In the Name of Christ the Crucified +
A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. How is this a “new” commandment, Jesus? You've told us this dozens of times – there's so many parables that teach this, You've spelled it out in teaching, it's all over the place even in the Old Testament. How is this a “new” commandment? This is one of those places where being someone living in the 21st Century can make understanding the Scripture a bit hard. As modern people, we are in love with the “New” - did you see the new doo-dad or doo-hickey that just came out. New fashions come out each year, new movies, new games, new tractor implements. We even call our daily information the “news” - the things that are new. So we tend to think of something “new” as something novel, updated, different and hopefully better.
That's not what Jesus is talking about here. We might hear this better this way - “A commandment I give you anew” - the idea is that you know that you are to love your neighbor, but you forget, you get knocked off course, you think about other things, you get annoyed – let Me renew your focus, let Me teach you anew, let Me give you another example so that you see and remember every fresh, new day that you are to love your neighbor. How so? Well, just as I have loved you.
Well, why do we need to keep hearing this anew? Why did Jesus think that just before His Crucifixion, with so little time left with His disciples, that He should act out service via footwashing, that He would reiterate “love your neighbor” again? Well, because we are sinful, and being that we are sinful we take the good things of God and twist them, sometimes in slight and small ways that we don't even notice, and things get twisted and bent and dull. Sin isn't just big, gross, defiant stuff – quite often it's subtle, it's wear and tear that blunts our love – like a knife that loses it's sharpness and doesn't work as well and needs to be honed, needs the edge renewed. As we live, as we go through life, our idea of what love actually is can get shifted – it can get abstracted, it can go off course. We forget what love is – “if you loved me you'd buy me a pony”. Or think of all the misplaced loves we see in the world, loves that have been corrupted, passions that become consuming. We all fall into these; we all need to be shown and told what love is anew.
Just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. John does something fantastic with his Gospel. The irony of reading from John on Maundy Thursday is that John includes 5 chapters worth of conversation from the night when Jesus was betrayed... but John doesn't include directly the institution of the Lord's Supper. He alludes to it – Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into His hands, and that He had come from God and was going back to God, rose from supper. John doesn't tell us about Jesus establishing the Supper, John gives all the stuff that Jesus taught and did having just given the disciples the Supper. The footwashing is Jesus' commentary on the Lord's Supper. In fact, I would say that if you want to know how precisely Jesus has loved you, and not fall into some abstract, wish fulfillment “If God really loved me I'd have a Mercedes Benz” sort of delusion, you look at the Lord's Supper. Jesus concretely, directly, properly, loves you in His Supper. This meal is how He has loved you in the past and how He loves you anew even today. What is it? What is this love, and what does it teach us about love?
This is My Body, given for you. This cup is the New Testament in My Blood, shed for you for the forgiveness of your sins. What does Jesus see when He comes across you? He sees a sinner. He sees someone who is stuck in sin, stuck with sin pestering them, stuck under sin's thumb. And His reaction to you, O Sinner, is not disdain. It's not disgust. It's certainly not acceptance or celebration of your sin – Jesus doesn't say, “You do you, get on with your bad self.” No – Jesus sees that you need forgiveness. And so Jesus comes to you, He gives Himself to you, He physically comes to you, so that you would receive that all He is, His Body, His Blood – His very life, all that He is and all that He lives for – so that you would be forgiven. And this is done in “remembrance” of Him – again, another “anew” sort of word. When there is a remembrance, the focus is placed upon something again. If I remember to take out the trash, I do it again, right then, and once again the trash is on the curb anew. Because the cleansing, the forgiving needs to be done anew. You're clean, Peter, you don't need your head and your hands washed – you've been baptized, but life has impacted you, sin has muddied your stinky feet. Let me clean you anew. Sin has done a number on you, O Baptized Christian, take and eat, take and drink, for the remission of all of your sin.
Just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. Do you see how you are to love your neighbor? It isn't just some new program, it isn't whatever is the latest hip thing to do. See and serve your neighbor exactly as Jesus sees and serves you. When you see your neighbor, know and expect to see a sinner. Know and expect that you will see someone who has gotten their feet muddied and dirtied by sin. Know that they need Jesus and His forgiveness... so love them as Jesus has loved you. Give them Jesus and thus forgive them. Too often we think of forgiveness as a mental thing, where if I forgive someone it just means that I won't hold a grudge against, or I won't fixate and seethe because they did that thing again. That misses the point. They don't need you to have an attitude adjustment (you might need that) – they (and you) need Jesus and His forgiveness. So give them Jesus, give them His forgiveness. Remind them anew that Jesus shed His blood for them and that they are forgiven.
Speak. Say it. I forgive you in Jesus' Name. You have the name of Jesus applied to you, O Baptized Christian – we confess that all the time in the Service, whenever I bless you with the sign of the Cross, whenever you cross yourself or say Amen. We've spent this Lent speaking Christ's forgiveness to each other – we have stood before each other as sinners deserving death and spoken Christ's life to each other. Yes, my fault, my fault, my most grievous fault – but yes, the LORD grant you pardon, forgiveness, and remission of all your sins. At Thy speaking, it was done, and the darkness was cleaved by the strong Word of God. Just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another.
We always need Jesus. We always need His forgiveness, because in this life, until He brings us to the resurrection, we always struggle and get dusty with sin, and our love gets blunted and twisted, and we are men of unclean lips who dwell amidst a people of unclean lips. And so once again, Jesus loves you, O redeemed sinner. Say it anew – we are weak, but He is strong – and He loves you, and He gives Himself to you, and He forgives you, and He strengthens and preserves you, He gives you pardon and peace and rules your mind so that His pardon and peace goes forth to your fellow sinners who are in need of that same pardon and peace. And our eyes are turned again to Jesus, for as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until He comes. You proclaim it anew, as often as you receive Jesus, as often as you speak Jesus' Word of forgiveness and life – you see Jesus again, that His death and resurrection is the biggest thing, bigger than whatever sin – yes, your sin may be strong, but Jesus is stronger still. Yes, your neighbor's sin may be strong, but Jesus and His death and resurrection is stronger still... and the world batters us and our flesh would make us forget this... so come, O redeemed sinner – come anew to the table. Take and eat, take and drink for the remission of all of your sin. Again and again, even until we celebrate Jesus' love eternally, and freed from are sin face to face with Him and with all the hosts of heaven. In the Name of Christ the Crucified +
No comments:
Post a Comment