Maundy Thursday Sermon
April 6, 2023
If there is a story in scripture that demonstrates the complexity of human emotions, it is this last night Jesus spends with his friends before he is arrested and crucified. I think we forget sometimes that these were real people, real human beings with the same complex emotions that we have. These things played out so long ago in a world so different from ours, and yet humans haven’t really evolved all that much in 2000 years, have they? We are not so much better today at managing the big emotions that come alongside grief and loss.
Remembering that we are not so different can help us make sense of what is going on in this story, and even can help us understand how it might relate to our lives today – lives that yes, are different, but that deal with our own types of grief, loss, anxiety, fear, and yes, love. Let’s take a look at how people respond to the emotional cocktail of that night.
First, Peter. Dear, impetuous Peter – one of my favorite biblical characters. His eagerness, earnestness, and his desire to do the right thing are traits we can relate to! In this story, though, he begins to realize that Jesus is about to leave them, that a devastating abandonment is in his future… and he is afraid. How does he respond? He pushes Jesus away. “You’ll never wash my feet!” As if he is saying, “I can’t handle that level of intimacy with you. It will only make this hurt more when you’re gone.” He can’t receive that act of love from Jesus because then, when Jesus is gone, Peter will be shattered.
I suspect that’s something many of us have experienced, either ourselves, in Peter’s position, or in the behavior of a loved one, who pushes us away the more we try to draw close. Fear of abandonment is a very common, yet not often discussed affliction, and for one who lives with that, it sometimes feels like the best defense against it, the only way to feel in control, is to avoid closeness at all, or to be the one who pushes away first, so a sense of control can be maintained.
But then, in the next breath, Peter is once again grasping for Jesus: “Give me ALL the intimacy and love! I want you to wash everything! Shower me with your love, Lord, from head to toe!” This, too, is not so unlike us in our own fears of loss. Even as we may first push away, we still long for the one we don’t want to lose, and we grasp them all the more tightly. Through Peter’s back-and-forth, Jesus is the model of non-anxious, secure attachment style, stating truth in love, staying steadfast, and exercising humility. And while I suspect Peter’s emotions continue to run high, he is able to stay in that place, in that relationship (well, at least at first – we’ll get to that next part tomorrow night!).
Judas, on the other hand, cannot stay. In the face of this moment, he takes off. John names Satan himself as the culprit, for it is when Satan enters Judas that he leaves; whatever the case, Judas does not have time, energy or interest for this relationship anymore. We usually think of Judas as the betrayer, right? That is, the one who turned Jesus over to the authorities. And in Matthew, Mark and Luke, that is accurate. But in John, the turnover is not the moment of betrayal. In John, Jesus turns himself in. He tells Judas to go and “do quickly what you are going to do.” So the moment of betrayal actually happens when Judas walks out that door, and away from the relationship.
John points out, immediately after Judas went out, “And it was night.” This is no throw-away line; it is meant to evoke heavy drama and foreboding. You may remember from the story about Nicodemus, who comes to Jesus by night, that darkness is kind of a big deal in John. It indicates a lack of insight or knowledge, a lack of relationship with Jesus. At the beginning of this Gospel, John tells us that Jesus is the light come into the world, saying that “the light was the life of all people. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.” And yet when Judas leaves the room, we are told, “it was night.” It was dark. He leaves the light and the life that is Jesus. He leaves that loving, abiding relationship, and in doing so, he betrays Jesus.
I’ll be honest, this revelation makes me squirm a bit. While I can safely say I would not sell out my friend for 30 pieces of silver, I am not as confident saying that nothing would make me abandon my relationship with Jesus. Like many of you, I’m sure, I have had those moments in life when I pushed God away in anger, when indeed I have walked out of the room into the dark night. Obviously, I came back – otherwise I wouldn’t be here now! – but that doesn’t negate the fact that I have, like Judas, wanted to throw up my hands and quit that relationship when things got too hard. Suddenly, I can’t say with confidence that I would never betray Jesus. As our hymn this evening says so plaintively, “Alas, my treason, Jesus, hath undone thee.”
One more person who gets only a passing mention, but it’s an important one: the so-called “beloved disciple.” It is not clear who this person is. Typically, it is pinpointed as John, the writer of the Gospel, though there is really no proof for this. A more persuasive explanation is that the beloved disciple is the one who hears and reads this story – it is you, and it is me. It is every disciple. John tells us that as all this confusion and anxiety is going on about someone betraying Jesus, “one of the disciples – the one whom Jesus loved – was reclining next to him.” Twice, John mentions his position: reclining next to Jesus. In other words, in the midst of all the emotional turmoil, this disciple stays intimately cozy with Jesus, the light of the world, nestled in his love and life.
What a contrast! I may find much to relate to in the reactions of both Judas and Peter, but this beloved disciple shows where we want to be: clinging to the source of life, the vine to the branches, the good shepherd to the sheep, the bread of life, the resurrection, the way, the truth, and the life. This is the definition of faith: to be in relationship with Jesus, to abide with him. To recline next to him. When everything around us is full of uncertainty, hatred, fear, and grief, the beloved disciple leans closer still to Jesus.
We know that. But it is easier to say than to do sometimes. Though we know what we want to do, we do not always do it – sometimes we push Jesus away, like Peter, before we come crawling back; sometimes we leave the relationship and walk into the darkness; sometimes we swear we would never leave him, only to turn around and deny him a few hours later. But here is where the good news of Maundy Thursday comes in: all of those people and all of those reactions and more as well were there that night, and which of their feet did he wash? All of them. Every last one of those people’s feet he washed, no matter how they dealt with their grief and anxiety. Each of them, without distinction, received that loving act, that deep desire of God’s to connect intimately with us. And even Judas – it is while he is in the act of betrayal, having left the room and heading to the authorities, that Jesus tells the remaining disciples, “Love one another. Love one another humbly and without pretense. Love each other intimately and deeply. Never stop loving each other.”
And so we do. We love one another when we fear, and when we grieve. We love one another when we want to run away. We love one another when we do run away. We love one another, as Jesus loves us. As we make our way through these three days, seeing how God so loved this world as to give himself for our sake, may we take with us this new commandment to love one another in this way: as a promise for us, when we are the ones struggling, and as a charge to love those who struggle.
May God give us both the will and the way to do it.
In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Full service can be viewed HERE.
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