Rebecca Sheridan
Maundy Thursday, March 29, 2018
John 13:1-17, 31b-35
What do you think about when you look at a cross? What emotions does it evoke? The cross carries much symbolic meaning for us as Christians, but when the religious and Roman authorities chose to crucify Jesus as the execution method there was not much symbolic about it – crucifixion was practical. Reserved for political prisoners who committed treason, it was cheap, it was public (everyone could see and learn what punishment would await you if you were too outspoken against the Roman government), and it was painful, allowing a person’s legs and arms to be stretched in such a way that they would slowly suffocate to death. One of the most powerful stories we have to tell as Christians is how we have reclaimed an instrument of torture, power, and death to be an instrument of healing, redemption, and life. For us, today, and throughout the world, the cross is a universal symbol of salvation: a sign that sin, death, and the devil cannot be defeated. God repurposed a tool for destruction into a powerful symbol to remind us that for God, nothing is impossible, that all things can be reconciled back to God in Christ Jesus our Lord. There is nothing to fear. In its simple shape, the cross reminds us of how God’s love in Jesus Christ works through us both horizontally and vertically. God so loved the world (horizontal) that he gave his only son so that all who believe in him may have eternal life (vertical). Jesus on the cross restores our relationships with each other and with God.
Tonight, John’s gospel reminds us of the ways God brings us into right relationship with each other, the horizontal. Jesus washes the disciples’ feet as a symbol of his love for them. Then he asks them to wash one another’s feet. Jesus shares a meal with them and asks them to feed others. And then he gives them a new commandment, “love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” How does everyone know that we love one another? How do we follow Jesus’ commandment in loving one another, in being the visible reminder of Jesus’ work of restoring relationships on the cross?
Tonight, we have a very intimate way of loving one another in having our feet washed, but we also show our love for one another in worship when we share the peace. When we take communion together, when we visit one another in the hospital or at home, when we muster courage to introduce ourselves to strangers, when we feed others through our financial gifts of gifts of time, when we write and call our legislators for policies that uphold our Christian value to protect the most vulnerable, we love one another. Forgiveness, grace, peace, healthy relationships. This is the horizontal love of God that we extend to one another just as Jesus extended it to us on the cross, at the table, with a basin of water, with an outstretched handshake of peace.
Jesus’ death on the cross is not just a sad story with a happy ending at Easter. It’s also not just about a personal Jesus who dies for human individuals who believe in him to have a reserved spot in heaven. Jesus’ arms, open to all creation on the cross, connects us to one another in a way that nothing else does. In an increasingly divided, isolated, individualist world, Jesus brings all kinds of different people together in miraculous ways. Jesus arms, extended at the Passover table meal, reaches from Matthew the tax collector to Simon the zealot, from Peter the denier to Judas the betrayer. Jesus’ arms still today have the ability to embrace everyone: liberal, conservative, old, young, male, female. God’s love, in Jesus, is wide, expansive love that holds very different people close, calls them beloved, offers radical forgiveness, and then asks them to love one another.
We leave in silence tonight not only because this is one of the holiest nights of the church year where we focus on the core of our story as a Christian people together. We leave quietly because the worship isn’t technically over. We’ll come back tomorrow to continue the story. Good Friday is not another separate worship service, but a continuation of the great Three Days as we wait and watch with the disciples, with Jesus. Our worship doesn’t really end until after Easter morning so we can fully contemplate what Jesus’ suffering, death, and resurrection mean for our lives! Tonight we talked about the horizontal arms of Jesus on the cross. Tomorrow, we’ll talk about the vertical love of God on the cross where Jesus comes down to meet us, again, again, and again. I invite you then to pray, and come back tomorrow night continue the worship as we hear God’s great story of love for us in Jesus Christ on the cross.
Amen.