Exodus 12:1-4, (5-10), 11-14,  1 Corinthians 11:23-26, John 13:1-17, 31b-35, Psalm 116:1, 10-17

The account of Jesus washing the feet of his disciples is found in John’s Gospel only.  This particular Gospel lesson is unique to Maundy Thursday and we hear it yearly on this day.  In this setting on the eve of the Passover, the followers of Jesus have come together to share a meal as faithful Jews have celebrated the Passover since the Exodus as described in our first lesson. 

For three years now, the disciples have observed Jesus’ example of what it is to be a true disciple.  This is a very private intimate occasion.  Jesus is aware that his public ministry has ended. 

The hour has come; God’s time is the right time for Jesus to depart from this world and go the Father.  Soon, he will no longer be physically present with these disciples to teach and exemplify true discipleship.  His focus now is his private ministry to his closest followers, preparing them as best he can for their future beyond his departure.

The teaching, the preaching, the healing, the acceptance of the outcast and the sinful – these fearful and bewildered disciples are struggling to put together the whirlwind of puzzle pieces of the last three years and to absorb what Jesus is saying, “I am with you only a little longer…. Where I am going you cannot come.”

To these most intimate followers together for the last time, Jesus says, “I give you a new commandment that you love one another.”  It is from the Latin translation of our word “commandment” that Maundy is derived. 

Thus, on this Maundy Thursday, we hear the powerful words of Jesus’ new commandment – we are to love one another.   This command doesn’t sound so new; we’re accustomed to Jesus telling us and showing us how to love one another.   

The commandment, however, takes on a new tone as Jesus speaks of going away, as would be our words of love to one whom we knew we would not see again in our earthly life.  In their bewilderment, the disciples are not quite yet ready to understand.  We, too, come in our bewilderment, seeking to better understand Jesus’ command – seeking to have these sacred moments of our time together transformed into a revelation  – a glimpse of the glory of the Kingdom of God.

John tells us “before the Passover, Jesus knew that his hour had come to depart from this world and go to the Father” (v. 1).  On this eve of Passover, Jesus rises from the supper he is sharing with his disciples, and in utter humility, washes their feet – a task reserved for the lowliest slave.  From this, we are to understand that this love that Jesus is commanding is a radical fearless love – agape, as it translates from the original Greek – selfless, self-sacrificing love – a pouring out of ourselves in servitude to our neighbor.

On this eve of Passover, the time has come for Jesus to go to the Father.   It will be his followers, gathered in awe-struck silence at the sight of their leader washing their feet, who now must take this message of radical self-sacrificing love to the world.  It will be they who must take on the role of teaching and preaching and healing and embracing the outcast – they who must carry into the world the radical message of the new commandment. 

It will be these followers who would come to understand this new commandment – these followers who would themselves give their lives to preserve and pass down this new commandment to us two millenniums after this bewildering and fearful night that would culminate in betrayal and denial. 

In the margin of my most-worn and pencil-marked study Bible, next to these verses in Chapter 13 of John’s account of the washing of feet, I at some time in the past had written this quote from an unrecorded source: “Regardless of our countless inadequacies, we are all God needs to bring about the Kingdom of God.”

We, in humble self-sacrificing, fearless love to one another, are all God needs to bring about the Kingdom of God.