You wouldn’t invite someone over for a meal, and then make them sit and watch while you ate. No, when you invite someone to eat with you, you don’t invite them to spectate, but participate, not to watch, but to join. You invite them to share what you have.
So it was with the disciples here. On the night that Jesus was betrayed, they were invited to join Jesus in a meal. To share something with him, to participate. And it’s interesting how central eating is to the biblical story.
How did Adam and Eve sin, and bring corruption into the world? They took the fruit and they ate. What did the Israelites do to be liberated from slavery in Egypt? They took a lamb and they ate. On the night that Jesus was betrayed, what commandment did he give his disciples? Same again: take, eat.
God has invited us here tonight, not as spectators, but as participants. Jesus invites us to share with him. Why? Verse 1 sets the context of everything that follows. Without it, everything else is in the wrong perspective. ‘Having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end.’
It is out of his love that Jesus invites us to share in what he has. God calls us, in his love, to participate in his life, and in this salvation. What does that participation look like? That is the central question: what does that participation look like?
Perhaps it means that we do 50% of the work and Jesus does the rest. Certainly not. We see that early on. Jesus invites his disciples to share in this meal, and he rises from the table, and takes the role of a slave, washing the disciples’ feet. Rather than admiring Jesus’ humility, Peter takes offence. Peter is just too uncomfortable to let Jesus do this. He asks, incredulous, ‘Lord, do you wash my feet?’
Jesus says that unless he washes his feet, Peter has no share with him. Jesus came to share with the disciples, to participate in his life, to join the fellowship of the Trinity. But the first thing that is needed is for Jesus to do something for us that we cannot do for ourselves: to forgive us, and make us clean.
In order to get a share in Jesus’s life, we first have to do nothing and accept his help. Peter shows us that that is harder than it seems. We see something like it in our own life cycle. We enter the world helpless, dependent on our parents. We mature and gain a level of independence, we take care of others, we become strong and useful and helpful. Then a time comes when we have to start depending on others again, and most people feel like Peter in that situation. It offends us.
The first hard step of the Christian life is this: coming to Jesus with your shoes off. Many love Peter because he so often speaks for us. We all have great ideas of the things we could do for Jesus. ‘Where do you want me, Lord? I’m happy to serve! I’ve got a lot of potential. What should I do?’
The first step is coming to Jesus with your shoes off, and realising that only after he has washed you, only after your sins have been forgiven will you be set free to serve him and to participate in his work in the world. The first step is forgiveness. We need Jesus to do something for us that we cannot do for ourselves.
It is important, however, to see that forgiveness is the beginning, not the end. The point of forgiveness is that we share in what Jesus has. That’s what he says here: ‘Unless I wash you, you have no share in me.’ Jesus is using the image of an inheritance, he is the heir who shares his status with others. That is the goal, forgiveness is just the means to this: communion, participation, fellowship, and adoption as sons. If forgiveness, if this cleansing was the goal, then our services would be a lot shorter. We could go home every week after the confession and absolution. But forgiveness is not the goal, it’s just the first step: the goal is communion with God, and that is what Jesus comes to offer us.
Earlier in John’s Gospel, Jesus said that all who sin are slaves to sin, but he promises that if he, the son, sets you free, you will be truly free. So that’s us — slaves to sin. Slaves to all manner of corrupt habits and ways of thinking that lead us to death. Habits make us small people in small worlds. We are slaves to sin. But here, Jesus takes the role of the slave, washing the feet of those at the table. The host would never do this — if he was very wealthy, he would provide slaves to do it, if he had no slaves, then he would provide the water, and you could do it yourself. Washing someone else’s feet was seen as a job for slaves, but here, Jesus takes the role of the slave, in order to wash his disciples, so that they can share in his inheritance as the son. The son becomes a slave, so that slaves can become sons. So that they can share in all the son has, so they can participate in his life. As John wrote, ‘To those who believed in him, he gave the right to become children of God.’
So what does it mean for us to share in his life? To follow his example. Jesus invites us into his life by inviting us to follow his example. Verses 13 and 14: ‘You call me Teacher and Lord, and you are right, for so I am. If I then, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another's feet. For I have given you an example, that you also should do just as I have done to you.’ And then in verses 34: ‘A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another.’
We call this day Maundy Thursday. The word Maundy comes from the word ‘Mandatum’ meaning commandment, as in ‘mandate’ or ‘mandatory.’ It is this commandment that gives the day its name.
A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another.
We might well think though, is this commandment so new? You can imagine when Jesus started the sentence, ‘A new commandment I give you…’ that perhaps the disciples leaned forward a little. They looked to whichever disciple normally took notes to make sure he was getting it all down. Then this is the commandment: love one another. Is that so new? Hadn’t we already been commanded to love our neighbours as ourselves?
It’s not the love that is new, but the example. Love one another as I have loved you. What is that example? Taking the role of a slave. This is how we are invited to participate in Jesus’s life — by imitating him.
He is the son who becomes a slave, to make us sons, so that we can slaves as well. This is the paradox at the heart of the Christian life: Jesus invites us into freedom by inviting us to serve. He calls us into life by calling us into death. He invites us to this meal of salvation, not as spectators, but participants.
Have you noticed, the two sacraments that we have been given by Jesus, the two acts for us to perform, are both centred on Jesus’s death? In baptism, we are washed by joining Jesus in his death. In the Lord’s Supper, which we share tonight, we eat and drink our way into sharing in his death.
This is the shape of the whole Christian life: not so much that we invite Jesus into our lives, but that Jesus invites us into his. We don’t ask Jesus into our hearts, so much as Jesus takes us into his, loving us to death, and then transforming us by his spirit so that we would do the same: loving each other with the same love, and demonstrating to the whole world that we belong to him. He invites us here tonight to be forgiven freely, and then to share in this meal, no longer spectators in salvation, but participants.
Adam and Eve saw the fruit in the Garden that looked like life, but took and ate and died. We see these symbols of Christ’s passion, his body and his blood — we see food that looks like death — we take and eat, we die, and behold, we live.