Sermon, Maundy Thursday, 9th April 2020

Reading: John 13.1-17, 31b-35

Upclose and Personal

by the Revd. Mark Wakefield

One of the most distressing aspects of this current crisis is the fate of those who die without the support of family and friends.  Only last week we heard of a 13 year old boy who died in such circumstances because his family were in quarantine; may he rest in peace.  As anyone who has cared for a dying friend or relative will know, the presence of loved ones around the bedside is of immense comfort to that person.  The chance to say goodbye, maybe to heal old hurts, or just to say those words – “I love you” – which we tend to say far too little;

these are precious moments.  However strong a person’s faith, the onset of death can occasion great fear and foreboding.  The assurance of a hand held or a kiss offered can – and does – bring immense comfort in such sad circumstances.  When those who die without the reassuring presence of loved ones, we can only hope and pray that they receive the best possible ministry of nurses, doctors and chaplains.

It’s this sad reflection on our current crisis that has led me to a fresh appreciation of the foot-washing story in tonight’s gospel.  The most startling feature of the story is, of course, the inversion of the master-servant relationship.  Here is the Son of God assuming the role that would normally be performed by a servant girl in foot washing.  If you spend any time at all reflecting on this event you realise how very hard it is for us to assume this Christ-like humility, such is our petty attachment to position and honour.

True as this is, what I want to focus on this evening is the intensely personal nature of the story.  To wash someone else is a particularly intimate thing to do.  It’s something that most of us will only ever have had experience of in washing our children or, perhaps, an elderly and infirm relative, so what Jesus is doing here is notable both in the role reversal I referred to earlier and in the very intimate nature of the service he renders his friends.

Looked at this way it seems to me that this expression of his love for - and service of - his friends is all of a part of what made his ministry so extraordinary.  Yes, he was a great teacher and the crowds flocked to him but looking at the gospels it’s clear that the real impact of Jesus’ ministry came in his very personal interactions with men and women whose lives he transformed most obviously through healing but in other ways as well. Think, for instance, of the woman at the well in John’s gospel who is healed by the self-understanding she gains through speaking to him and the forgiveness she experiences as a result.

I think this in part explains some of the puzzle surrounding his resurrection appearances.

Cynics and doubters think it suspicious that the risen Jesus only appears to a few people in the gospel accounts but if his significance lies ultimately in intimate, personal encounter, then how could it be otherwise?  Consider the case of doubting Thomas here.  It’s when he touches Christ’s wounds that he believes.  What could be more intimate than Jesus’ invitation for Thomas to touch him where he’d been so painfully wounded?  And, by the way, isn’t the ability to touch each other in greeting something we’re all missing at the moment?

We are surely dealing here with what, thanks to the life, death and resurrection of Jesus, we understand to be the nature of God.  Writing some 400 years before Jesus walked the earth Sophocles wrote:

“One word fees us from all the weight and pain of life. That word is Love”.

When the disciples reflected on their risen Lord and friend they decided that they had met the personification of Love itself and they therefore concluded that they had encountered God Himself.  And of course, Love is never anything other than personal.  Love as an abstract concept is meaningless.

This, of course, is where we, the church, the body of Christ, come in.  We are the ears, eyes, hands and feet of Jesus.  In undertaking the smallest act of kindness we in some way manifest the presence of God in the world and therein lies hope in this present darkness.

Amen