John 13, Are You Washed?

Please open your Bible to John chapter 13, starting in verse 1, hear the word of the 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, rose from supper.

He laid aside his outer garments and 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 afterward you will understand. Peter said to him, you shall never wash my feet.

Jesus answered, 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. 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 so I am. If I then, your

Lord and teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another's feet, for I have given you an example that you should do it 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. I'm not speaking of all of you. I know whom

I have chosen, but the scripture will be fulfilled. He who ate my bread has lifted his heel against me.

I am telling you this now before it takes place, that when it does take place, you may believe that I am he.

Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever receives the one I send receives me, and whoever receives me receives the one who sent me.

After saying these things, Jesus was troubled in his spirit and testified. Truly, truly,

I say to you, one of you will betray me. The disciples looked at one another, uncertain of whom he spoke.

One of the disciples whom Jesus loved was reclining at a table close to Jesus. So Simon Peter motioned to him to ask

Jesus of whom he was speaking. So that disciple, leaning back against Jesus, said to him, Lord, who is it?

Jesus answered, it is he to whom I will give this morsel of bread when I have dipped it. So when he had dipped the morsel, he gave it to Judas, the son of Simon Iscariot.

Then after he had taken the morsel, Satan entered into him. Jesus said to him, what you are going to do, do quickly.

Now, no one at the table knew why he had said this to him. Some thought that because Judas had the money bag,

Jesus was telling him, buy what we need for the feast, or that he should give something to the poor. So after receiving the morsel of bread, he immediately went out, and it was night.

When he had gone out, Jesus said, now is the son of man glorified, and God has glorified in him.

If God has glorified in him, God will also glorify him in himself and glorify him at once.

Little children, yet a little while I am with you. You will seek me, and just as I said to the

Jews, so now I say to you, where I am going, you cannot come. 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.

By this, all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another. Simon Peter said to him,

Lord, where are you going? Jesus answered him, where I am going, you cannot follow me now, but you will follow afterward.

Peter said to him, Lord, why can't I follow you now? I will lay down my life for you. Jesus answered, will you lay down your life for me?

Truly, truly, I say to you, the rooster will not crow till you have denied me three times.

And the Lord had his blessings to the reading of his holy word. Well, have you passed through an initiation?

Probably all of us. Well, maybe not, but something like it, some kind of ceremony that marks one stage to another.

You know, ever had to maybe apply for something and go through some kind of training or education or take an examination? Then there's this ceremony, maybe like in high school, you go through the classes, you get the grades, then you graduate, you have a commencement, and then you are a high school graduate.

Or maybe for the military, right, you have boot camp, and then when you, if you finally make it through, you're then fully considered a true soldier or marine or whatever.

We often have a rite of initiation to mark from our crossing over, our going through a threshold from what we were to what we are now.

You know, in traditional cultures, rites of initiation or initiation rituals to mark, they have them to mark becoming a member of the tribe or maybe becoming a full adult.

For the Jews, it's called, you know, they have the bar mitzvah or bat mitzvah for their girls. In some churches, they have confirmation, which serves a similar purpose and can be useful in instructing the youth in the faith they profess.

For a lot of youth, it's very meaningful for them. They then learn their catechism, which may be something we learn from.

Maybe it would be good for our, when our children get to a certain stage, they can go through a catechism. That can be very useful.

In many African tribes, boys will go through about two or three months of initiation rituals before they are finally, after they go through them, they sort of graduate,

I guess, and then they're finally considered fully men. In ancient China, they had the rites of tzu.

I'm sure I don't say that right, but this book, this Chinese book described rites of passage for boys to be initiated into adulthood at the age of 20 and girls at the age of 15.

Now, in most modern societies, these kinds of rites of passage usually fall by the wayside. We don't have much anything like that, and that's lamented by many.

Some think that we need to signify. We need something definite to signify when a child has become an adult.

Graduation from high school really doesn't seem to cut it, does it? I think maybe in part, this is why some make such a big deal about the prom.

Some just went to a prom last night, but you know, that may be fun, I guess. I don't know, but it doesn't really seem sufficient for a real ceremony to enter adulthood with.

Some people think that we should bring back the draft, at least for the boys, and have all of boys go through military service, and then once they're done with that, then they've initiated into manhood.

That'll make them finally grow up, they say, and it might be a good idea for a lot of guys. I don't know if it'd be so good for the military, though.

That's a different thing. A rite of passage is an experience or a ritual that you go through which is supposed to equip you also to portray, sort of often ceremoniously, that you've gone through a threshold to something new, a new stage in life.

Now, the Christian rite of initiation is baptism, and it was first a

Jewish rite, a passage for Gentiles who were converting to Judaism. And if you remember, if you know anything about the ceremonial law in the book of Leviticus, there's a lot of things there that you had to wash from.

If it made you unclean, then you had to go wash to be cleansed from them. And so, I guess they figured that the

Gentiles, they lived in Gentile world so much, you know, eating their barbecue sandwich, their pork, and all that stuff, they lived in unclean things for so long, before they become a

Jew, they need to be totally washed. And so that kind of became baptism. And so then it was revolutionary.

Remember, it's a rite of initiation for Gentiles who are becoming Jews. And so John the

Baptist comes, revolutionary, just shocking to them. He takes this rite of initiation for Gentiles to Jews, and he applies it to Jews.

He said, I don't care about your ancestry. I don't care if you're born, you can trace all your ancestors all the way back to Abraham. You know, he said,

God can raise up children of Abraham out of these rocks. Don't trust in your physical heritage, he was saying. The physical descent doesn't automatically make you one of the people of God.

You need to be converted, and you need to be baptized yourself. You need to become baptized, be washed of your old life, and become a true

Jew. John was saying that you Jewish people need to convert, just like the Gentiles were converting, some of them.

And that baptism, that baptism then, okay, that's important for us to remember, that was taken up by Jesus.

Jesus takes this, started by John the Baptist, and gives it to his apostles. And it was what he told us to do, and take to the nations, people from the nations who were becoming his disciples.

Take, baptize them in the same way. Remember, Jesus told us to baptize disciples, those who are seeking to follow

Jesus. That's why we don't believe in infant baptism. Baptism was always intended on being a rite of passage, a sign that you've entered a new life.

It's an initiation into a new community. The church is something you can only be born again into, not just naturally born into.

Now, we hope all our babies, of course, all our children will eventually become disciples of Jesus. We work for that.

We pray for that. We want them to be initiated into the kingdom of God. But we can't make that happen with baptism.

And remember, we're only told to baptize disciples. That's our mandate to baptize, to make it a rite of passage for people who are choosing to leave an old life and become like Jesus, enter a new life.

Of course, baptism is only a sign of passage for those who have already gone through it, out of death into life.

It can't make that passage happen. Now here, John, the writer, John, tells us that as Jesus is preparing himself for a new passage, he's going through another, he's going through a threshold.

He's in here, he talks about greater passages, not just symbols, but substance.

And he does that in this chapter in five parts. First, the washing. Second, the messengers.

Third, the trouble. Fourth, the glory. And fifth, the failure.

I'm sorry I couldn't get him to rhyme or alliterate or anything. I know he's making it easy for you to remember, but that's the five.

First, the washing. Now, is this ritual, what he does here, what we read, foot washing, is it a rite of passage that we need to be practicing today from time to time?

Well, let's see. We'll see about that. Jesus knows that his hour has now come to leave this world and go to the

Father. And he does something peculiar for his disciples. This is Thursday evening, probably.

It's my many people's belief on it. It's Thursday evening, the day before his crucifixion at the Last Supper. This is the end, as we saw in the last couple of weeks, of his ministry on earth.

Okay, verse one sums up his ministry with simply that Jesus loved his own who were in the world.

That's what he did in his ministry. He loved his own who were in the world, his chosen people.

And he loved them by teaching them, healing them if they were sick, shine the light for them. He lived perfectly for them.

That's the history of his ministry, and the future, he loved them to the end.

And that's what the cross is about. It's the Son loving us, his people who are in the world.

That's what we remember in the Lord's Supper on the night when Jesus was betrayed. It's the same night as here.

He took the bread, he broke it, took a cup. This is my body broken for you.

This is the blood of the new covenant poured out for many for you. During that Last Supper, Jesus didn't just give us the

Lord's Supper. He did something else to portray what he was about to do for us.

Now, verse two says that Judas had already had the idea kind of satanically planted in his heart to betray

Jesus. So that's set, that's already in place. The seed of this idea is in his heart already.

Jesus knew that. Notice verse three, and he knew something else. Verse three says that the Father had given all things into his hands.

Imagine if you're in his place. John says, all things were in his hands.

What are you going to do? What are you going to do if all things are in your hands? What does Jesus do with all things in his hands?

He crushes enemies. So you look at them, tell the other apostle, look, this is the betrayer.

Judas, take him out and stone him. I have all things in my hands. Everything's going to be done my way now.

Does he seize the earthly throne? He could have, couldn't he? He had all things in his hands. What he does is he puts a towel in those hands.

It comes from the Father. He was going back to him, but he had one more thing to do. He was going to portray his loving them until the end.

He gives us a figure of a visual, something we could see. What's it mean for him to love us fully and until the end?

He gets up from the supper. Now, it's typically the chore of the lowliest slave to wash the feet of the visitors.

I mean, not just a slave. This is the chore you gave to your most disliked slave.

This is the lowest one on the totem pole, slave. And no one here was willing to lower themselves to do that despised task.

So Jesus gets up, took off his outer clothes. We might say he's talking about a man who's wearing a suit and tie.

Then he took off his jacket and he took off his tie. He rolled up his sleeves and he gets a towel, wraps it around himself.

It's a basin. And one by one, he bends down and washes and dries 12 pairs of dusty feet.

Now they're in shock. Maybe one of them should have done it, but none of them thought they were the low man on the totem pole.

None of them wanted to take that place. The last one they thought should do it was the

Lord himself, the one who actually did. So when he gets around to Peter, Peter objects.

You know, he won't stand for Jesus humbling himself before him like that. That's just unbecoming of you,

Jesus, to do that. You're worth more. So he's actually, you've got to put yourself in his place.

He is trying to guard the place, the esteem, the reputation of Jesus by what he's saying here.

He asked, Lord, do you wash my feet? And Jesus understands what's going on. And Peter's conflicted because in a way he's meaning well for Jesus.

He's trying to guard his place. And so Jesus says, what I am doing, you do not understand now.

I understand that you don't understand yet, but afterward you will understand. But Peter, he won't put up with it.

He's kind of emotional. He's a zealous guy. Not me. I'm not going to be a one who makes you look like a servant.

I'm not going to participate in that for you. But Jesus answers probably differently than we might think.

If I do not wash you, you have no share. You have no part in me.

If you're not washed first, you have no part. You have no investment.

You have no stake. You have no participation in me from whom your washing comes.

Now that's kind of a strange answer, isn't it? Because you remember the flow of ideas here. If you think what

Jesus is doing, it's just a ritual or it's just an illustration of, you know, servant leadership.

Wouldn't you expect Jesus to say something like, Peter, you're ruining my object lesson?

You know, a good teacher might say, this is a lesson here. I'm trying to portray servant leadership, and you're getting in the way.

Oh, okay, Jesus. Sorry. By all means, go ahead. But there's something more here than just a lesson in humility.

Now, sure, it is that, certainly, as he'll explain later, but there's a deeper dimension to it than just that.

Are you washed, Peter? Maybe Peter did get the point that this was to portray humble servant leadership, that the first should be willing to bow down and be the last.

But, you know, Peter, being kind of rash and emotional, and now he wishes, maybe he wishes that he was the one on the floor with a towel washing the feet.

You know, he's thinking, if only I had done that, I should have done it. I should be the one doing this. But I'm not going to let him do it for me.

No, no, he shouldn't be doing this. What he doesn't get, though, is that Jesus isn't just portraying the fact, you know, that we in the church shouldn't have people as leaders who insist on titles and perks and fancy pulpit chairs and special parking places, and you bowing to them and kissing the ring.

Okay, that's a lesson, but it's not just that. Not just, you know, don't use the church to feed your ego, craving to be listened to.

That's true, but Jesus goes far beyond that. It's just like baptism is more, now it's much more than just a cleansing ritual to mark initiation.

It is that, but it also portrays, you know, death to the old life, raised to the new life.

You know, there's a new dimension to it that John the Baptist didn't see, that Jesus added to baptism.

So what Jesus is doing here is also portraying, not just you need to be humble, but first you need to be washed.

The son has humbled himself, not just by washing feet, but by becoming a human being in the first place and then shedding his blood for the cleansing of our sins.

You, Peter, must be washed. If you're not washed, then you have no part in Christ.

What Jesus is about to do is serve us by going to the cross to create, to create a bath in his blood in which we are washed clean.

There's one hymn that says a fountain filled with blood drawn from Emmanuel's veins. Our robes are washed white in the blood of the lamb.

It says in Revelation, now blood that makes clean, that really doesn't work in the in the physical world.

You know, don't try that in your washing machine. You know, cut your vein and add a little blood to the wash. It won't work. But spiritually, when the stains are our sins and the blood of Christ is what pays for those sins, then it's the most spectacular detergent.

Notice in verse 8, you must be washed by Christ. In other words, it's not just good enough to learn the lessons, to be humble and so willing to make sandwiches for the gym junior kids or to drive vehicles to open the gym so the guys can play, to mow the grass, to listen humbly, to be willing to learn like a

Berean, to be a good church person. You know, that's all great, but to belong to Christ first, you must be washed.

Are you? Are you washed? Peter, always emotional, jumping to extremes, responds to verse 9.

Now he's going to the other side. Yeah, well, if that's the case, I have to wash, to be washed to share in Christ.

And, you know, don't just wash my feet, wash my hands, my head, my whole being, you know, give me a whole shower.

But Jesus is taking their cultural practice. What he's doing here, he's taking this cultural practice in their day, arising from the fact people, people wear sandals and they would have to walk, you know, they're not walking nicely paved asphalt or concrete.

They're walking dusty roads so that when they come to your house, when you greet them, you would want to give them a foot washing so that they feel clean.

Of course, assuming, like most people would, that they had washed the rest of their selves, their body, when they were at home before they set out on their little trip to you.

They're already washed, but having now traveled, they need only their feet cleaned. Jesus takes, that's their practice,

Jesus takes that and is portraying yet more about salvation. First, yes, you need to be washed to belong to Christ, right?

To have a share in him. But then once you're washed, you know, you don't need to be washed over and over and over again.

Every time you come into contact with the world, you got to go back and be washed. Every little sin, you got to go back and be saved all over again.

He says in verse 10, the one who has bathed does not need to wash except for his feet, but is completely clean.

Once you're clean, you don't need to bathe again. At least not right away, you know, maybe, maybe the next day, but you understand the picture here.

You don't need to bathe again. That's because you walked to a dinner party that day. If you think a little odd if someone showed up to your house, just came from home, showered this morning, can

I wash, can I shower again? Brought my own towel, my shampoo. In other words, Jesus distinguishes between a once for all cleansing compared to a bath and the continual washing of specific parts of your body.

Maybe like for us washing hands, you know, wash your hands after you've gone to the bathroom or before you eat. We don't think, you know, you need to take a shower every time all over again.

How many showers you'd be taking a day? So once you bathe in the blood of Jesus, you don't need to bathe in it again.

You'll need to be washed. You will, though, need to be washed of specific sins to confess your sins, to experiencing the washing of water with the word.

Paul calls it to be to be washed of being, you have become contaminated maybe with the world.

You picked up some of their attitudes, their arrogance, their greed, their lust. You sinned as you came in contact with the world.

You need to confess that and you need to be cleansed of that. The blood of Christ, the word of God can wash that away.

You need to be sanctified, but you don't have to be justified all over again. So Jesus says, you plural, you disciples, your apostles, you all are clean because you've been washed, but not every one of you.

There's one there that hasn't been washed. The one exception was Judas, the betrayer. Notice that Judas is not clean.

He's already not clean. He's unclean already before he even betrays. He isn't betrayed yet.

He just has the idea in his heart, but he hasn't done it yet. It's not that he became unclean by betraying

Jesus. He was unclean, and so he did what unclean people do, betray

Jesus. Are you washed? Judas, he's not.

Then Jesus speaks to the messengers. It's important that they understand the moral lesson from what he's done.

All right, first we, the deeper spiritual lesson, you need to be washed, but there is this moral lesson that's important. You call me teacher, or it could be rabbi, and lord, master, and you are right.

The Christian community is not a communist society in which everyone's just kind of equal in rank, where there's no terms of respect, that we're all comrades, we're all brothers and sisters, there's none who are older, there's none who are younger, there's none with more authority or more insight than others, there's none who are called to have authority and leadership.

That's the way some people think, but no, that's not true. First of all, there's the lord himself, and then there's the other witnesses to whom we are to give heed.

Here, we are right to call him the lord, but if our lord and teacher washed our feet, if he's served us by spilling his blood for us so that we could be clean, then we should serve others of his people.

He did it, so should we, right? A few years ago, we had a young man from Singapore, a

Duke student, stayed with us for a few weeks, and he said he was thinking about becoming a pastor.

I don't know how that panned out, but he wanted to watch me how to do it. I wasn't really sure when he told me that. I wasn't sure what you watch.

You're going to watch me read and sit there in a chair while I read a book? I don't know what you, but I figured

I wanted to teach him something. I decided that I wanted to teach him it wasn't all about reading and delivering sermons.

We're going to put up a sign on Highway 86, okay? You're going to get a post hole digger, and you're going to dig a hole in that ground.

We're going to paint those steps out there. We're going to mop. Oh, so you want to be a prophet to clean up the church?

Start with a broom in your hand. Of course, some people use that. What was to say that, you know,

I was trying to teach him, you know, Jesus gave an example that we should follow. Some people have used that, though, to tell particularly tell others, particularly pastors, you know, you need to do the menial chores.

You're supposed to be a servant leader, uh, which which by which they mean you're supposed to be my servant, not my leader, okay?

That's what the servant leader is often a code word these days for that. You serve me. You tell me what

I want to hear. Don't try to leave me. I don't want that. Sometimes by people, some of those are people that told that by people who have no intention of actually serving.

That's the way these disciples kind of thought here, isn't it? Any one of them should have taken the initiative and washed the feet, but let someone else do it.

Each of them thought. Jesus's lesson here is that now that your master or teacher has done this, now that he's bent down and done the thankless, you know, dirty, lowly chore, you should too.

For us, maybe, maybe serve those unthankful, misbehaving, disobedient, disrespectful, infuriating brats.

Maybe, maybe serve Rodney by continuing by coming to listen to his

Sunday school lessons. That would serve him, wouldn't it? I mean, it's just kind of discouraging to spend quality time preparing a lesson and only a few people show up.

So you can serve him by listening. Maybe relieve someone else who is serving in several ways. Take one of those away from off of him.

I think one of the finest examples of service, a lot of good examples among us, I think here, one of the finest is last winter when

Wayne helped Mr. Perry, uh, get some chopped wood so he could heat his house. That was a good example.

Verse 15, Jesus has given us an example that we should follow. Does that mean that we should literally wash each other's feet?

You know, have the ritual, get a basin, towel. I suppose if we needed that, you know, we come in and I got dirty feet and I needed it washed.

Yeah. Okay. Some churches think that it's a ritual that we should follow, but remember washing feet here isn't a symbolic ritual they kind of did to humble themselves.

It was a practical chore. It was something they needed to be done. The example we're to follow is to be willing to do practical chores for each other, like chopping and hauling wood, or like mowing grass, or cleaning houses, or helping people move, or paint.

Did you know our elders have done all that stuff? I can tell you, you know, elders have done each of that.

Joe and George have done each of those kind of things for members of this church, and many others of you have also.

We're his servants, and Jesus says a servant is not greater than his master. We're not greater than Jesus.

We're his messengers, and we have a message to give the world, but we don't just give that message, you know, in look at me.

I'm a great scholar. You got to listen to everything I say. We've got to be like the one who sent us, the foot washing one, the practical, menial, lowly chore doing one.

Here, Jesus is preparing these messengers, these apostles, by teaching them practically with a towel and a basin how to be a messenger for Jesus.

It's not just theory, as though we come to church only to learn doctrine, to learn ideas, maybe motivational slogans that will help me get up early on Monday morning, or intriguing insights into scripture.

We are to learn how to serve, and then actually do it. Notice what he says, blessed are you if you do them.

That's why we have Jim Jr. and Jim. You know, we have it not only to reach out to those people, we have it so that you can come and do it.

We have Sunday school in this sermon to teach you. That's important, but you have these, we have these other programs to give you a real opportunity to do it.

You know, our evening service is you coming to serve. Blessed are you if you do them, Jesus says in verse 17.

Then for the second time in this chapter, Jesus speaks of the betrayer. You know, blessed are you if you actually serve, but the betrayer is not serving.

Judas isn't a servant, is he? Now he looks like he is. Notice to the very end in this passage, they're convinced

Judas is a good servant. He even has an official position. He's the treasurer.

You know, when he's going out to betray Jesus, they just assume he's going out to serve. That's what he is.

That's what Judas is like. And you know, people will often take positions of quote service for selfish reasons.

Are they preaching? Is he preaching and teaching to serve?

Or because they love expressing their opinions? Because I love expressing my opinions. Which is it? It's hard to tell.

Like for us, most of the time, it's probably impossible to tell. I think, particularly for some, you know, we get some around here who want to preach and teach a lot, but not are not willing to invest their time to actually learn first.

Yeah, that's a bad sign. If you ask me, it seems to me if you want to serve the church by teaching and preaching, you feel called to do that.

First, you're going to equip yourself so that you have something quality to present, seems to me. But we can't see people's hearts.

Jesus could, though. Jesus could see people's hearts. Chapter two of John tells us that he knew what was in man.

Now, then if that's the case, why did he choose Judas? Was that a mistake?

Did he hope for the best for Judas and it just turned out badly? Is Judas a failure? No. Notice that Jesus says in verse 18,

I know whom I have chosen. You 12, I chose each of you. I know you.

So Judas was chosen on purpose. I think it's just like we saw the previous chapter.

Remember those who there are those who do not believe in chapter 12 so that Jesus says they don't believe in order that scripture would be fulfilled here.

Judas was chosen. That scripture will be fulfilled. He who ate my bread has lifted his heel against me.

That scripture was to be fulfilled. So he chose Judas to do that. Jesus is serving them, the other 11 apostles, by telling them this now.

So, you know, so that you're telling this before it happens. And he says in verse 19, I'm telling you this now so that when it does happen, when

I am betrayed, you will believe. So he's serving them by teaching them. And he says, particularly literally here, that you will believe.

I'm telling you now that I will be betrayed by one of you. I'm telling you now before it happens so that you will believe.

Believe what? Literally it says that I am the he there in verse 19 is not really there in Greek.

It may be implied for a good translation. I understand. But it seems meaningful that Jesus simply says in the book of the gospel of John, with all the

I am's, I am the light of the world. I am before Abraham was. I am here. He says,

I'm telling you this ahead of time so that you will believe. I am. Seems meaningful.

He wants them to believe so that later they will go out with the gospel as his messengers.

And so if we receive them, these messengers, who are they? We got Matthew. We still have his word.

We got Peter, who probably helped give us the gospel of Mark. We have their testimony of the apostles of the gospel of Luke.

We have John here, his apostle. Later, another messenger will come along, the apostle

Paul. If we receive them, we see their word, we hear them. If we do that, we receive

Jesus, the son, and the father. The way we treat the messengers is the way we treat the message sender.

But one of them doesn't believe that gives Jesus trouble.

Jesus is troubled here. As he said, he was same word that he used in the previous chapter when, you know, when the

Greeks came to him and then he knew when that happened that his hour had come. He was trouble.

And in chapter 11, even before that, when he saw Mary weeping at the tomb of Lazarus, he was troubled.

So first it was the death of a friend, and then it's his own soon coming death. What is the trouble here?

In verse 11, truly, truly, this is certain, one of you will betray me. Betrayal is troubling.

To have someone who pledged their loyalty to you, with whom you shared so much, to turn out, to be against you, to turn on you, to exclaim maybe it's a good time, or maybe when they needed you,

I've got your back, or maybe I do, or whatever, I love you, only to stab you in the back.

Tell me when maybe you've taught carefully for years, like Jesus taught, for example, beware of all greed,

Jesus taught. And then Judas goes out and acts like he didn't hear a word, to trade you away for a little money, or hurt ego, or convenience, or another thrill.

Jesus is troubled by betrayal, even though he knew it was coming. Betrayal is troubling, isn't it?

That's why one of the most disturbing things sometimes in the church is we see betrayal. People who made pledges, or confessed one thing, turn out to be differently.

Well, the disciples look around at each other without a clue as to who it would be. You know, we tend to think, I think we were portraying this in a drama or something, you know,

Judas just has to look sinister, right? He, you know, you wouldn't just know there's something slimy about this guy.

He's, something's off about him, it's obvious. But the disciples who had lived so close to each other now, for years now, would never have guessed it was him.

So Peter asked John, and you notice here John calls himself the disciple whom Jesus loved. Like, he's just so amazed.

Not that he's, I don't think he's suggesting that he loved, Jesus loved him more than the others. It's just,

I'm the one Jesus loved, can you believe it? He's just amazed by that. That's why he refers to himself that way. But Peter asks

John, sitting next to Jesus, you know, ask him, ask him who it is, who is it? And Jesus says, it is, it is he to whom

I will give this morsel when I have dipped it. Now, now food, now having food, you're at a dinner here, and having food personally served to you by the host, like here, here is

Jesus, was a particular sign of love and honor. You're being singled out for special favor.

And so Jesus hands Judas one last gift, one last gesture of grace in this piece of dipped bread.

Jesus handed over to Judas a piece of food and then told him, what you're going to do, hand me over to my killers, do quickly.

So Satan inspires him to go trade his teacher and Lord for 30 pieces of silver.

Jesus is troubled by that. Not even John, it seems understood that Judas was the betrayer, even after having been told, you know, he gave the morsel to him as a sign.

It was just too unthinkable. You know, it takes a while for sometimes some things to see through, no matter how clearly it's demonstrated.

He was going to, you know, they just assumed Judas is going out to do a chore for us.

He's going to go maybe, or maybe he's going to go help the poor. This is the kind of guy Judas is. After all, he was the one, we heard him just a few days ago, you know, speak up when

Mary poured out $30 ,000 worth of ointment on Jesus, picking up for the poor. That's just the way

Judas is. He's a servant. He loves the poor. He means well, they thought about the man who's really a messenger for Satan.

He goes out from the light into the darkness of night. So with that, the troubling reality of betrayal,

Judas gone now, just 11 apostles and Jesus himself.

Jesus declares now is the son of man glorified. Now the glory son of man is the title for the

Messiah and Daniel chapter seven, the one who comes after these beastly kingdoms of men and receives

Daniel seven says dominion and glory and a kingdom. And just as here in this chapter in verse three, you remember

Jesus had received all things, glory, dominion, a kingdom, or as it says, or as he says about himself in Matthew, all authority in heaven and earth has been given to me.

As Paul, the apostle Paul says in first Corinthians that he now, now he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet, the son of man being glorified, receiving all things, all authority reigning his glory.

That is not something that we have to wait on. It's not, not yet.

It's already happened and is happening now.

Jesus says in verse 31, right? He is glorified. It says the father is glorified in him.

Notice how inseparable God, the father and God, the son are in verse 32. Like God is glorified in Christ.

He's Jesus says, God will also glorify Christ. So Christ glorifies God. God glorifies

Christ and they will glorify. God will also glorify Christ in himself.

God, the father is in the son, the son's in the father. They're, they're, they're, they're linked together.

You can't separate them. And he says he'll do that. Jesus says at once this very day, it is after all now night.

And in the Jewish reckoning, that means it's now Friday. Good Friday.

Then Jesus loving his people to the end, he tenderly addresses them. Notice that he calls them, calls us little children.

Don't sound troubled anymore. I don't think maybe he's gotten past that. That's who we are to him. We're little children.

Yet a little while I am with you. He had no idea how little that while is you will seek me.

Now we might wish we had him with us physically now, but he's not here physically with us anymore where he is.

You know, he's not hiding in a cave somewhere. He is where we cannot go right now.

If we seek him, if we want him with us, then in verse 34, we'll find him in keeping this new commandment because of the new commandment, love one another.

Just as I have loved you. We were commanded before you figure what's new about that before we were commanded to love our neighbors as ourselves.

But here, Jesus's new commandment is to love each other. Other people who are washed in the blood of Jesus, his own, the people that he loved in this world, who are in Christ, not just as ourselves, as high, really as lofty as that is to try to love someone as you love yourself, but love now, love his people as Jesus loved us, by giving up his life for us.

If we do that, if we love one another, then all people will know we are his disciples.

A loving community displays to the world. Yes, he said all people will know the world will know by the cleverness of our arguments, by the grandiosity of the bigness of our buildings, our budget.

No. A loving community displays to the world that we really do believe in Jesus.

We love one another, then they'll know just as Jesus is glorified in the cross.

His love is displayed in the cross and giving us the washing that we needed. Our glory displayed in loving each other.

That's how we display that we believe in the one who loved us to the end.

Are you washed? If so, it will show in you loving others who are washed.

Well, if you're washed, right, you've been initiated, you pass through the threshold, you've gone through the rites of passage, you're on the other side, you're now one of the, what do you want to call them, the elect, whatever.

And if so, you should be perfect now, right? Leaving behind all the old life.

You know, the apostle John had to deal with some perfectionists later in his life, some who said that they're without sin, they've eradicated it all.

They said, they've risen above sin. John said, anyone who says he's without sin, no, he's a liar.

The truth is not in him. If you're Christ, the truth is in you. One of the things he'll do for you, yeah, he'll comfort you in times of trouble, he'll give you light, give you truth, all that.

Sure. But if Christ is in you, one of the things he'll do for you is he'll convict you of your sin so that you'll ask for cleansing.

He'll make you aware of your sins. You'll know them very well.

He'll make you very familiar with your sins. He'll keep reminding you of them.

That won't always be nice. It won't always be pleasant. But that's one of the things he does for you.

He'll let you know you're a sinner. He did that for Peter. Now, Peter doesn't understand, but he wants to follow

Jesus wherever he goes. I will lay down my life for you. You know, he's emotional guy, passionate man.

He's a great man. Sure. He would like me to have pledges, though. Oh, I will lay down my life for you.

And he eventually does. But first, Jesus says, before you lay down your life, your body.

First, Peter, you're going to see what your flesh will do for you. Truly, truly,

Jesus says, you can bank on it. The rooster will not crow till you have denied three times that you know me.

You may be washed, Peter. But you're going to fail. Did Judas fail to?

I mean, what's the difference? There's failure, right? Are Peter's denials just as bad as Judas's betrayal?

Aren't they all the same? All sin the same? No. Now, all sin equally alienates us from God, but all sin doesn't show the same degree of evil, same perversity.

What Judas did was it was premeditated. It's just coldly calculated. Whereas Peter, he got swept away by the pressure of the moment.

Now, he didn't go to that courtyard of the high priest in order to deny Christ. He didn't go there for that.

He was tempted by the situation. So, high, what they call high -handed or willful, a determination to commit a sin.

You know, I'm going to pursue an affair with that person. Coldly calculated.

I'm going to sell school laptops at a pawn shop. That is worse than sort of just getting swept away in the moment, in a moment of weakness by your flesh.

It's worse because it shows that you have in your heart chosen that sin.

And what Judas showed was, you know, he didn't care that his getting 30 pieces of silver might come at the cost of hurting

Jesus. At the very least, his greed blinded him to the consequences of his actions.

His greed often does. While Peter's denials, you know, they didn't physically hurt

Jesus. Only when the rooster crowed, Jesus arrested. He hears the rooster crow.

He knows what's happened. And he looks across, however far away Peter was, looks at him.

Peter sees that and realizes, oh, I've troubled him.

And with that, Peter goes out and weeps bitterly. He repented, eventually told

Jesus three times. Yes, Lord, you know, I love you. Whereas Judas never really repented.

Now, he was filled with some kind of remorse, a grief that leads to death. He didn't like the way things turned out. And maybe he just didn't like that he had been exposed as the betrayer, that he had been caught, kind of like the man who gets caught in an affair.

Now he's sorry for the upset of the affair being exposed as cause, but he's not really sorry for the immorality.

Judas and Peter, they were both failures, sure. But one was a washed, pressured, weak, repentant failure.

The other one wasn't. You know, we're all failures. You know that, don't you?

The only question is whether we're washed failures or not. If we're washed, we're initiated.

We're in with Christ. We pass that threshold. We have a share in Jesus now, along with the others that he has washed.

And that's the key. That's the foundation. That's the starting place. Don't get ahead of yourself. You know, don't think first, you know, to get in, you've got to keep the rituals, maybe like baptism.

You've got to follow the examples. You've got to serve others. You've got to receive the messengers. You've got to be, don't be a betrayer, love one another, don't fail.

You can do all those things or at least try. But if first you aren't washed in the blood of Jesus, then you have no share in him.

You aren't getting your life from him. You aren't getting a new life from him that makes you serve.

Your life is not coming from him. And so if it is, your life is from him, you have a share in him, you'll know.

Because he'll tell you. You'll know you failed. The light that is in you will show you that you're a failure, that you'll be okay.

If you're washed. After all, we're all failures.

There's no question about that. The only question is, are you washed?