraying the leader as a worker – no one believes it!

Jesus, you are special. We want you to be special. You don’t need to do this!

But even more deeply, this action of a slave Jesus performs; this washing of smelly feet belonging to fishermen, tax collectors, and other very average people is hard to take for Peter, and is his way, he says so.

‘Lord, are you going to wash my feet?’

‘Yes’

‘No. You shall never wash my feet.’

Why not, Peter? Why does Peter not want this from Jesus?

Is this servant action bursting Peter’s bubble of high expectations for Jesus, whom he believes is the promised new king with a promised new deal for him and the others and the whole nation? Maybe.

Everyone knows kings have their feet washed by slaves, not the other way around. This is not what kings do. Jesus might be fake, after all?

Maybe it is more personal. Allowing the Saviour to wash your feet is saying you need him to. You need to be washed, cleaned up, changed, because you are untidy, unruly and unclean. Letting Jesus serve you is surrendering to a truth about yourself that you might not want to know.

In resisting Jesus’ service, you would not be alone in having trouble trusting him as God who serves.

Like those Jewish people who had begun to believe he was the Saviour, who were then offended by Jesus’ insistence that they need to be set free from their slavery, Peter has this same resistance to Jesus’ serving.

31 To the Jews who had believed him, Jesus said, ‘If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. 32 Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.’

33 They answered him, ‘We are Abraham’s descendants and have never been slaves of anyone. How can you say that we shall be set free?’

34 Jesus replied, ‘Very truly I tell you, everyone who sins is a slave to sin.

In other words, all of us are locked into unclean, unholy, unruly and unhealthy slavery to our own whims, desires, need, and world-view. You and I need the washing.

Jesus obviously knows this. In true form, he keeps washing …

8 No Lord, you shall never wash my feet.’

‘Unless I wash you, you have no part with me.’

So, not allowing Jesus to serve you means forfeiting him altogether. Wanting his blessing without his calling; wanting his life without any suffering, wanting his direction without your serious seeking is missing him altogether.

God bless Peter. He gives me the words to say when I know I want what Jesus gives without wanting him. This is what I say when I finally surrender my expectations, pride, need, fear and shame:

9 ‘Well then, Jesus, not just my feet but my hands and my head as well!’

Yes Jesus. Wash all of me. Transform all of me. I don’t care who is washing and I don’t care what they think of me. Please serve me.

Now we get it. We need his serving.

I resonate with the words of the late Brennan Manning, Franciscan priest, alcoholic, deeply aware of his deep flaws.

If asked whether I am finally letting God love me, just as I am, I would answer, ‘No, but I’m trying.” ― Brennan Manning, All Is Grace: A Ragamuffin Memoir

“Christians find it easier to believe that God exists than that God loves them.”
― Brennan Manning, The Furious Longing of God

“Jesus says. “Acknowledge and accept who I want to be for you: a Saviour of boundless compassion, infinite patience, unbearable forgiveness, and love that keeps no score of wrongs. Quit projecting onto Me your own feelings about yourself. At this moment your life is a bruised reed, and I will not crush it; a smouldering wick, and I will not quench it. You are in a safe place.”
― Brennan Manning, Abba’s Child: The Cry of the Heart for Intimate Belonging

“For His love is never, never, never based on our performance, never conditioned by our moods—of elation or depression. The furious love of God knows no shadow of alteration or change. It is reliable. And always tender.” ― Brennan Manning, The Furious Longing of God

Speak these words tonight, friend.

Well then, not just my feet but my hands and my head as well!’

They will make your washed feet and your washed ‘you’ beautiful:

How beautiful on the mountains are the feet of those who bring good news, who proclaim peace, who bring good tidings, who proclaim salvation, who say to Zion, ‘Your God reigns!’” (Isaiah 52:7)

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