John 19:23-30 on April 2nd, 2026 (Maundy Thursday)
Above is audio of the sermon pulled from the video and amplified.
Below is transcript pulled from the video and formatted by artificial intelligence. There may be inconsistencies or errors.
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Tonight is the night that the entire gospel of John can be summed up. Jesus, the extraordinary teacher and master, shows the utmost hospitable acts of friendship and love. First, he takes the place of a servant to those who serve him. And then Jesus, the Messiah and King, takes this place on the throne of the cross for the sake of the world.
Tonight, too, is a night that reflects our own lives. Who hasn't gathered for a meal with companions, loved another, bid farewell to a dear friend? Here are our all-human experiences that we know we share. So yes, tonight encapsulates both our lives and the gospel message.
We begin with Jesus' satime. He is at the table with His disciples, all of them reclining, propped up on their elbows, dipping a pit of bread into bowls of hummus, a couple of glasses of wine. And in the midst of this, Jesus took bread. He gave thanks, broke it. "This is my body, given for you." In the same way, he took the cup. "This is my blood shed for you." He gives us Himself.
Jesus' response to His inner circle, who have disappointed Him so many times over the years, is to feed them, give them Himself in bread and wine. And soon we will share in this meal. We will eat with each other. Jesus will feed us with Himself, His body and blood. And we know that as often as we eat up this bread and drink from this cup, Christ is present with us. Christ gives Himself for us.
This is a table that we all come to be fed, be nourished, and be welcomed by Jesus. While conversation fills the room, Jesus gets up from the table. Takes off His outer robe, wraps a towel around His waist. He pours water into a basin and begins to wash the feet of His disciples. He explains, "I have said an example for you. I give you a new commandment. You should love one another."
Jesus does this for His disciples who betray, deny, abandon. He washes. The action is personal, intimate. The disciples need to be washed. And out of love, out of service, Jesus does it. It is an action and a teaching that summarizes what Jesus came to show the world. And for us too, we need to be washed. We need our stinky parts cleaned. We need Jesus. And so Jesus serves us. Jesus cleanses us, forgives us. And He does that out of love.
That is what we declare tonight, that God, who is rich and mercy, loved us, even when we were dead in sin, by grace you have been saved. Out of love for us, Jesus forgives us, washes us. And tonight we also hear that Jesus is no longer wrapped in a towel. Not even that purple robe that the soldiers used to mock him. He is stripped down, stripped of dignity, is closed, torn and gambled for. He's left on a cross to die.
Collateral damage by an empire that doesn't want any speed bumps. His mother, there at the foot of the cross, is waxed to her, is the disciple whom Jesus loves, with the support of only a few others. And to mark this tonight, we will end our service differently. We will strip this chancel area bare. No longer will it be wrapped in purple, no adornments, nothing. Beautiful sanctuary will be left empty. Slightly darker stained glass windows the backdrop.
Through this we might ponder our own painful moments when we stayed by a loved one in that last hour, fighting off our own sleep and holding on to every moment. We sit, we wait, we speak in whispers, we hug, we wipe away tears, we tell our stories. Eventually we say goodbye.
For those who were there on this fateful night, nothing that we have read was expected. None of it makes any sense. What was the point of all this? And aside from us hearing it year after year and already knowing how the story ends, we probably would be just as confused. A king that washes feet, a savior dying. There is no greater challenge to one's hopes and dreams than to see them nailed to a cross, struggling to breathe, pain visible to anyone who passes by. No one expected the cross.
Does the cross invalidate everything that Jesus taught, showed, and lived? What can be more final than putting to death the one who claimed to bring abundant life? Again, no one expected the cross. But for Jesus, it was expected. And for Jesus, the cross was the point the whole time. See, well, for us, this is all expected to humanity, Jesus knows, and Jesus is in control even now, and he has been the entire time. He came to lay down his life out of love. And on the cross, we see how far he is willing to go on behalf of those whom he loves. This is his moment of glory where his mission is complete.
For God so loves the world. And this is how in control, Jesus is, that even from the cross, he understands what is going on in the lives of those he loves. He cares for them, and he encourages them, us, to care for each other. "Woman, here is your son. Here is your mother." Around the cross, Jesus forms a new caring community. John paints this as a picture of a Christian community being a new family. Jesus is a family joined together not by a bloodline, but by the blood of Christ. And Jesus through the cross forms all of us into one family of faith. And this family shares in Jesus' victory.
That is what the cross is. That Jesus' life isn't taken away. He gives it over. Here God doesn't abandon Jesus. This is God's love poured out. This is the one who is the resurrection and the life, and he overwhelms all the death can possibly do. So when Jesus says it is finished, he doesn't mean it's finally over. But rather it is accomplished, it is completed, it is fulfilled. By willingly going to the cross, Jesus defeats death by entering into it. And instead of separating us, Jesus draws the whole cosmos to himself and promises that you, me, the world will be unified in his triumph.
So even when we find ourselves standing at the foot of a cross that we never expected, we know that God is not abandon us. But that this is where Christ has won victory and where He meets us out of love. We are not forgotten but known, not cast aside but drawn in, not left hungry and dirty, but washed and fed as Jesus makes us his own. And as Jesus' own, we are his family. And there he shapes us by his self-giving love so that we too might truly live as those who belong to him. Our lives and even our deaths are now changed by his own life and death. Form not by defeat but by the victory of the cross. Where love is fully shown and life is given for the sake of the world.
The cross confirms everything that Jesus taught, showed and lived. Jesus chooses to give himself, to wash our feet, to feed us with his body and blood, to hang on a cross and refuse to let death have the final say. That is what God's love looks like. We are known by Christ. We are held by Christ. We are made part of Christ's family. That is what the cross reveals and that is the life that we are given. Is that? That is the love of God. Amen.