A Time To Love

In a Time of Hate, Jesus Offers Us a Time of God’s Certain and Eternal Love.

A Time to Love

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Sermon Outline

In a Time of Hate, Jesus Offers Us a Time of God’s Certain and Eternal Love.

Sermon

In Ecclesiastes, the Preacher says, “For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven” (3:1). Tonight, we enter into a holy time, a time to remember our Lord’s Passion.

During the next few days, we will gather to worship, for Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, and the Easter Vigil. In doing this, we practice an ancient custom of the Early Christian Church: the services of Holy Week. In some liturgies, there was no benediction at the end of these services. This was not an accidental oversight. It was intentional. These three days were seen as one long service, continuing after the people went home.

Even though we go home to rest and to carry out our work, we are encouraged to remember our Lord’s unresting love. This is what he came for. To offer his body and blood for our redemption. To offer his life as a sacrifice for our sin. And, after three days, to rise from the dead, the firstfruits of a new creation.

And so we gather, during these three days, to worship. To receive his body and blood. To hear his words from the cross. To be witnesses once again of his resurrection from the dead. This is a holy time.

In Ecclesiastes, the Preacher says, “For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven” (3:1). In each of our services over these next three days, we will remember how Jesus transformed our time. Tonight, one of his own disciples, Judas, is intending to betray him, but even

In a Time of Hate, Jesus Offers Us a Time of God’s Certain and Eternal Love.

I. A Surprising Time: Jesus surprises us not only by washing his disciples’ feet but by answering Judas’s hate with the certainty of his love.

John’s account of the Passover is surprising. In John, we have no record of Jesus instituting the Lord’s Supper during this Passover with his disciples. That is something John assumed his readers would already know (cf. Clement of Alexandria’s remarks in Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History, 6.14.7). As they read and remembered this night, they would know the essentials of what took place. Jesus took bread and broke it, saying, “Take, eat; this is my body.” Jesus took the cup and gave thanks, saying, “Drink of it, all of you, for this is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins” (). John knew his readers would remember these things. But John wanted them to remember something more.

John wanted them and he wanted us to remember a surprising act of Jesus. In the middle of the meal, Jesus rose from the table, took off his outer clothing, tied a towel around his waist, and began to wash his disciples’ feet. He washed his disciples’ feet! The action is surprising.

Normally, you would wash your feet upon entering a person’s home, not during dinner. And normally, this would be done by servants, certainly not by one’s Lord and Teacher. So it is surprising that in the middle of the meal, Jesus, of all people, would begin to wash his disciples’ feet. But that isn’t the only surprise. There is another, even greater, surprise here. John wants us to know that Jesus washed the feet of Judas. Before Jesus got up from the table, John tells us that Satan had entered Judas and that Judas was about to betray Jesus. And this isn’t information that only we, the readers, know. John is clear that Jesus knows this too. As Jesus is washing their feet, John writes, Jesus “knew who was to betray him” ().

John offers us surprise upon surprise. Not only does Jesus do the work of a servant in the middle of a meal, but he also does this humble work for the very one who would betray him. Jesus takes into his hands the feet of his enemy, about to betray him, and he washes them . . . in humble service . . . in holy love. Why? Why would Jesus wash the feet of the one who was to betray him?

For John, the answer is simple. He writes, “Having loved his own who were in the world, he now showed them the full extent of his love” (v 1 NIV). Jesus is showing the full extent of his love. Jesus would love them all. He would love those who followed him and the one who would betray him. He would love those who fled from him and the one who would deny him. Jesus would love them all, in the fullest way possible to the last moment possible. This was the full extent of Jesus’ love.

Consider the choice Jesus had at this moment. He knew the certainty of his betrayal, and he could have based his words and his deeds on this. We all know people who allow their lives to revolve around a wrong that was done to them. Their spouse was unfaithful. Their father was abusive. Their co-workers are backbiting, and they spend their lifetime making this hatred the center of their days. It’s the constant topic of their conversation. The grudge they bear against the world.

Jesus could have done that. He could have put Judas’s hatred at the center of his life. He could have tried to turn the other disciples against Judas. He could have hidden from Judas the time and the place where they were going. He could have fought against Judas or passed over him when washing everyone else’s feet. Jesus could have done any of these things. He could have placed at the center of his life this act of betrayal, this time of hate.

But Jesus chose to create a time of love. He chose to place at the center of his life an act of love. Divine love. Self-sacrificial love. A love that is patient and kind. A love that does not envy or boast. A love that is not arrogant or rude. It does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. This love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things (). This is God’s surprising love, come into our world in the person of Jesus Christ. Jesus offers his life for those who oppose him. “While we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (). Such is God’s surprising love, and it is a love that never ends.

II. A Time of Certain Love: Jesus places at the center of our lives the certainty of his love.

When faced with a time of hatred and betrayal, Jesus brings about a time of certain love. As John said earlier in his Gospel, “God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him” (). And here, Jesus reveals that salvation. Not only in washing his disciples’ feet but also in offering his body and blood for the forgiveness of their sins.

And that love did not end with the disciples that evening. No, it continues today. Every time we celebrate the Lord’s Supper, Jesus places this certain love in our midst.

Our world has us searching for certainty. Benjamin Franklin once noted that “nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes.” Our Lord, however, expands the list. “In this world you will have tribulation,” he says (). Our days will be filled with trouble. We will experience both the sin that arises from within and the persecution that comes from without. Trouble is certain . . . for all of us. And unfortunately, we sometimes place this trouble at the center of our lives.

It may be financial pressures that cause us to doubt God’s care and provision. Once we take them to heart, they slowly destroy the world around us. They lead to dissatisfaction about how we are treated at work and arguments about spending at home. It may be that one argument that has redefined our marriage. No matter how many times we’ve heard our spouse ask for forgiveness, we simply will not let that one go. And it shapes the way we treat each other. It, not Christ, becomes the center of our marriage. The world is filled with trouble, and it is easy for us to take that trouble and make it the center of our lives.

When the Israelites traveled through the wilderness, the journey was rough. For forty years, they wandered in dry desert places. And Scripture records their grumbling against the Lord. The wilderness gave them plenty of trouble to make the center of their lives. God, however, had a different design. If you ever read the Book of Numbers closely, you will come across a description of how God wanted the Israelites to set up camp. I know, it doesn’t sound interesting. But there is an amazing picture of God’s grace in these words.

Israel was to form a camp in the wilderness. And if you look at how it is described, you will see that their camp was to be shaped like a square. Thousands of people gathered into groups. Three tribes on each side. And then in the middle of that square of people was the Tent of Meeting, the tabernacle, the place where God came and dwelt among his people. No matter what trouble they were enduring in the wilderness, God physically placed himself in their midst. Yes, tribulation was certain for the Israelites, wandering for forty years in the desert, but so, too, was the presence and the love of God. God made his love known by placing his certain love in the midst of his people.

On the night when he was betrayed, Jesus said to his disciples, “In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world” (). In a similar way, Jesus comes among us tonight. He invites you to his Table.

In a world where trouble is certain, in a life where we all sin and fall short of the glory of God, in a time of hate, our Lord comes to offer us his certain love. “On the night when he was betrayed,” the Words of Institution begin. But they don’t stop there. They continue, assuring us of God’s certain love. “This is my body, given for you.” “This is my blood, shed for the forgiveness of your sins.”

Tonight in a world where trouble is certain, Jesus places at the center of our lives his self-sacrificial love. God’s love in Christ is present. Here. Tonight. For you. Amen.