Maundy Thursday

Good evening. What a great crowd. Glad to see you all here on Maundy Thursday.

Every year at Maundy Thursday, somebody asked me, what does Maundy mean? It’s like every year, without fail, right? And we’re going to get to that a little bit later, but it’s Latin for commandment, and I’m going to show you later where that comes from in the text today, but it’s great to have you here today. On Maundy Thursday, there’s the Lord’s Supper, there’s foot washing. So there’s a number of different things that happen, and they also, this is the night they go out to the Garden of Gethsemane.

So we’re going to look at all that tonight, some more than others, mostly the foot washing. But first, I want to share a personal story, if I can. Is that good? So I was born in Royal Oak, grew up there in Royal Oak.

Anybody from Royal Oak? A couple of you? All right. We got some, a few of you here. So yeah, I grew up in the south side of Royal Oak, and I actually grew up in a tiny house before tiny house was a thing.

Anybody else grew up in a tiny house before tiny houses were a thing? Okay. It’s true, though. This is a picture of the house I grew up in.

It’s about 700 square feet, and I lived in the front room there with my two sisters. We shared a bedroom together with some mice as well. We’re in there as well.

Yeah, small house, no basement, no second floor, no garage, pretty simple. But there’s something in there. I have a lot of fond memories of this little place.

My grandpa built it, so it was really cool. It’s not there anymore. Of course, Royal Oak, it’s now, you know, mansions and stuff.

So inside there is a clawfoot tub. How many of you still have a clawfoot tub in your house or your cottage? Anybody have an old clawfoot tub? How many have ever bathed in a clawfoot tub? Okay. It’s a great experience, right? It’s a beautiful, beautiful place.

So I have this memory of this clawfoot tub. I literally remember being in this clawfoot tub. It’s something about this experience as a kid.

I remember because my mom gave me a duty to like, you know, wash yourself, and we had a little scrubber, and she’s like, I want you to, you know, clean your feet. You’re going to wash your own feet. You’re going to scrub underneath your toenails to get that dirt out.

I actually have a picture. Are you ready? You sure you can handle it? You want the picture? Okay. Are you sure? Okay.

This is me in the clawfoot tub with my little scrubber, and I am just making mommy happy. I’m cleaning those toes. And I remember, because it tickled, when you clean the toes, you know, it tickles.

So, but there’s this one time, one particular time when I was in there, you know, making mom happy, cleaning my toes. I noticed a big patch of dirt on my knee. I didn’t notice it before, but I was like, oh, there’s some dirt on my knee.

So I started scrubbing it. Get that off, and I’ll make mom proud, right? And it wouldn’t come off. So I kept scrubbing it.

And it wouldn’t come off. I kept scrubbing it. Actually, literally, I kept scrubbing it until it started to bleed.

And then it stung, and then I cried, you know? So, and mom came in, and she said, oh, honey, you know, that’s a birthmark. That doesn’t come off, you know, with a scrubber. It doesn’t come off.

Because I didn’t know what a birthmark was, right? So, but I always remember that story to this day, you know, the birthmark that I tried to scrub off with a scrubber. And, you know, spiritually thinking, we are born with a birthmark spiritually. It’s called the sinful nature.

It doesn’t come off with your own scrubbers. There’s this verse from Psalm 51. This is a psalm that King David wrote in the Old Testament.

And he says, behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me. And what that means is that from the very conception, we inherit this sinful nature. Down from Adam, right? From Adam, we all are born with it.

We’re born with this birthmark that you can’t get off on your own. No matter how hard you try, you know. In fact, if you try really hard, you’ll probably hurt yourself trying to do it yourself.

Have you ever, have you ever felt spiritually dirty? Have you ever felt unclean, spiritually speaking, and tried to get clean yourself? What scrubber have you tried to use? I’ll tell you, for me, what I tend to do, and I still, you know, I still go there sometimes, you know, but maybe you’re, maybe like me, I, when I experience the shame and the guilt of something that I’ve done, that I’ve chosen to do, I, I tend to make, try to make vows to God to fix it. Make vows, like, you know, you’re just like, okay, I’m gonna, I’m gonna go to church, you know. I’m gonna go to all services this weekend.

I’m gonna, you know, I’m gonna read my Bible every morning. I’m gonna pray more. I’m gonna, I’m gonna love my family better.

I’m gonna, you know, just long list of vows, you know. It’s like my way of trying to fix it. It’s my way of trying to get control over it.

My way of trying to take it away. What about you? What scrubber do you use? Have you ever felt that shame and guilt? Wanting to be clean, but not knowing how to get there. No matter what scrubber you, what, what, no matter what scrubber you use, it won’t take the birthmark away.

It won’t remove the guilt. It’s still there, isn’t it? This verse in Jeremiah tells us this. Jeremiah chapter two, verses 22.

Though you wash yourself with lye and use much soap, and maybe even a scrubber, the stain of your guilt is still before me, declares the Lord. It’s still there. No matter what you try to do, no matter what you, what your plans and strategies are, no matter how you try to fix it, it doesn’t work.

You can’t take this away. It’s a birthmark. Can’t scrub it away on your own.

Now the Old Testament has a lot of examples of, and themes of washing and being clean. You’ve read the Old Testament. You know what I’m talking about? It talks about like being clean versus unclean.

There’s always examples of washing and all these ritual washings you have to do in the Old Testament. It’s a lot. It’s a theme throughout the whole Old Testament.

I’m going to just point to a couple of different examples in the Old Testament, okay? The first one, the first one here is called the Day of Atonement. Now on your calendar, probably at home, it’s called something, comes in October. It’s a Jewish holiday.

You ever seen the term Yom Kippur on your calendar? That is what means the Day of Atonement. So it’s the day in the Old Testament when the high priest would walk into the Holy of Holies. But before he did that, he had, there was a bunch of instructions.

He had to go through these special instructions. First of all, he had to take off his outer garment. So you can see in the picture here, he’s laying aside all those outer garments, all those fancy, all the fancy clothing.

He has to strip down, take off the outer garments, and then he has to wash himself. And there’s a basin there. Before you go into the Holy of Holies in the temple or the tabernacle, there’s a big basin of water where they did their ritual washings.

So you can picture this high priest probably washing his hands, probably his feet too. This is a holy place, right? You want to be, they were afraid to go in there, right? You only went in one day a year. That’s where the presence of God was.

And there’s stories of people being dragged out, you know, right? Because they died in there. They weren’t supposed to be in there. So there’s a stripping, a taking off of the outer garments, and then a washing before the sacrifice.

The bloodshed from the sacrifice was sprinkled everywhere. So you can kind of see right there the picture of what’s happening in Holy Week. You have this picture of Jesus.

We just watched on the video. He takes off his outer garments. What does he do? He washes.

Now, in this situation, Jesus is washing the feet of the disciples. He didn’t wash his own feet. Why do you think that is? Because he wasn’t dirty.

Jesus was clean already. He’s the son of God. He didn’t have to wash his own feet, right? The high priest did.

But you see this picture there. Now let’s go to the next one. This is from Zachariah.

And this is interesting. It’s a vision that the prophet Zachariah has. He has this vision.

And in his vision, he sees the high priest at the time, whose name was Joshua. He sees the high priest. And next to the high priest is the devil and the angel of the Lord.

So you see this picture here. The devil is accusing him. And it says in his vision, Zachariah says, well, the high priest is dressed in filthy clothing.

So look at these verses here. This is him describing his vision. He says, now Joshua, the high priest, was dressed in filthy clothes as he stood before the angel of the Lord.

Now, as Christians, we always interpret the angel of the Lord as Jesus before he’s born. If you see that phrase in the Old Testament, you think of it as, this is Jesus before he’s born, okay? So the angel of the Lord said to those who were standing around him, some servants, take off the filthy clothes. You can see in the picture, one of the servants is holding some filthy clothes.

Take off the filthy clothes. And he says to Joshua, to the high priest, he says, see, I have taken away your sin and I will put fine garments on you. See, the Lord, Jesus, he’s the one who can take away our sin.

He’s the only one. He’s the one who takes away the dirt. He’s the one that can wash us from that dirt.

He’s the only one that can take away that birthmark. It’s only Jesus. And we see this prophesied in the Old Testament.

All of this is all prophecies about what’s going to happen tomorrow, right? On the cross. When his blood is shed, his blood is shed that washes us clean from sin. Okay, you ready to get into the Maundy Thursday text? Okay, let’s get into the Maundy Thursday text a little bit.

Let’s read this. Okay. It’s, you find this in the book of John chapter 13.

This is after the Lord’s Supper. So they, you know the, you know, Leonardo da Vinci’s scene of the Lord’s Supper, right? This is after that. Jesus rose from supper.

He laid aside his outer garments. Okay. He takes a towel.

He wraps the towel around himself. So he’s, he’s wearing a towel. He ties it around him.

He pours water into a basin. He begins to wash the disciples’ feet. It’s like you saw in the video there.

And he wipes their feet with the towel he’s wearing. I’ve been thinking a lot about this. So look at those feet.

Those are some nasty looking feet. Now, how many of you ask people to take off their shoes when they come into your house? Come on, I want to see who you are. What if someone comes to your house in sandals like this? What are you going to do? Do you want to take off the shoes or not? I don’t know.

It could be worse. Well, back in those days, this is how everyone’s feet looked, right? Because they had to walk around in these sandals and it was all dusty and dirty and that’s what your feet looked like. So they typically had a basin of water by the front door where you would wash your feet.

Or if you have, if you are well enough off to have a servant, you’d have the servant wash the feet of the people that came in, right? The lowest person on the rung did the foot washing. I wasn’t, you’re not going to touch their feet. So that’s what they did.

That’s what the servant said. They washed their feet. So that’s why when you see this story of Jesus, that’s why, you know, Peter’s objecting to it.

We’ll get to that in a minute. But here’s a picture. I want you to think about what the text says here because I want you to have a visual here of Jesus.

He’s got the towel wrapped around him, okay? Now, what’s happening as he’s wiping the feet of the disciples? You don’t always see this. In the video, you notice Peter’s feet were nice and clean. That’s not how they’re supposed to look.

That’s Hollywood, right? Those feet are nasty looking. But as Jesus is wiping their feet, his towel that he’s wearing is going to get dirtier and dirtier and dirtier. So by the time he finishes all the disciples there washing their feet, imagine what that towel looks like.

So Jesus is now wearing their dirt on him. Isn’t that profound? He’s wearing their dirt on him. He’s taking their dirt on himself.

And that is a beautiful picture of what’s happening the next day, right? How he takes our sin upon himself. In 2nd Corinthians, this is explained pretty clearly. Paul does this in 2nd Corinthians.

He says, God made him who had no sin, he was clean, to be sin for us. So Jesus is made to be sin for us so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. This, amen, this is the gospel in a nutshell right here.

It’s Jesus taking your sin and giving you his. Giving you his righteousness. That is the gospel.

That’s what grace is. That’s what mercy is. Mercy is not getting something you deserve and grace is getting something you don’t deserve.

This is God’s grace. This is the gospel of his love right there. Let’s go back to the story, okay? You ready? Let’s finish this story.

Now we get to the part we saw on the video with Simon Peter. Jesus comes to Simon Peter, right? He’s already washed some other disciples’ feet. He’s coming around, he comes beside Peter and of course Simon Peter.

Gotta love him, right? He says, Lord, are you gonna wash my feet? Jesus says, you don’t know, you don’t understand right now, but you’re gonna understand later what I’m doing here. No, no, no. Uh-uh.

You’re not washing my feet, right Peter? He’s the, he’s the bold one. You know, you’re not doing that. Nope.

I will not allow you to do that. Not on my watch. Jesus responds to him and says, if I don’t wash you, you have no place with me, no part with me.

You can’t be my disciple. We’re not gonna be together if I don’t wash you. Because I’m the only person that can take away that birthmark.

I’m the only one that can take this away. I’m the only one that can wash it clean. And of course you hear Peter’s response, well in that case, wash my whole body, you know.

Not just my hands and feet, but my head as well. This is an important thing that you have to come to face to face with, and that is this. Unless Jesus washes you, you will be eternally separated from him.

We have to come to that realization that this is what Jesus is saying to Peter. If I don’t wash you, there’s no hope for you. We will be separated.

Eternally. Only Jesus can wash away the birthmark of sin. To put faith into Christ, to put faith in his cleansing, his sacrifice on the cross, part of that is you have to reject the thinking that you can clean yourself.

That you have some kind of special scrubber that’s gonna get that birthmark off. You gotta reject that thinking. That’s part of it, right? You gotta give that up and receive what he’s done for you on the cross.

Well, Jesus continues. He’s not done yet. He’s still talking to them.

He’s still talking. So this is after the Simon Peter experience. He goes on.

Jesus goes on. He says this. He says, when he had finished washing their feet, he puts his clothes back on, returns to his place, and he says to them, now, do you understand what I did? He says, you call me teacher.

You call me Lord. And I am. But now that I, your teacher and Lord, have washed your feet, and this is where he can take a turn here, right? He’s taking a turn here.

He says, now, wash each other’s feet. Whoa, wait a minute. Time out.

Time out, Jesus. Okay. Everything sounded good until right then.

You want me to wash? You want me to wash other’s feet too? Jesus did it. I said, I’ve set you an example that you should do just as I’ve done for you. Very truly, I tell you, no servant is greater than his master, nor a messenger greater than the one who sent him.

So now that you know these things, you will be blessed if you do them. Now, we can’t take away the sins of others like Jesus, right? But, we can love others in the way he loved us. That we can do.

So I want to drive home a couple points to you today. These two statements. I want you to walk away with these two statements.

First of all, rest in the fact that Jesus loves you and he’s taken your dirt and sin, right? Rest in that. That’s the gospel message. That’s the comfort you have that Jesus has done that for you.

It’s already done. It’s finished. It’s done.

You’ve been washed. He loves you. He’s taken the dirt and your sin.

But also go and love your brother and sister in Christ in the same way he’s loved you. In the same kind of unconditional sacrificial love he’s loved you. Let me share a personal story.

Okay, another personal story. So I mentioned I shared a room with both my sisters. Many, many years ago when I was in high school, when I really came to know and love Jesus, when I was a 16 year old, one of my sisters, my older sister was, she didn’t believe in Jesus at that point.

She didn’t follow him. And I felt that the Lord was telling me to tell her about Jesus. Okay.

I was on a mission from God, like the Blues Brothers. I was on a mission from God. So I’m going to tell her about Jesus.

So, you know, whenever I thought she was like in a cornered somewhere, I remember one time she was in the kitchen. I’m like, oh, it’s a perfect time. I can go in there.

She can’t get out. There’s like one way in and one way out. I blocked the entrance, you know, and started talking to her.

So, so let me tell you about Jesus. You know, it’s like I just kind of went right into it. Right.

And she was kind of like, you know, a little bit taken aback by it, a little uncomfortable, you know, and kind of walking away going, okay, you’re kind of weird. You know, didn’t work very well. I really was having a hard time with it because I just felt like, okay, Lord, you’re, I’m doing what you want me to do.

And I remember reading 2 Timothy. There’s this passage in 2 Timothy where it says, if you don’t take care of the needs of your own family, your faith is worthless. You ever read that? And it convicted me.

And I went to the Lord and said, okay, Lord, you’re telling me something here. Okay. So I remember, I was like, okay, I’m going to go ahead and be the best brother I can be.

Like, I’m going to make it my point to be a good brother, a good uncle. She just had a son, you know, I’m going to be a, I’m going to be someone that, I’m going to be there for special days. I’m going to be there for, you know, birthdays.

And they’re moving. I’m going to help them move. I’m going to, I’m going to be present in their life.

She was a musician. If she’s going out, she’s playing, I’m going to go watch her play. I’m going to, I’m going to be a good brother, a loving brother and a loving uncle.

I mean, I did, I made it my point. I went to the Lord and I said, Lord, I’m doing this. I’m hearing you.

I’m going to do this. And she’s a very devout Christian to this day. Very devout Christian, an example to me and my family.

It’s beautiful. It wasn’t too many years after that when I started changing my thinking, you know. It was like, you look back and you say, well, okay, Lord, I needed to know that it wasn’t me that was saving her.

It was you. It’s the Holy Spirit, you know. I was taking that role on myself.

And lo and behold, God worked his own way, right? But, you know, I had chances to talk with her about the Lord. But what was cool thing was soon after that, she actually asked me to walk her down the aisle when she got married. And that was a really, really touching moment for me because I felt like it validated that I was being a good brother.

I got to walk her down the aisle when she got married. Beautiful. What about you? How can you wash someone’s feet here at Shepherd’s Gate? What way can you do that with someone here? Jesus is talking to his disciples, right? He’s washing the feet of the disciples.

He’s saying, disciples, wash each other’s feet. You in the church, wash each other’s feet. Serve each other and love each other as I have loved you.

This is a core message of the Bible that we as the church, people who as a part of the church we are to love each other in the way Jesus loved us. To wash each other’s feet. How can you wash somebody’s feet? What is a way in which you could do that here at Shepherd’s Gate? That’s a question for you.

I want you to walk away with. Listen to these verses here. I’m going to go through a few verses here as we close out.

Galatians 6 to carry each other’s burdens. And in this way you fulfill the law of Christ. What’s that law of Christ? I’m going to come to it in a minute.

First Corinthians, if this is what it’s talking about, you are all parts of, you’re all part of one body, the body of Christ. You’re each a different member of this body. And if one part suffers, every part suffers with it.

If one part is honored, every part is honored with it. So how can you mourn with those who mourn? How can you rejoice with those who rejoice here at Shepherd’s Gate? You are the body of Christ and each one of you is a part of it. Ephesians 4.15, speaking the truth in love.

Sometimes loving is speaking truth to people too, right? Keeping people accountable and being there when they need that encouragement or that accountability sometimes is important too. That’s a part of loving someone. But going back to our text for the day, what’s this command, this law of Christ? He gives us this new command.

He says, I give you. It’s a new one. This is the new command.

Love one another. Now he’s talking to you, the church. Love one another as I have loved you.

So you must love one another. The term Maundy, as I said, is Latin for commandment. So that’s why we call it Maundy Thursday.

It’s from this very command, John 13.34. So let’s go forth this Maundy Thursday with the comfort of knowing that he’s washed you white as snow. So leave here with the comfort knowing he’s washed you white as snow and leave here also with his command to love each other in the same way he’s loved you. Amen.