Not Ours in Cringing, Yours In Communion - Maundy Thursday

Not Ours in Cringing, Yours In Communion - Maundy Thursday

Author: Pastor Carolyn Hetrick
March 28, 2024

Way back in the wilderness, in the beginning of his ministry, Jesus was given three temptations. “All this can be yours- all of these kingdoms,” Satan says. “I can give them to you.” Then on Palm Sunday we remembered that people wanted to make Jesus a king. They thought he was riding in to victory. And yet, he chose humility.

When Jesus was alone in the wilderness, he was starving for forty days without food. “Go ahead, feed yourself. Take care of YOU,” Satan says. But he remains steadfast, strengthened by angels. And now here we are this night, when Jesus has every reason to feed himself, taking what we would say he needs, which is not these disciples or this walk. He knows what lies ahead and he cares for his friends, tending to their brokenness on the eve of his body broken. Even Judas. And then he feeds his friends. In the verses we do not read this night in the gospel of John we hear the story of this night includes Jesus then telling Judas, “Go quickly, and do what you are doing.” “Go quickly,” Jesus says, as if it is almost a prayer, to get the ball rolling so Jesus won’t change his mind. To take what he needs.

Here we are as Jesus, confounds us, kneeling at our feet. To care for us as he did the disciples, meeting us in our brokenness.

I invite you to imagine Jesus on his knees looking up at you. If Jesus was holding your foot, and looking into your eyes and your hearts, what would he see? What do you see?

It is here that we realize just how much we have to learn about love. Not in the abstract, but the personal, the “too personal.” The “hard to hold, but so desperately needed” personal.

“Almighty God to whom all hearts are open, all desires known, from whom no secrets are hid,” begins a version of our Confession.
Walter Brueggeman in his poem similarly named writes,
“We engage in subterfuge…carry old secrets too burdensome to bear…failures we cannot undo…alienations we regret but cannot fix… and you know them, you know them all.”[1]
And so I wonder does Peter object to Jesus’ act of love because it was beneath Jesus, or because Jesus this close was too powerful?

“Lord, we don’t know what you are doing.”
Even later we barely grasp it. But if we stay here just a little longer, Brueggman writes “then we find that your knowing is more powerful than our secrets. You know and do not turn away.”[2] Indeed, isn’t it our greatest fear for ourselves that everyone, even God, would turn away from us?

This is such good news, that Jesus stays in love. And this night Jesus will feed us too, reminding us of his body and his blood given and shed for us, for the same reason he fed his friends- forgiveness. For what he knew they were hiding and for what they would do.

Friends, “in this night we hear the healing power of love. That our secrets that seemed to powerful are emptied of strength. Secrets that seemed to burdensome are now less severe.” Jesus, “we marvel that you find us and when you find us out, you stay with us. Taking us seriously. Taking our secrets soberly, but ultimately overpowering our little failures with your massive love and abiding patience. We long to be fully and honestly exposed to your gaze of gentleness. In the moment of your knowing, we are eased, and lightened and we feel the surge of joy move through our bodies because we are not ours in cringing, but yours in communion.” [3]

We are yours. And we find the truth… makes us free for wonder, love and praise, new life. Overcoming the temptation for all of us, when we ponder our siblings in the world- to turn away. Because we know we could, and we have and we will as we continue to try to save ourselves.
This week, tomorrow, we’ll remember that third temptation Jesus faced. “If you are the son of God, save yourself,” is what Jesus will hear after he has been lifted up on a cross. This temptation perhaps is a repeat of “throw yourself down from this high point, God will save you.”

And yet even in the face of others imploring or mocking, “Save yourself and us,” Jesus chooses to love. He does save us, but in the way that we need to be saved. Not by serving ourselves, but by letting ourselves be given in service. After those temptations in the wilderness, Satan left for a “more opportune time” and thought that now in betrayal and arrest, torture, and abandonment, Jesus’ love will have limits. But it did not and does not.

We gather again this night to remember that Jesus meets us here, even in the places we would rather not be met, if we’re honest. He meets us in love. We can celebrate the God who overcomes even the most opportune moment to choose something other than us. Jesus shows up with love to choose us and teach us humility and to command us to love.

We can hear him as he spoke with those disciples, speak to us, calling us to dare to love deeply too. Telling us when we do the things we know he has taught, we will be blessed. And when we hold the bread and the cup, they remind us to continue believing that no secrets are hid from the God who is Almighty, but always chooses to hold onto us when we feel hard to hold, to love us into new life, and command us to help him love others into this life too, no matter how much we are tempted and otherwise.

Gospel Text: John 13:1-17, 31b-35

1Now before the festival of the Passover, Jesus knew that his hour had come to depart from this world and go to the Father. Having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end. 2The devil had already put it into the heart of Judas son of Simon Iscariot to betray him. And during supper 3Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands, and that he had come from God and was going to God, 4got up from the table, took off his outer robe, and tied a towel around himself. 5Then he poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples’ feet and to wipe them with the towel that was tied around him.
6He came to Simon Peter, who said to him, “Lord, are you going to wash my feet?” 7Jesus answered, “You do not know now what I am doing, but later you will understand.” 8Peter said to him, “You will never wash my feet.” Jesus answered, “Unless I wash you, you have no share with me.” 9Simon Peter said to him, “Lord, not my feet only but also my hands and my head!” 10Jesus said to him, “One who has bathed does not need to wash, except for the feet, but is entirely clean. And you are clean, though not all of you.” 11For he knew who was to betray him; for this reason he said, “Not all of you are clean.”
12After he had washed their feet, had put on his robe, and had returned to the table, he said to them, “Do you know what I have done to you? 13You call me Teacher and Lord—and you are right, for that is what I am. 14So if I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet. 15For I have set you an example, that you also should do as I have done to you. 16Very truly, I tell you, servants are not greater than their master, nor are messengers greater than the one who sent them. 17If you know these things, you are blessed if you do them.”

31b“Now the Son of Man has been glorified, and God has been glorified in him. 32If God has been glorified in him, God will also glorify him in himself and will glorify him at once. 33Little children, I am with you only a little longer. You will look for me; and as I said to the Jews so now I say to you, ‘Where I am going, you cannot come.’ 34I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. 35By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”

Copyright Rev. Carolyn K. Hetrick, 2024 All rights reserved. May not be reproduced in whole or in part without written permission. 


[1] “Almighty God From Whom No Secrets Are Hid,”  Walter Brueggeman, Prayers for a Privileged People     
[2] Ibid.
[3] Ibid.


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