The Cross Teaches us to Follow Christ’s Example of Humility

Welcome to the teaching ministry of Kungsvinger Lutheran Church. Kungsvinger is a beacon for the gospel of Jesus Christ and is located on the plains of northwestern

Minnesota. We proclaim Christ and Him crucified for our sins in salvation by grace through faith alone.

And now, here's a message from Pastor Chris Roseberg. The Holy Gospel according to St. John, the 13th chapter.

Glory to you, O Lord. Now, before the feast of the Passover, when Jesus knew that His hour had come to depart out of this world to the

Father, having loved His own who were in the world, He loved them to the end.

During supper, when the devil had already put it into the heart of Judas Iscariot, Simon's son, to betray

Him, 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, He rose from supper.

He laid aside His outer garments, taking a towel, tied it around His waist, and then

He poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples' feet and to wipe them with the towel that was wrapped around Him.

He came to Simon Peter who said to him, Lord, do you wash my feet? Jesus answered him, what

I am doing you do not understand now, but afterwards you will understand. Peter said to him, you shall never wash my feet.

Jesus answered him, if I do not 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.

And Jesus said to him, the one who has bathed does not need to wash except for his feet, but is completely clean.

And you are clean, but not every one of you. For he knew who was to betray him.

That was why he said, not all of you are clean. When he had washed their feet and put on his outer garments and resumed his place, he said to them, do you understand what

I have done to you? You call me teacher and Lord, and you are right, for I am.

If then your Lord and your teacher have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another's feet.

For I have given you an example that you also should do just as I have done to you. Truly, truly,

I say to you, a servant is not greater than his master, nor is a messenger greater than the one who sent him.

If you know these things, blessed are you if you do them. Now is the

Son of Man glorified, and God is glorified in him. If God is glorified in him,

God will also glorify him in himself and glorify him at once. Little children, yet a little while and I am with you.

You will seek me, and just as I have said to the Jews, so now I also say to you, where I am going you cannot come.

A new commandment that I give to you, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you are also to love one another.

By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another. This is the gospel of the

Lord. In the name of Jesus, Amen. These are tough words to read.

As a Lutheran and as a Lutheran pastor and theologian and an apologist, over and again

I am taught to make the proper distinction between God's law and God's gospel.

And here we see the two mixed together so tightly that it's almost impossible to tease them out properly.

And so instead, let's consider some of the major things that are happening here. Number one,

I understand that today is called Maundy Thursday. In Jesus' observance of the last

Passover meal, the one where the Passover, the types and shadows give way to the substance to which they were always pointing to, pointing to Christ and his blood.

And his blood on each and every one of us that causes the wrath of God to pass over us and for us to be saved.

That's what the blood of Christ does. That on this last night, knowing that he's about to die, it is already gone from Thursday to Friday for when the sun sets in the

Jewish way of keeping time, going all the way back to the book of Genesis where it says, there was evening and there was morning the first day.

There was evening and there was morning the second day. All the way through the days of creation.

And so now that sun has set and Christ's Friday has already begun.

If you think of it this way, if the doctor were to tell you the diagnosis is dire, you're going to die, you have weeks to live, you need to get your affairs in order.

What would you do? What would be on your bucket list?

I mean, isn't that what we call them, bucket lists? Would you clear out part of your savings account and finally take that cruise that you'd always wanted to do but had kept putting off for year after year after year?

Would you stop doing everything and spend your last days with your family?

Or would you want to go on some adventure while you still had what remained of your health?

You see, over and again we think about things like this when we have so little time. It's interesting that there is no right or wrong answer.

There is no standard thing that we can point to. But Jesus's bucket list, the thing that he wanted to do the very last with his disciples involved an actual bucket, a wash bucket.

And when you consider what is going on here, it's vital that we pay attention.

We live in a world that values power, that rewards greed, that looks longingly and somewhat trustingly at people who are ambitious.

And over and again, we know that in our experiences, it's a good idea to set expectations properly so that people do not, well, get upset because what you told them you were going to do is not what you ended up doing.

I remember in the corporate world, when I was doing my MBA, I was told over and over and over again, communicate, communicate, and communicate some more.

Don't ever stop communicating what the corporation's mission and vision statement is.

Don't ever stop communicating what the goals are for the immediate short term. Don't stop communicating how each and every person then plays a role in achieving those objectives.

Don't stop communicating because as soon as you stop communicating, people's expectations seem to drift and they seem to wander.

Have you ever taken your car in for service and the person behind the counter says, yeah, we'll take a look at your car, we'll have it ready for you sometime this afternoon.

And the afternoon rolls around and you don't get a call from the service guy and the hour starts getting later and later and it's getting towards closing time.

They have not met your expectations because the expectation that they communicated was that they would have the vehicle for you, no problem, sometime in the afternoon.

And so you oftentimes, when you have expectations set like that, you rightly get annoyed, maybe a little bit angry or perturbed when people lead you to believe that one thing is going to happen but then the other happens.

And so it's important for us to note that here on Jesus's bucket list, he pulls out a bucket and the reason why he's pulling out this bucket is to set expectations properly and we would do wise to pay attention to the expectations that Christ has given us.

Because you'll note, contrary to popular teaching, Christ is not telling his disciples to expect their best lives now.

He is not setting an expectation to teach them that what they really need to do is take their prince and princess authorities and go and take territory.

That they are to decree, command, control, and all this kind of stuff. Instead, he does something that is, well, unexpected and we would do wise to pay attention to the expectations that Christ has left us with because these are the last words that he speaks.

These are the last, this is the last lesson that the disciples hear. And it's not a parable, it's not anything like that.

This is something completely different. This is the last lesson to set expectations as far as what we, all disciples of Christ should expect.

And so our text says, before the feast of the Passover, when Jesus knew that his hour had come to depart out of the world, he was departing to the

Father, having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end.

At no point does Christ love for his disciples flag or fail or come up short.

In fact, the best, most loving thing that he can do for his disciples is exactly what he does that night, that Friday evening, because Friday had already come.

So during the supper, when the devil had already put it in the heart of Jews, Iscariot, Simons to betray him,

Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands, that he had come from God, he was going back to God, he rose from the supper and he laid aside his outer garments.

And then taking a towel, he tied it around his waist.

You can hear the silence, even today. The only thing you heard at this point maybe were gasps, the sloshing of the water in the bucket, the sponge or the cloth that he was going to use.

And everybody looked on as the rightful king of Israel, rather than dressed in robes of purple and wearing a crown, had taken all of his clothes off and went down to a waist towel, took on the uniform of the lowliest of the slaves, poured water into a basin and he began to wash the disciples' feet.

This is our God. This is the King of kings and Lord of lords.

What is he doing on the ground? He makes it clear why he's there and we'd be wise to pay attention.

So he began to wash the disciples' feet, to wipe them with the towel that was wrapped around him. He came to Simon Peter and he said to him,

Lord, do you wash my feet? Peter's indignant. It's akin to what we heard when

Jesus took the disciples to Caesarea Philippi and asked them, who do the people say the

Son of Man is? Peter got the answer right. You are the Christ, the Son of God.

And no sooner does Jesus praise him that Jesus begins to explain, we're heading to Jerusalem.

I'm going to be arrested. I'm going to be killed. I'm going to die and rise again.

And what does Peter say? Lord, this will never happen to you. And Peter is right on the verge of that right here, just on the verge of that.

That first time he defied Peter in this way and rebuked Jesus, I'm sorry, he defied

Jesus and rebuked him. Jesus said, get behind me, Satan. So now you can just see it.

This is not what he was expecting. Lord, do you wash my feet?

Jesus answered him. What I'm doing you do not understand now. Afterwards you will.

You'll understand. So Peter digs in.

You will never wash my feet. It's unbecoming.

How can the Alpha, the Omega, the Beginning and the End, the one who spoke the universe into existence, be behaving like the lowliest of the lowest slaves?

But Jesus said to him, if I do not wash you, you have no share with me. You can feel the tension just in the text.

So Peter acquiesces. And you can almost hear the catch in his throat.

He's a fisherman, so he's probably not going to cry. But he's on the verge.

Lord, not my feet only, but also my hands and my head. But if you're going to wash me,

Lord, wash me thoroughly. You can almost hear the psalmist.

Wash me thoroughly with hyssop. Blot out my transgressions, Lord. Take not your

Holy Spirit from me. But Jesus says to him, the one who has bathed does not need to wash except for his feet.

And then he is completely clean. And here Jesus isn't giving us the mode of baptism, but making a point.

And that is that before they came into the upper room that night, they would have already had their feet washed.

It wasn't because they needed their feet cleaned again that Jesus was doing what he was doing.

Instead, he was pointing to something bigger that was going on. And I love in the writings of the church fathers how they see the fact that Christ is washing their feet.

They see it as a picture of baptism, but more importantly than that, they see the fact that Jesus is washing their feet as if Jesus is shodding their feet with what is necessary to keep them from being bitten by the serpent while he's crushing its head.

It's not a bad way to look at it. So Jesus says to Peter then, you are clean.

But not every one of you, referring to Judas who was still in the room, he knew who was going to betray him.

And that is why he said not all of you are clean. So when he had washed their feet and put on his outer garments and resumed his place, he said to them, now note, this is a object lesson.

Do you understand what I have done for you? He doesn't let them answer.

He's going to let them kind of work it out, sort through it. And he says this, you call me teacher and you call me

Lord and you are right for so I am. That's who I am. If then your

Lord and your teacher have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another's feet.

And here's where we got to pay close attention. Footwashing isn't a sacrament. And what

Christ is talking about here is their attitude towards each other, their attitude in their position of apostles having been sent by Christ.

You'll note that it is the exact opposite of what we get today from vision casting leaders and from many men who are rightly called into the pastoral office.

They lord authority over others and think that their job is to be served.

But Jesus is saying, no, none of that. For I have given you as an example that you should do just as I have done for you.

And we can hear then the echoes of what Paul writes for us in Philippians chapter two, that our attitude should be the same as Christ Jesus, who being in the very nature of God did not consider equality with God a thing to be grasped, but he humbled himself and was found in the form of a slave and was obedient to the point of death, even death on the cross.

This is what it means to deny yourself, to take up your cross daily and to follow

Jesus. Put aside your ambitions, put aside your lust for power, put it all away.

You want to follow Jesus? Take on the uniform of a slave and do just as Jesus has done.

Serve, serve from the bottom. So truly, truly,

I say to you, a servant is not greater than his master. And this is most certainly true.

Jesus is our Lord. He's our teacher. He's our master.

I'm not greater than him and neither are you. Nor is a messenger greater than the one who sent him.

And you'll note we have a message to proclaim to the world. The good news that Christ has died for our sins, that he has reconciled us to the

Father. But we're just mere messengers. We are not the master.

So if you know these things, blessed are you if you do them. Humble yourself.

And so you'll note then that with these very words, Christ then gives one last command, a new commandment to his disciples.

I'm going to give it to you, that you love one another. But in what way,

Lord? What do you mean you want me to love everyone else, to love them, to love one another?

What does that mean for us? And Jesus then grounds it. He gives it a stake.

He gives it an anchoring, a foothold, a definition, something by which we can measure our love for each other.

Just as I have loved you, you also ought to love one another.

How has Jesus loved us? No greater love has this, that one lay down his life for his friends.

Jesus has loved us sacrificially. He has loved us by not lording over us.

He has loved us by serving us. So just as Christ has loved us, we are to love one another.

And by this, all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.

But you're going to note then, and this is where I have to preach the law.

This is where so many of us have fallen short. The church today is not known as the place where people go to be loved, the place where they go to be loved by one another, the place where they can go to be served, to serve, to love, to be loved.

Instead, the church today is known for its greed, it's known for its avarice, it's known for its gossip, it's known for its slander, it's known for its hypocrisy, which kind of begs the question, if people are going to know that we're disciples of Christ by how we love one another, is that happening?

Is that happening here? Is that happening with the people closest to you?

And so you'll note then, that on this night, the night that Christ is betrayed, we again recognize that we have fallen short of the glory of God.

We have not loved our Lord with all of our heart, soul, mind, and strength. We've not loved our neighbors as Christ has loved us.

We haven't even loved the saints the way Christ has loved the saints. And so this speaks volumes, volumes of guilt rightly earned.

And so this last night, really the last bits, the last hours before the close of Lent, consider then all the ways in which we have failed to love each other the way

Christ has loved us. That we have sought our own vainglory and power and control, rather than humbly putting on the uniform of a slave and serving from the bottom, recognizing that Christ set the expectations.

He told us what to do, and that is to consider no one greater than ourselves, or consider everyone greater than ourselves, and not consider ourselves greater than anyone else.

And let us repent then of all of the ways in which we have behaved as lords rather than slaves, and let us cry out then the same words as Peter, Lord then wash me, wash all of me.

And note this then, that Christ has less than 24 hours to live, and he is going to the cross, and he has gone to the cross, he's carried your sins and mine.

He's carried your iniquity and mine. He has carried the shame of us all, and he spilled his blood.

He served all the way to the end, even of his own life, because it says in this text that he loved them to the end.

And the reality is this, he's loved you to the end as well. You are his disciples.

You have been washed in the waters of baptism. You've been united with him in his death and his resurrection. You have been loved to the end by Christ, who came not to be served but to serve and to lay down his life as a ransom, as a ransom for many, for you and for me and for the world.

So this Maundy Thursday, on the eve of Christ's sufferings, as we get ready to ponder them in real time tomorrow, note that he has even died for all the ways in which you have terribly loved other people or failed to love them properly.

And may we repent of this, and may he grant us repentance, true contrition, and through the power of the

Holy Spirit, true sanctification, so that we may grow in love towards God and in love towards each other, so that his words may be true in us, that by this loving of one another, other people may know that we have been with Christ, that we are truly his disciples, because we have laid aside our ambition, we have humbled ourselves, taken up our crosses, considered ourselves to be the walking dead, and followed

Christ, who laid down his life so that you and I could live. In the name of Jesus, Amen.

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