Sermon for MHBC on Maundy Thursday (14 April 2022).
It is helpful to think of the Gospel of John as a meditative story.[1] It is different than the other three Gospels—Matthew, Mark, and Luke. Some early Christian interpreters used the image of an eagle to describe the Gospel of John. Like an eagle making multiple circles around its prey, the Gospel of John circles around Christ so that we see glimpse after glimpse of His glory.[2]
One emphasis we find in John’s Gospel is the word glory. The word glory is important to the Gospel of John. One meaning of the word glory is heavy or weighty. So glory refers to something that is important and significant, but it also comes to refer to authority and power. And throughout Scripture, glory also refers uniquely to God’s presence like in 1 Kings 8 where we read that the priests can’t even stand in the temple because the glory of the LORD filled it. Glory is about God’s unfathomable greatness and authority being displayed to humans.
And John tells us that the glory of the one true God is seen in Jesus. Listen to John 1:14:
And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.
The Word, who is God according to John 1:1, reveals the glory of God. How? When the Word takes on flesh—what we call the incarnation—and lives among us, then the glory of God is revealed in Christ.
Now this is really critical. Stop and think about the religions of the world. There are many things to celebrate perhaps. Often, there is an emphasis on doing good things or particular rituals. But when it comes to Christianity, if we are ever to understand it rightly, we are talking about the unilateral and decisive action of God in Christ. What I mean is this: What religion says the eternal God became incarnate? What religion says the glory of God was revealed to us in a person?
And there’s still one further piece that shows us how different Christianity is. What religion tells us that the incarnate God died in order to give us life, in order to free us from sin, Satan, and death? Now many religions wrestle with death. After all, death is the basic human burden. But Christianity says that God incarnate died specifically to deal with that burden. There’s a striking quote from the church father Athanasius that goes like this: “God became man in order that men might become gods.” Athanasius was talking about the way God is redeeming His creation by restoring the image of God in us, so that we come to share in and reflect God.
The way all of that is possible is through Jesus’s sacrificial gift of Himself. There’s a phrase from ancient liturgy that speaks of Jesus’s voluntary passion. Passion is suffering. It usually happens to us. We suffer. We die. But Jesus’s suffering was voluntary.[3] He says in John 10:18 that no one takes His life, he lays it down. But Christ suffers for the sake of sinful humans. Why? Because of His deep, abiding, unbreakable love. And it is through this love that He brings cleansing, healing, and new life. Song of Songs states in 8:6: for love is strong as death, jealousy is fierce as the grave. Christ’s willing death breaks the power of the grave. To use C. S. Lewis’s language, death begins to work backward.
We see all of this so clearly in John 13. John 13 is an important turning point in John’s Gospel. The first 12 chapters cover several years. John 13–21 covers mere days. In John 12, we see Jesus ultimately rejected and we are told His hour had come. This same language kicks off chapter 13, where we read in v. 1: Now before the Feast of the Passover, when Jesus knew that his hour had come to depart out of this world to the Father.
What is His hour? It is the moment of His death, resurrection, and ascension. It is the moment on which the entire fate of the universe rests. It is sacred space, when heaven and earth collide, and everything in all creation is at stake.
And this highlights the paradox. The glory of Jesus is on display in His death. He prays in John 17 that the Father would glorify Him in this cataclysmic hour.
So when Jesus stoops down to wash the feet of His disciples on the night He was betrayed by Judas, we are seeing His glory. John 13 isn’t a mere lesson in humility. It is about the glory of the eternal Son of God as His love drives Him toward death.
Notice v. 3: Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands, and that he had come from God and was going to God. What does He do? Knowing that His hour had come, He gives the disciples a lesson on His death. Verses 4–5: [He] rose from supper, laid aside his garments, and girded himself with a towel. Notice He does this during dinner, not upon arrival. Then he poured water into a basin, and began to wash the disciples’ feet, and to wipe them with the towel with which he was girded.
Now this is astonishing, and Peter objects. Listen to what Jesus says in v. 7: Jesus answered him, “What I am doing you do not know now, but afterward you will understand.” This isn’t mere foot washing. It is loaded with meaning, meaning that Peter will understand later, after He sees Christ’s voluntary passion.
The next verse tells us about the significance of His suffering. Verses 8: Peter said to him, “You shall never wash my feet.” Jesus answered him, “If I do not wash you, you have no part in me.” Here is the meaning of His death, though Peter doesn’t understand it yet. Christ’s death redeems creation polluted and destroyed by sin. Hs death defeats sin, Satan, and death itself. The only way for us to share in the life of God is for Christ to suffer for us. He must wash us.
Jesus, next, explains, that He, their teacher and Lord has washed their feet. Here we see one of the great mysteries of the gospel. The eternal Son of God becomes incarnate, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men, and dies on a cross. And that is precisely the paradox of His glory. His glory is revealed even in His death. And His coming death is seen when the Lord of glory stoops to wash sinful people.
Look at John 13:31–35 with me as we conclude our text:
When he had gone out, Jesus said, “Now is the Son of man glorified, and in him God is glorified; if God is glorified in him, God will also glorify him in himself, and glorify him at once. Little children, yet a little while I am with you. You will seek me; and as I said to the Jews so now I say to you, ‘Where I am going you cannot come.’ A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; even as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”
[1] See L. T. Johnson, The Writings of the New Testament, p. 474.
[2] Ibid., p. 478.
[3] Louth, Introducing Eastern Orthodox Theology, pp. 54–55.
Thank you for this amazing lesson! Your teachings are very inspiring!
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