Maundy Thursday

Welcome & Prayer

I want to call us into a time of Worship with a Call to Worship inspired by John 13.

Christ’s love is poured out for us like water poured into a basin. Christ’s love washes us clean. Christ’s love shows us who we are to be, and what we are to do. How blessed we are to know such love!

Scripture Reading

John 13:1–17 (NIV)

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.

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

He came to Simon Peter, who said to him, “Lord, are you going to wash my feet?”

Jesus replied, “You do not realize now what I am doing, but later you will understand.”

“No,” said Peter, “you shall never wash my feet.”

Jesus answered, “Unless I wash you, you have no part with me.”

“Then, Lord,” Simon Peter replied, “not just my feet but my hands and my head as well!”

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.” For he knew who was going to betray him, and that was why he said not every one was clean.

When he had finished washing their feet, he put on his clothes and returned to his place. “Do you understand what I have done for you?” he asked them. “You call me ‘Teacher’ and ‘Lord,’ and rightly so, for that is what I am. Now that I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also should wash one another’s feet. I have set you an example that you should do as I have done for you. Very truly I tell you, no servant is greater than his master, nor is a messenger greater than the one who sent him. Now that you know these things, you will be blessed if you do them.

John 13:31–35 (NIV)

When he was gone, Jesus said, “Now the Son of Man is glorified and God is glorified in him. If God is glorified in him, God will glorify the Son in himself, and will glorify him at once.

“My children, I will be with you only a little longer. You will look for me, and just as I told the Jews, so I tell you now: Where I am going, you cannot come.

“A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”

Body of Sermon

In his writings on the book of John, DA Carson said, “Jesus knew that the time had come for him to leave the world and go to the Father. The ‘world’ (cf. notes on 1:10) is important in these chapters: it occurs forty times, primarily to draw a sharp contrast between Jesus’ ‘own’, his disciples, and the mass of lost humanity, the ‘world’ from which they were drawn and in which they must live until their final vindication. If God loves the world (3:16), it is in order to draw men and women out of it. Those so drawn out constitute a new entity, set over against the world: the world loves its ‘own’, Jesus loves his ‘own’ (15:19). The object of the love of God in Christ, in these chapters, is therefore not the lost world, but the newly forming people of God, the disciples of the Messiah, His church, the community of the elect. Jesus had loved his own all along; he now showed them the full extent of his love.”

I wanted to open up our time together so that it was framed in the reality of Maundy Thursday: Jesus has affection for you. The very name Maundy Thursday, comes from the latin word, mandatum, which means commandment. God has given us multiple commandments to love one another, but it’s Jesus who shows us what that love looks like. Verse 1 ends with one of the most striking sentences in all of John’s gospel, “John 13:1 “Having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end.” The fullness of His love for His people is seen in this self-abasing love, the foot-washing, that anticipates the greater love at the cross. The church lives between the mandate of affection for one another and God’s affection for us.

It’s been said that foot washing is the most neglected commandment in the New Testament, and surely it’s because we share some of the same objections of Peter and his friends, “Are you going to wash my feet?” We often share the same embarrassment that Peter felt. Jesus positions his clothing in a way that shows us He is dressing like a servant. I’m sure the silence from the disciples was deafening, because Masters don’t get on their hands and feet and clean the dusty and crusty feet of anyone. They can’t even fathom being served in this way. This is why He asks them in verse 12, “Do you understand what I have done for you?”

We live absent of that hospitality and humility. We have no cultural comparison for washing people’s feet, let alone letting someone else wash our feet — sacrificial love is a foreign language for us.

We have many, many barriers to understanding the depths of God’s love for us, and so we miss out on the beauty, and the depth of what Jesus is offering us. He doesn’t just wash them so they can have clean feet, He says in verse 8, “Unless I wash you, you have no part with me.” We likely share in Peter’s embarrassment and denial because we’re hesitant to let Jesus cleanse every part of us — I don’t mean on the outside, I mean on the inside. Jesus has to cleanse us from the inside out before we have anything to do with Him.

Jesus says, “Unless I wash you…” meaning it isn’t something we can do, and He’s obviously not speaking about foot washing, because foot washing can’t make sinners whole, it isn’t enough to make sinners clean, it can’t bridge the gap between sinful humanity and the perfection of Jesus Christ… but the greater love to come, the greater love at the Cross, that is enough to cleanse us completely, to make us whole in His presence, is sufficient enough to let us be a part of Him.

Of course we have barriers against God’s love because, like Peter, we can’t imagine someone serving us, let alone making us whole through their death on a cross. Sacrificial love is a foreign language to us.

We wash feet on Maundy Thursday because it points us directly to the Cross.

Serving others and being served by others is consistent with the heart of Jesus, who does not refuse taking the lower role. The Apostle Paul reminds us in Philippians 2:5-11 “In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus: Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage; rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death— even death on a cross! Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”

Verse 15 points us to the fact that the lower role is the example that Jesus has set before us. This is the pattern He has set out for His people.

Later on in verses 34-35, Jesus is very clear, the kind of commandment, the mandatum, He gives His people: John 13:34-35 “‘A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.’”

His cross-suffering love for us has been exemplified in the washing of feet. I know it sounds silly to say, but we love others in the washing of feet because Jesus loved us at the cross.

Hebrews 12:2 reminds us that Jesus considered it a joy “… set before him he endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.” The great joy in the cross, in washing feet, is in us delighting in God’s love and affection for us.

Prayer.

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Foot Washing Instructions

We’re going to invite you to physically serve others and worship God, through the act of foot washing. I want to give you several, specific instructions to help this run smoothly.

Due to the very intimate nature of foot washing, I am asking that men serve men, and women serve men. If you’d like to serve someone of the opposite sex, please limit that to your spouse and immediate family.

Remove their shoes and socks, and you’ll hold one foot over the basin, scooping water and pouring over the foot, and after you feel like that is sufficient, you can dry their feet with a towel, and then you’ll take a seat in the chair for the chance of someone else serving you.

Please don’t re-use towels, use a new towel.

Use this as an opportunity to right a wrong between you and someone else, maybe you need to ask for forgiveness, or maybe you want to just pray a blessing over someone as you’re washing their feet.

Communion

Our Communion Service as part of our Maundy Thursday celebration will be an opportunity to come as you are. You will have the opportunity to serve yourself, and in the same vein of service, you are encouraged to serve someone else with the Body and Blood. If you so desire, you are free to gather the elements and take them back to your seat and take them with your spouse, family, or with someone next to you. As you do this, remind your companions with a simple prayer before you take the bread and juice, “My life for yours.”

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We share the bread of life in thanks to you, O God,

for you have made a vow with your life in your great sacrifice,

you gave yourself freely for our sake,

and taught us to follow you in that example.

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We raise the cup of freedom in thanks to you, O God, for you have made a covenant with us in the blood of Christ, who gave himself to us in humble service and taught us to love one another as he had loved us.

The blood of Christ, the true lamb, seals God’s new covenant with us and marks us out for salvation. The Lord has forgiven your sins, washed you clean, and freed you from death’s grip.

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Prayer.

“Come! For all things have been made ready.”

Closing/Blessing (Santiago)

Go now and fulfil your vows to the Lord. Love one another as Christ has loved you and give yourselves to one another in humble service, just as Christ has given himself to you. Celebrate these holy days as a perpetual ordinance, for no gift could ever repay God’s goodness to us.

And may God hear you whenever you call; May Christ Jesus keep you safe through his blood; And may the Holy Spirit lead you further into the depths of God’s saving mysteries.

We go in peace to love and serve the Lord, In the name of Christ. Amen. (Nathan Nettleton)