Agape Love and the Cross

 Good Friday

Twenty-some years ago I met Bishop Bob Rimbo for the first time. It was a getting-to-know-you-meeting after I was assigned to the Southeast Michigan Synod after graduation from seminary. We talked about some basic things: what the synod was like; what my seminary experience had been like; what I had learned during internship; then we got down to the real questions.

Bishop Rimbo asked me, “Why do you think Jesus died?” My answer was quick. I said something like this: “So he could tell us in God’s own words and show us in person how much God loves us.”

As we remember tonight the sad day of Jesus’ death, we also are called to ponder why he so easily gave up his life. In John’s version of the story, Jesus is very much in charge of the way events unfold, here at the end of his life. He may not have planned out every step, but he knew the basics of what would happen.

·       Jesus needed Judas – or someone -- to tell the authorities where he would be.

·       Jesus knew that Peter would deny knowing Jesus, in fear that he too might be captured and unable to free Jesus from the hands of Pilate.

·       Jesus knew just how to provoke Pilate into having him executed.

We see clearly that this death has been the plan from the beginning. John has shown us clearly who Jesus is. He is God incarnated. Because Jesus speaks God’s words, we can believe that Jesus demonstrates for us the depths of divine love.

In John 15, Jesus says, “No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.” The Greek word for love here is agape. I talked about this last night as love in action. It can also be expressed as love given without expecting love in return. God loves us, even if we don’t love God in return, even though we can’t love God in the same way.

We grieve tonight feeling the pain Jesus felt as he was beaten and hung dying on the cross. We grieve tonight with the disciples of all ages, but we grieve with the joy of knowing this death isn’t the final answer. We grieve tonight knowing that Easter morning is coming.

But first, we have to get through tonight. The lights will continue to dim. More candles will be extinguished. A few more sad chants and songs will be sung.

Because Jesus really did die, and we really grieve tonight. Amen

What’s love got to do with it?

 Maundy Thursday 2024

Exodus 12:1-4 [5-10] 11-14; 1 Corinthians 11:23-26; John 13:1-17, 31b-35

What’s love got to do with it?!

You know that I often get a song playing in my head that won’t go away, because it seems to be connected to the sermon. My earworm this week has been Tina Turner’s song, “What’s love got to do with it. What’s love but a secondhand emotion? Who needs a heart, when a heart can be broken?”

We might ask Jesus this question as he sits with the disciples and others at supper on his last night with them. Although most artists include only the 12 men, there were likely women and children present at this meal as well. Check out the print by Bohdan Piasecki for an expression of how this might have looked.

Matthew, Mark, and Luke portray this gathering as the Passover meal, but John presents it as the night before Passover. The purpose for John is so that Jesus can be executed at the same time as the Passover lambs are being slaughtered. Jesus is the Passover Lamb for Christians.

Jesus begins, or rather continues, to talk about what is next, saying that he will soon die and be raised in three days. The disciples are freaking out as Jesus talks about all this. They don’t understand what Jesus means about the Advocate who will come to guide them in the future.

And Jesus just says, “Love one another as I have loved you. This is my mandate for you, that you love each other.” The word Jesus uses here is agape, which refers to love in action. It is agape love which brings Jesus to wash his disciples’ feet, and then challenges the disciples to agape love others in the same way.

… Every year, we hear Jesus reminding us, with this story of washing feet, to go out to love and serve, to agape love others. Each year, the tradition of washing feet meets with resistance. We are accustomed to serving others, to serving those in need, those with less than we have. We are not accustomed to being served by our friends. We are like Peter, claiming, “No one washes my feet!” And each year, I remind you all that the ritual is not about being washed, but about receiving service offered with love.

It’s a loving deed, agape love, to wash the feet or hands of someone else. It’s equally a loving deed, agape love, to let someone else wash our feet or hands.

Even more, it’s an agape loving deed to wash feet that really need washing. Some organizations and congregations have taken Jesus’ instruction literally, as they offer agape love by washing feet on a regular basis.  

The Church of the Common Ground in Atlanta understands what a toll being homeless takes on feet. Because they often have wet feet and no change of socks or shoes, fungal and other infections abound among people who are homeless.

The Church offers Common Soles [s-o-l-e-s] clinics for non-medical foot care. Volunteers wash and massage the feet of those who request it. They also offer clean socks, lemonade, and a listening ear. The volunteers at Common Soles welcome all, listen to all, and learn to love as Jesus loved.

… While the agape love of washing feet is an important part of this evening, I want us to think about something else as well. A recent post from Diana Butler Bass suggests that when we focus on the cross and suffering of Jesus, we are focusing on the wrong thing. Though I haven’t spent a lot of time thinking about that over the years, I realize that that has been my perspective as well.

What is most important for Jesus is the love offered to all, especially as it is demonstrated at the many mealtimes mentioned in the Gospels. Jesus feeds people, over and over again. He joins all sorts of people at the table – wealthy and poor, Jews and Gentiles, able and disabled, believers and those who refuse to believe. After healing the man filled with demons and the daughter of the synagogue leader, Jesus tells people to give them something to eat. At his last meal with the disciples, he commands that they all follow his lead to welcome and love all as he has taught them.

After the resurrection, there are more meals with the disciples, and he again sends them out to love and welcome all. The cross is how he died, but it’s the love that matters. It’s the love that has everything to do with it. It’s Jesus’ command, Jesus’ mandate, that we love one another as he loves us.

… So, Tina, what’s love got to do with it? Everything! It has everything to do with love. 

Amen