Holy Thursday Divine Service 2024

Holy Thursday

John 13:1-15, 34-35

March 28, 2024

Our Lord Jesus Christ, on the night when He was betrayed, took bread and gave it to His disciples. And the disciples of our Lord Jesus Christ immediately started to quarrel.

St. Luke tells us, “Now there was also a dispute among them, as to which of them should be considered the greatest.” (Luke 22:24 NKJV) After this, instead of praying, they slept. Then they fought the guards, Peter slicing off a man’s ear. Then they ran.

But first, they argued. About who was greatest.

John tells us that Satan entered the heart of Judas. But Judas was not the only one inspired by Satan that night. For Satan’s work is not only in things provocatively, spectacularly evil. Satan’s work is done when one person puts himself ahead of another.

There is a theory that Judas didn’t really want Jesus to die. He was trying to provoke Jesus, force His hand to seize the kingdom. I don’t think it’s true, but it fits the larger context. Power and control is what all the disciples wanted. They’d argued about this before: who would have the positions of honor in the government Jesus would establish.

That desire for power, honor, and respect is what leads them all to refuse each other, and their Lord, the most basic hospitality of washing feet.

Jesus does what they should have done. And that’s the entire story of Jesus. He does what Adam should have done, what Cain should have done, what Israel should have done, what Jonah should have done. Jesus is the perfect man, who perfectly performs the Law.

It is written, “Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes.” (Romans 10:4 NKJV) The end. Not “the end” as in “over and done with.” For the Law is not bad.

Does that surprise you? We think of the Law as bad, because by it we are judged, by it we are condemned, by it we merit God’s wrath and displeasure, temporal death and eternal punishment.

But the Law is not bad in itself. God’s Law has become fearful for us, and something the general public hates, because it expresses the mind and will of God. God’s Law articulates perfect love for God and your neighbor. Respect for body, spouse, property, name.

Christ doesn’t take away the Law. He does it. The Scriptures sum up the whole Law with a single word: Love.

And that summarizes the whole passion-work of Jesus, as we heard in tonight’s Gospel: “Now before the Feast of the Passover, when Jesus knew that His hour had come that He should depart from this world to the Father, having loved His own who were in the world, He loved them to the end.” (John 13:1 NKJV)

To the end. Not “to the finish.” Not over and done with. Otherwise it would mean, “He loved them until His crucifixion, and then He stopped.”

No, it means, “This was His goal. For this reason He was born, for this reason He came into the world, this is the goal of Jesus: to bring mankind into perfect love: the love of God.”

What does that love look like? It looks like the footwashing: where the Lord is a servant.

Now stop and consider your disputes with other people. Your complaints about them. Your pride. How you say you want things to be different. How you want others to do what you say, think as you think.

It’s not just particular sins we need to confess. Our minds, hearts, temperaments, attitudes are corrupt. We would fit right in with those arguing fishermen, the lawyers arguing with Jesus, and the zealots. We have ideas, we want people to do what we say. Someone else can do the actual work of washing feet. We’re too good for that.

The kingdom of God will never look like Judas or Peter imagined at that time. When the kingdom of God is fully consummated, it will look like the upper room—service, love—without the arguments.

In Corinth, tonight’s Epistle reading, they were arguing there too. The rich were judging the poor, and the poor were hurt and angry. St. Paul tells them to stop judging each other, and let each man judge himself. “If we judged ourselves truly, we would not be judged” – i.e., be judged by God. How do we judge ourselves truly? By judging ourselves as sinners. Through confession. Acknowledging not only our arguments and disputes, but also acknowledging that the core of our twisted heart is filled with bile: the desire to dominate, control, consume, possess.

These are the people that Jesus loves—argumentative, prideful people bent on consumption. And having loved them, He loved them to the end, to the goal, to the culmination and fulfillment of humanity.

Jesus is what it means to be human. You and I are sons of Adam. In the fall, we lost what it meant to be fully human, to be in communion with God and to love and care for the world and each other. Jesus is the end and the goal.

In the Supper we get forgiveness—forgiveness for all our stupid and petty sins; forgiveness also for the horrible ones whispered in the dark. But there is something more in Christ’s Supper. There is food, the food of Christ’s Body and Blood. Food to nourish.

The bread of sweat and labor is our daily bread, the bread of the curse. But the sacramental bread does not come from our sweat and labor, our work. It comes from Christ’s work. It’s a gift. Thus this bread we do not consume like all our other food. This bread consumes us. Christ’s end, His goal, is to bring us into Him, to give us a share and part with Him. He wants to share with us His inheritance. He wants to give us dying ones His life.

That means a resurrected body, but also a new heart, a new spirit, a new person who might actually wash feet, that is, love sacrificially, and do it freely, willingly. Not out of compulsion, not because you have to, not because there are prizes or points attached to it, but because that’s what it is to be truly human, that’s what it is to be in Jesus. Jesus is bringing humanity to its end, its goal.

So who receives this Sacrament worthily? Lenten fastings and disciplines are indeed a fine outward training, but that person is truly worthy and well prepared who has faith in Jesus, the end of the Law, the goal of humanity – faith in Jesus who washes feet, makes Himself a servant, and says, “Take, eat; this is My body, and I give it to you.” That’s the Jesus who loves us “to the end.” And so we follow Him. To the end.