Sermon Tone Analysis

Some of you may not know this about me, but I actually studied political science in college.

The joke my senior year of high school was that I wanted to be president.

But I wasn’t really joking.

So I went off to school near D.C., and was able to land an internship in a congressional office.

And THAT is what made me decide to not go into government.

It wasn’t that it was such a terrible experience.

The joke about internships is that you’re just there to fetch the important people coffee.

What I didn’t know was that the coffee -getting was going to be the exciting stuff.

See that semester the Catholic churches across America had done a pro-life writing campaign.

Many catholic churches hosted events where they encouraged their parishoners to fill out a pre-written card that asked congressmen and senators to support pro-life bills in the upcoming term.

We got over 50,000 of these cards.

They all said the same thing.

Please support pro-life causes.

What us interns had to do was enter the people’s addresses into our system and make sure they got a “thanks for contacting us on this issue.”

letter from us.

So I spent 80% of my time at the internship responding to a campaign asking her to vote pro-life, when she was already the most pro-life she could possibly be.

So when I say the coffee getting was the most exciting part.

I’m not really kidding.

The most exciting things I got to do all semester were the things I got to do directly for the congresswoman.

I got her a latte 2-3 times.

I grabbed her a chicken-caesar salad from the congressional cafeteria once or twice.

And twice, I got to serve as her personal chauffeur, driving her around D.C.

Getting coffee, lunch, and driving are all every-day activities.

But when it came to my internship, I was excited to do them!

Why?

Because I was doing them for an important person.

Stuff I might consider boring or insulting… “Jensen, go be my personal slave.

Get me coffee” was exciting when it was for the congresswoman herself.

I literally would have done any crappy task I was given, if she asked me directly.

If one of the staffers asked me walk across DC to hand deliver a birthday invitation for their kid’s birhtday party, I’d have been offended.

If she’d asked me to take her RedBox blu-ray back for her.

I’d be stoked.

Why?

She’s important.

She was one of the good guys, fighting for righteous causes and trying to help people.

People knew her name.

She got to be on Tv.

I was stoked to just have her notice the 20 year-old intern enough to give him a stupid, menial task.

She was important!

There’s nothing we hate more than being treated like we’re unimportant.

But there are people we see as important, and we really do judge them by a different standard.

We treat them different.

Imagine if I was carrying some heavy boxes back to my car at the end of the day, really more than I could carry, and happened to be leaving at the same time as the Congresswoman.

Now she was an empathetic lady, and not at all full of herself.

So if she saw me struggling under that load, she probably would have offered to help me carry a box.

Do you think I would ever in a million years accept her help?

NO WAY!

She’s the congresswoman.

I’m here in DC, working for FREE, to make sure she doesn’t have to waste time doing the unimportant stuff.

I would lie to her face, telling her I didn’t need help.

She’s important!

I don’t want her to have to bother!

See, whether we know it or not, we have a pretty strong sense of importance, and the hierarchy in the world.

There are people we count as important, and we’d do anything for them.

And then there is our own importance.

And we’re super offended if anyone asks us to do something we think is below us.

But that’s not necessarily how it’s supposed to be.

Tonight we’re looking at , The beginning of Jesus’s final meal with His disciples.

He has finished his public ministry.

He’s in his final week before going to the cross, and has turned his attention to preparing his closest friends and disciples for life and ministry after He dies, rises again, and ascends back to Heaven.

Let’s read starting in

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. 2 During supper, when the devil had already put it into the heart of Judas Iscariot, Simon’s son, to betray him, 3 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, 4 rose from supper.

He laid aside his outer garments, and taking a towel, tied it around his waist.

5 Then he poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples’ feet and to wipe them with the towel that was wrapped around him.

6 He came to Simon Peter, who said to him, “Lord, do you wash my feet?” 7 Jesus answered him, “What I am doing you do not understand now, but afterward you will understand.”

8 Peter said to him, “You shall never wash my feet.”

Jesus answered him, “If I do not wash you, you have no share with me.” 9 Simon Peter said to him, “Lord, not my feet only but also my hands and my head!” 10 Jesus said to him, “The one who has bathed does not need to wash, except for his feet, but is completely clean.

And you are clean, but not every one of you.” 11 For he knew who was to betray him; that was why he said, “Not all of you are clean.”

12 When he had washed their feet and put on his outer garments and resumed his place, he said to them, “Do you understand what I have done to you? 13 You call me Teacher and Lord, and you are right, for so I am.

14 If I then, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet.

15 For I have given you an example, that you also should do just as I have done to you.

16 Truly, truly, I say to you, a servant is not greater than his master, nor is a messenger greater than the one who sent him.

17 If you know these things, blessed are you if you do them.

18 I am not speaking of all of you; I know whom I have chosen.

But the Scripture will be fulfilled, ‘He who ate my bread has lifted his heel against me.’

19 I am telling you this now, before it takes place, that when it does take place you may believe that I am he.

20 Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever receives the one I send receives me, and whoever receives me receives the one who sent me.”

I love the way John sets up this story.

Because He begins by showing us Jesus’s state of mind and prorities:

John says “Jesus knew the time had come, and having loved them all along, He loved them to the end.”

Jesus had lived in loving relationship with this rag-tag group of nobodies, and now that the hours were ticking down before he was going to be cruelly tortured and brutally murdered, He doesn’t slip into focusing on Himself, pulling away from them for some “me time”.

He focuses on them, continuing to love them sacrificially right up to the last moment.

John then emphasizes Jesus’s importance and place in the universe, verse 3

“Knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands, and that He had come from and was going back to God…”

John doesn’t want us to lose sight of the glory and grandeur of who Jesus is.

What Jesus is about to do was done while Jesus was recognizing the authority and importance and Glory the Father had given him, and that He was from heaven and was about to go back there.

Jesus takes off his outer garments, wraps a towel around his waste, prepares a basin of water, and begins to wash the disciples dirt-roads-and-camel-poop dirty feet.

Now, fortunately for us, at least Peter knew what was up.

See in first-century Israel, foot-washing was aboooout the dirtiest job you could do.

Normally a host would simply provide water for guests to wash their own feet, or in a wealthier setting, the host might have their slave do the washing.

Jesus.

The God of the Universe.

The King of Kings, and Lord of Lords.

Is washing their dirty feet.

So when Jesus gets to Peter, Peter tries to set him straight.

“Lord, you can’t wash my nasty feet!

I won’t let you!

You tell him Peter!

You can’t let the king pick up the dog poop!

You don’t make the principle scrape the gum off the bottom of the desk!