GIVEN ALL THINGS
John 13: 1-17. 31b-35
Maundy Thursday, Year C
Analysis by Shaun O’Reilly
1Now 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. 2The devil had already decided that Judas son of Simon Iscariot would betray Jesus. And during supper 3Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands and that he had come from God and was going to God, 4got up from supper, took off his outer robe, and tied a towel around himself. 5Then 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. 6He came to Simon Peter, who said to him, “Lord, are you going to wash my feet?” 7Jesus answered, “You do not know now what I am doing, but later you will understand.” 8Peter said to him, “You will never wash my feet.” Jesus answered, “Unless I wash you, you have no share with me.” 9Simon Peter said to him, “Lord, not my feet only but also my hands and my head!” 10Jesus 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.” 11For he knew who was to betray him; for this reason he said, “Not all of you are clean.”
12After he had washed their feet, had put on his robe, and had reclined again, he said to them, “Do you know what I have done to you? 13You call me Teacher and Lord, and you are right, for that is what I am. 14So if I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet. 15For I have set you an example, that you also should do as I have done to you. 16Very truly, I tell you, slaves are not greater than their master, nor are messengers greater than the one who sent them. 17If you know these things, you are blessed if you do them.
31When he had gone out, Jesus said, “Now the Son of Man has been glorified, and God has been glorified in him. 32If God has been glorified in him, God will also glorify him in himself and will glorify him at once. 33Little 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.’ 34I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. 35By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”
From Wikimedia commons
“We have been joined in his death and raised to new life to be the body of Christ, feet and hands and consciences washed clean.”
DIAGNOSIS: God knows what we don’t, so we trust and serve reluctantly
Step 1: Initial Diagnosis (External Problem) – Confused obedience
While Jesus is up to something in this foot-washing gathering at Passover, it is clear that the disciples do not know what to do. Maybe they should cry out not to be washed! Or maybe they should cry out for a full immersion cleansing! They’re stuck. And the teacher is talking vaguely that “not all are clean.” He’s also using language about his time coming to an end and he’s focusing on how they might get on without him. They have no clue how they will! These long-time disciples are confused at a moment that is calling for intimacy, trust, and action.
Step 2: Advanced Diagnosis (Internal Problem) – Confusion of heart
There is a matter of great importance in this servant-role of Jesus, but the disciples are clueless. What is the teacher talking about? Confusion around the table reflects their confusion of heart. How, again, have we trusted Jesus this far only to receive cryptic messages about leaving and love? Have we come this far for this? Miscommunication reveals an incongruity of heart. And if this class is giving grades, the students are failing. All this time, all this exposure, all this grace, and they feel far from Jesus’ intentions still.
Step 3: Final Diagnosis (Ultimate Problem) – Empty-handed
All things are “given into his hands,” and our hands are left grasping. We don’t get all things, to know and wield and direct. And that’s not good enough for us because we think we deserve better. We want swords for the insurrection, or power for popular healing, or the answer key to the test. God is coming and going – like God knows when/how/where, all things in God’s hands – and because we’ve been left empty-handed, we throw up our hands and say: “Then, curses! It is not fair for you to hold all the cards and give us no real thing.” If “all things given” are not in our hands, then we’ll make it so it won’t be in his either.
Our problem all along is that we can’t measure up to serving one another like Jesus commands. And in our failure to grasp or understand, we live in our ignorance and anger. We are untrusting of Jesus to whom “all things” have been given, and therefore untrusting of God. Our hands remain empty in the silence of the cross, and the judgment that it speaks to us of our sin.
PROGNOSIS: God’s hands give
Step 4: Initial Prognosis (Ultimate Solution) – The scars of God exposed mean love/God unhidden
Oh, but see, that it is God up there on the cross, hands stretching out! In Christ, God releases our judgment and faults and out pours mercy from the cross. These hands don’t hide from us but, indeed, they give us all things now (Col. 1:20). God has been a giver all along! “For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God” (2 Cor. 5:21). So, “do we know what he has done to us” (v. 12)? In the light of Christ’s cross and resurrection, we do. We have been joined in his death and raised to new life to be the body of Christ, feet and hands and consciences washed clean.
Step 5: Advanced Prognosis (Internal Solution) – Faith knows and trusts
By faith, we are given to “know these things” and in the doing of such trust to be “blessed” (v. 17). Christ, the servant Lord for us all, has become our comfort and joy! Jesus makes known God’s reconciling love that fills our hearts. Love has come close to us in life and death, and the distance of doubt has been removed. Mountains and valleys of our difference have been made low, filled up, smoothed. Christ’s serving and sacrificial love has made us whole, and our hearts cling to his nail-scarred hands.
Step 6: Final Prognosis (External Solution) – Christ’s giving all things through us as his servants
And what seems impossible might actually be possible now. Christ provides for the body. All of his disciples, including us, who call him teacher and Lord are marked forever in his love, and for loving more. The giving, the suffering, and the ministry to the neighbor, through the merits of Christ who opens this ministry to us all, is our call now as we “do what I have done to you” (v. 15). Animated by the Spirit, the freedom of a Christian is to wash our neighbors’ feet and give our lives away in service to the world. The “all things given” into Christ’s hands are now, by extension of his hands through our own cruciformed-servant lives in the ministry of reconciliation for all the world.
