As many times I have travelled to the foot of the cross, I have never been able to make complete sense of it. I am continually held speechless by the Passion – stunned and disturbed by what it reveals about humanity – our propensity toward violence, spite, anger, and hatred. I am left wondering, from numerous perspectives, how things could have gotten so out of control – so beyond our better natures – that we could have crucified Jesus. I find many questions, but few answers. And still I come, year after year, along with the rest of the church, to the foot of the cross – to that Friday that we have called “Good.”

As often as we travel to the foot of the cross, I think there is always a temptation to focus on ourselves this day. To recall our own sinfulness, our own brokenness, our own acts of violence. There is a temptation to plumb the depths of our souls, asking how the world could ever possibly spin so out of control that humanity could crucify the Son of God.

But then we are reminded: the Passion is not the story about the excesses of humanity on that day two thousand years ago. It is the story of Jesus, completely in control. It is the story where the cross is not an instrument of torture and death but rather the means of Jesus’ ultimate glorification. “See, my servant shall prosper,” Isaiah says, “he shall be exalted and lifted up, and shall be very high. Just as there were many who were astonished at him - so marred was his appearance, beyond human semblance,
and his form beyond that of mortals – so he shall startle many nations.”

The cross does startle us. It startles us because what should seem to be an example of our depraved humanity is redeemed and transformed into the ultimate example of God’s supreme goodness. John’s account of the Passion portrays Jesus as fully in control in his last hours – he orders Simon Peter to put away his sword to let him go with the soldiers. Jesus stands in silence before Pilate, knowing that death lay before him. In an act of love, Jesus entrusts his mother to the care of the beloved disciple. And at the end, Jesus is in control of even his final moments.

In John’s gospel, Jesus’ life does not end with a loud cry. It does not end with him asking why God has forsaken him. It ends with three quiet words: “It is finished.”

It is finished. Jesus has truly met the fullness of our humanity – even death itself. In his final moments, Jesus’ arms, stretched upon the cross, stand in nothing less than a full embrace of our humanity. Jesus has plumbed every depth of human experience – our fears, our joys, our sorrows and our hopes – and today, Jesus meets that last defining element of humanity – our mortality.

Because we know the rest of this story, we know that Jesus reigns from the cross instead of being defeated by it. We know that what was meant to be an instrument of shameful death has become for us the means of life; and that the scars on Jesus’ body become what Frederick Buechner called signs of the “magnificent defeat” – that Jesus’ wounds the proud insignia of the defeat which is victory, the magnificent defeat of the human soul at the hands of God.” We see Jesus lifted up, reigning, drawing all people to himself. It is finished – our salvation is accomplished – within Jesus’ embrace.

We look at the cross, and even as we see death, we see life itself. We look at the cross, and even as we see hatred and evil, we see love in its fullest measure. We look at the cross, and we see God incarnate, God fully with us, God fully for us.

And so we come and adore. On this day, we don’t celebrate the Eucharist and make our Great Thanksgiving – because in the shadow of the cross, we can offer nothing but adoration. And so we glory in the Cross, by which joy has come into the world. We sit, we adore, in wonder and in awe of the embrace of Jesus’ arms of love, stretched out for our lives, and for the life of the world.

“You call me Teacher and Lord—and you are right, for that is what I am. So if I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet. For I have set you an example, that you also should do as I have done to you.” John 13:13-15

In the name of God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.

Before I went to seminary, during one of the many steps of the process leading towards ordination, I spent a day with a psychologist and vocational counselor reviewing the results of several personality tests I had been asked to take. One aspect of my personality that came out clearly in the test results was that I like structure in the world around me. I like to be able to take everything about the world around me, and place it into an orderly framework – to break down a situation into its core components, categorize them, label them, tag them, and file them. This is what made me an able Chemist – I was able, using underlying scientific principles, to see the predictable order in the world of atoms, molecules, and chemical reactions.

But this desire for order wasn’t – and still isn’t - limited to the realm of academic knowledge. Socially, I like to know where I fit – precisely where I fit – into a given system – which is why in so many ways the catholic order of our Episcopal Church just works for me – for example, I know that I’m bound by a vow of obedience to my Bishop; I know that I oversee the spiritual and sacramental life of this parish; that I share in the governance of the temporal administration of the parish with the vestry. There’s a framework, an order, a structure in which life in the church is lived – and when I know where I fit, I’m comfortable. When responsibilities and requirements are unclear, I become profoundly uncomfortable.

I suspect that the Apostle Peter might have shared this personality trait with me. In John’s gospel, Simon Peter – at least to the point he appears in our gospel lesson tonight – is a relatively uncomplicated character; he travels with Jesus throughout his ministry, and is a dutiful disciple. In fact, he is only mentioned twice in the fourth gospel before John’s account of the last supper. The first time Simon Peter is named is after his brother Andrew says of Jesus: “we have found the Messiah, the Christ.” It his here that Jesus says that he will be called Cephas – later translated Peter – the rock. The second time we see Simon Peter, it is when many of the crowds that had followed after Jesus have begun to turn away because of the difficulty of what they hear from Jesus. When Jesus asks the disciples if they, also, wish to go away, it is Peter who answers: “Lord, to whom can we go? You have the words of eternal life.” Simon Peter has been brought to Jesus by his brother, who has told him that Jesus is the Messiah. He has seen Jesus work miracles – changing water into wine, healing the sick, feeding the five thousand, and walking on water – and he has named Jesus as Lord.

Simon Peter has placed Jesus into a orderly framework, into an understandable “structure” by the time he sits down with the other disciples at their last meal with Jesus. When he has called Jesus “Lord,” “kyrios,” he acknowledges that Jesus is invested with power and authority. A slave would call his master “kyrios,” “Lord,” – rulers and officials of authority would be called “Lord” by their subjects. Peter has rightly recognized that he is not an equal to Jesus – he has called Jesus “Lord,” and made himself Jesus’ subject. But Peter’s framework breaks down at the last Supper, when Jesus, “took off his outer robe, and tied a towel around himself, poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples’ feet and to wipe them with the towel.” Even a slave would not have to wash his master’s feet – and yet Jesus, the Lord, the master – abases himself, degrades himself, lowers himself – to wash the feet of his disciples.

It is no wonder Peter revolts. His conceptual framework has broken down – it makes no sense – “you will never wash my feet,” he says to Jesus. “Jesus, you cannot debase yourself for me. You cannot degrade yourself for me. You cannot lower yourself to be like me.” But Jesus insists, that “unless I wash your feet, Peter, you have no share with me.” Peter tries to temper Jesus’ act of service – insisting that he should wash his hands and his head. At least take part an act that slave would do – Peter seems to beg – Jesus, don’t lower yourself to less than a slave. But Jesus does. Jesus washes his disciples’ feet – and their feet alone. Jesus – kyrios, the master, the Lord – engages in an act of lowly service that no slave would ever contemplate giving to their master. “Do you know what I have done to you?” Jesus asks them. “You call me Teacher and Lord-and you are right, for that is what I am. So if I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet. For I have set you an example, that you also should do as I have done to you.”

Jesus’ final message to his disciples – to his servants – is that true power is found not in station in society, not in wealth, not in strength – but in humble, self-sacrificing, self-abasing, loving service. If Jesus, the Messiah, the Christ, the Master, Kyrios, the Lord - if God himself has washed the feet of his disciples – then every boundary we can place between one another has long been destroyed. When the Lord, when God made human in Jesus, deigns to wash the feet of his disciples, then all barriers are broken, for all time, for all Jesus’ disciples, through all ages. Christ, in his acts of service, shows us love’s true measure, and gives us new unity with one another in his service. The disciples did not know what Jesus was doing – but now we understand: that true service is perfect freedom. And it is in this newfound freedom that Jesus reminds us: “I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”

On this night, we remember Jesus’ final meal with his disciples; we remember that in the shadow of the cross itself, Jesus took bread, blessed it, broke it, and gave it to his disciples. And we make our Eucharist – our thanksgiving – as Christ again makes himself present to us, and, in his lasting act of humble service, gives us his own self for our heavenly food. But above all else, we remember Jesus, the Lord who serves us his servants; who feeds us his children: God, who emptied himself as and became as a servant and slave for the sake of the world, and the love of creation.