The End of Love

Now 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. The devil had already put it into the heart of Judas son of Simon Iscariot to betray him. And during supper Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands, and that he had come from God and was going to God, got up from the table, took off his outer robe, and tied a towel around himself. Then 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. He came to Simon Peter, who said to him, “Lord, are you going to wash my feet?” Jesus answered, “You do not know now what I am doing, but later you will understand.” Peter said to him, “You will never wash my feet.” Jesus answered, “Unless I wash you, you have no share with me.” Simon Peter said to him, “Lord, not my feet only but also my hands and my head!” Jesus 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.” For he knew who was to betray him; for this reason he said, “Not all of you are clean.”

After 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? You call me Teacher and Lord — and you are right, for that is what I am. So if I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet. For I have set you an example, that you also should do as I have done to you. Very truly, I tell you, servants are not greater than their master, nor are messengers greater than the one who sent them. If you know these things, you are blessed if you do them.

Jesus said, “Now the Son of Man has been glorified, and God has been glorified in him. If God has been glorified in him, God will also glorify him in himself and will glorify him at once. Little 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.’ I give you a new commandment, that you 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.”

We have entered the Triduum. That may not be a familiar term for you as it wasn’t for me until a few years ago. It literally means “the three days” and refers to Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, and Holy Saturday — the inner sanctum, the holy of holies, if you will, of Holy Week.

In the monastic tradition, the Triduum begins with the words from John: “Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another.” Then the great medieval poem, Ubi caritas, is sung. It means “where charity and love are found, there is God.” Where charity and love are found, there is God. What better word for us as we enter into these most holy days.

The evening lesson is, of course, the Gospel of John’s telling of the first Maundy Thursday, the original Lord’s Supper. The other gospel writers focus more on the details of the meal. But John’s attention is elsewhere: the simple and simply amazing act of Jesus washing the disciples’ feet.

The roads back then were either inch deep in dust or rivers of mud. So any host or hostess was readily prepared to wash a guest’s feet upon entering a home. Servants normally did the washing for it was a humiliating, unpleasant task and yet it was a necessary and expected courtesy. Not having any servants, the disciples probably shared the responsibility, no doubt grumbling when it came to their turn. But this night they all forgot, such was their confusion and selfishness. Luke tells us they spent the meal arguing about who was the greatest. Consumed by visions of superiority, they forgot the simple act of courtesy and humility.

Jesus didn’t forget. In spite of all that must have been on his heart, he remembered. John says, “Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands, and that he had come from God and was going to God, got up from the table, took off his outer robe, and tied a towel around himself. Then he poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples’ feet.” Because the power of God was in him Jesus became a servant and stooped at the feet of his disciples and tended to their very human needs.

When I first started working on this sermon, I planned to ask if we were willing to do as Jesus did. He promised a blessing if, knowing these things, we do them. How willing are we? How willing are we to wash each others feet, figuratively if not literally?

However, it seems to me there is actually a prior question of willingness before we ask how willing we are to serve. It’s the question of how willing we are to change. Are we willing to be other than we are? In theological terms, it’s the question of repentance. Are we willing to turn around from the way we have been going and go in God’s new way? How willing are we to change?

This question is focused for me in a story I read some time ago about Mary of Egypt. Mary of Egypt lived in the fifth century, but her story, at least the beginning of it, sounds like it’s torn from today’s newspapers. She ran away from home at the age of twelve and became a prostitute in Alexandria. At the age of twenty-nine, she grew curious about Jerusalem and joined a boatload of pilgrims by offering the crew her sexual services for the duration of the journey. She continued to work as a prostitute in the Holy City.

But upon hearing that a relic of the true cross was to be displayed at the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, her curiosity was aroused again, and she joined the feast-day crowds. At the threshold of the church some invisible force held her back. Suddenly ashamed of her life, she began to weep. Kneeling before an icon of the Virgin Mary, she begged forgiveness and asked for help. A voice said to her, “If you cross over the Jordan, you will find rest.” Mary spent the rest of her life, forty-seven years, as a hermit in the desert.

Late in her life, Mary encounters a monk who had come to the desert for a period of fasting, and she tells him her story. Touchingly, she relates that she had missed the fish she used to eat in Egypt, and the wine — “I had enjoyed wine very much,” she said. The monk is amazed to discover that Mary knows many Bible verses by heart, for in the desert she had no Bible and no one but God to teach her.

She asks the monk to bring communion to her when next he comes to the desert, and this he does. On his third visit, however, he finds that Mary has died. A lion — always in these stories of the desert a symbol of Christ, the lion of Judah — comes to help the monk dig Mary’s grave.[1]

What do we make of this strange story, at least strange to our ears, one among hundreds of stories from the early desert fathers and mothers? Certainly there are many legendary aspects to it but also, I believe, a profound insight. Maybe that’s why monks have always told the story of Mary of Egypt to remind themselves of the importance of repentance.

Repentance is coming to our senses, seeing suddenly what we’ve done that we ought not have done, or what we’ve left undone that we ought to have done. Repentance is also the recognition that the problem is not just in what we do but in what we become.[2] Repentance is what Peter faced when Jesus kneeled to wash his feet.

At first Peter refused to have his feet washed. Jesus said it was necessary if Peter wanted to be saved. Peter then went overboard and wanted a bath. Jesus said it wasn’t necessary, he was already clean. In other words, what makes a person clean before God is not the person’s doing. What makes a person spiritually clean is God’s doing. God makes us clean through Jesus Christ. There is nothing anyone can do on their own. Except repent. Repentance is saying to God that we need what only God can do. Repentance, therefore, opens us to the possibility of change. It opens us to the love of God and in that love, we can love too.

I called this sermon “The End of Love” picking up on that phrase in the first verse of the text that Jesus loved his disciples “to the end.” The end here isn’t about time. What is the purpose of love or the goal of love. What is the end of love? That we should know the love of God and share the love of God with others.

So the Triduum begins and Jesus says to us tonight: “Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another.” This is Jesus’ commandment of love. The Latin word for commandment is mandatum. It is from mandatum that we get the word maundy. On Maundy Thursday we receive our Lord’s commandment to love. “Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another.”

Ubi caritas. “Where charity and love are found, there is God.” May it be so.

[1] Kathleen Norris, The Cloister Walk (New York: Riverhead Books, 1996) 164-165.

[2] Norris attributes this insight to Oscar Wilde in his great religious meditation De Profundis. (165)