Jesus' Mandate to Love
Maundy Thursday
John 13:1-17, 31b-35
[Shared with the people of Friendship Church, April 17, 2003]

Karl Barth is considered one of the giants of Christian faith in the twentieth century. He was a world-renowned theologian in a time when the words of theologians were covered by the mainstream media. Once, Barth came to America for a lecture tour. A reporter from The New York Times was on hand to cover his appearance and to interview the great man. Barth wrote volumes of theological works, books that would take even the most learned person a long time to wade through. The reporter asked Barth, “In all of your work, sir, what are you trying to say?” Barth thought about if for awhile and then answered, “Jesus loves me, this I know. For the Bible tells me so.”

As some of you know, that’s one of my favorite stories, because it gets at the essence of the Good News of Jesus Christ. “While we were still sinners,” the New Testament book of Romans says, “Christ died for us.” He did that because of His love for us. God knew that death was the rightful consequence of sin. He was horrified by the notion that He might lose us all forever. So, God made an incredible decision. He decided to become one of us, lead a sinless life, and then make an offering of Himself. He became the Lamb of God, Who takes away the sin of the world. Anybody who will simply come to God, confessing their sin and receiving Jesus as their Lord, becomes a beneficiary of the love God gives through Jesus. “Jesus loves me” is absolutely true and the cross is proof of it. The Good News on which this congregation and this building is built is love, the love of God.

But Maundy Thursday stands as a reminder to us all. The love that we followers of Jesus talk about isn’t just about God’s love for us. The word Maundy comes from a Latin word that means “mandate” or “command.” On the Thursday before Jesus was murdered, He celebrated the ancient Jewish meal of Passover with His closest followers. There, He also instituted a new dinner. We call it Holy Communion, or the Lord’s Supper, or from a Greek word meaning thanksgiving, we may call it the Eucharist. But Jesus did something else in that quiet room with the twelve: He gave them a mandate, a new command.

As was often true of Jesus though, He didn’t give that new commandment without first giving them a stunning illustration of it. Like you, maybe, a few weeks ago, I was amazed to watch by satellite from Baghdad, the pictures of Iraqis and US Marines as, together they brought down a large statue of Saddam Hussein. Even more amazing was the image of dozens of Iraqis jumping onto the toppled statue, stomping it with their feet and banging it with their shoes. These Iraqis were showing contempt for a man they regarded as a monstrous dictator.

Like the Iraqis of today, when God came into the world as a human being, He did so as a member of a Semitic race. The Judeans of Jesus’ day, also like the Iraqis of our day, regarded the foot as the filthiest portion of the human anatomy. In first century Judea where Jesus lived, it was common whenever a guest had traveled dusty roads by foot, that a servant would wash the feet of the traveler before dinner was served. But as Jesus prepared to give His disciples the mandate to love as He loved them, He did something that no self-respecting Lord or teacher would ever do, something that only a slave would do. Jesus stripped off His only garment, wrapped a towel around His waist, and began to wash the disciples’ dirty feet.

Simon Peter—the man we call simply Peter—was appalled. “Lord,” he tells Jesus, “You are never going to wash my feet. I won’t hear of it. It’s beneath the Savior of the world.” (It’s funny how Peter was always trying to teach Jesus the “right” way to be the Savior, as though he knew better than Jesus!) But Jesus tells Peter, “If you don’t let Me serve you in this way, you really don’t have anything to do with Me.” On hearing that, Peter, always impetuous, says, “Lord, not just my feet then, but also my hands and my head.”

After Jesus finished cleaning each foot, even the feet of the man He knew would soon betray Him and turn Him over to the authorities who would kill Him, Jesus took His place at the head of the table and said:

“Do you know what I have done to you? You call me Teacher and Lord—and you are right, for that is what I am. So if I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet...I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.”

The love of Jesus isn’t a pretty ornament that you pull out and gaze at. Jesus’ love is like a million pulsating nuclear power plants living inside of us. Jesus’ love is meant to power us in loving and serving others just as Jesus has loved and served us.

Jesus’ Maundy Thursday mandate is that we dare not horde His love; it’s meant to be passed on. When I was a boy, I remember an assembly at our elementary school at which we welcomed a local TV show host, a sort of prototype of Bill Nye, the Science Guy. His name was Mr. Perkins. At one point in the assembly, Mr. Perkins had a large group of us stand holding hands in a circle around the perimeter of the multipurpose room. One person in the front laid the palm of his hand against the surface of a large metal ball that was connected to a small, hand-cranked electric generator. Mr. Perkins began cranking the generator and within seconds, everyone of us felt a small but noticeable jolt. Mr. Perkins explained that each of us had acted as conductors of electricity. We felt it and so did the person we touched next to us.

Jesus is saying that for the follower of Jesus, it isn’t good enough to be the passive recipients of His love. And there are some people, stuck in a perpetual spiritual adolescence whose entire thinking about Christ and the Church is composed of the question, “What’s in it for me?” For people like that, Christian faith is nothing but a selfish pursuit of goose bumps and jolts. They engage in constant hopping from one experience or church to another because the “high” they got before wore off. But Jesus says that if we want to keep His love alive in our lives, we need to move from being mere consumers of His love and become reproducers of His love. We need to love the imperfect people with whom we go to church and the imperfect people in our world, just like He loves us in spite of our imperfections.

Facing certain death, Jesus still served His unworthy disciples. He could do that because the love He knew the Father had for Him gave Him confidence to keep on loving in spite of His circumstances. Jesus wants us to live and love and serve with the same confidence! A few days ago, I was having a conversation on the fly with one of my neighbors. For some time now, I’ve been praying for him and his wife, people I really like a lot. I decided that now was the time. So, in my head, I said another quick prayer and I invited this guy and his wife to worship with us this coming Sunday. Without a second’s hesitation, he said, “Yes.” Soon, I was in my car heading for dinner with friends. But I tell you, that felt so good! Jesus had made a connection of love with my neighbor. By taking the risk of passing Jesus’ love onto someone else, I could feel Jesus stoking the fires of my faith and making it grow. Our faith in Christ always grows when we give it away!

In the few days before Easter, God may give you and me opportunities to make such a connection. We can invite people who need Jesus in their lives to be with us for Easter worship. And in a few weeks, you’ll have new opportunities to serve our neighbors in Jesus’ Name through our renewed outreach program under Carol Barrett’s leadership.

You and I can sing with confidence that, “Jesus loves me” and that’s an awesome and life-transforming thing. But when we show others through our loving, serving, giving, and living that Jesus loves them, that’s when you and are most alive!

[The Karl Barth story, one of my favorites, was retold in a recent message by Pastor Mike Foss. I appreciate the reminder.]