Sermon Tone Analysis

There Are Many Ways To Say I Love You

intro -

For those among you who are faithfully following along through this years Gospel, the Gospel of John, you will have noticed, or will after reading up to this weeks text, that John moves pretty quickly through the triumphal entry and passion week.

In fact, our text today, just one chapter removed from last week’s text, happens towards the end of that week!

John doesn’t spend a whole lot of time, in fact, going over the events of the week.

There is nothing reported to have happened, really, after Palm Sunday.

Nothing, that is, until our text today.

So we will put a pin in Palm Sunday, and come back to it in a couple weeks, and today we will look at what happened right before the last supper - this last real chance outside of the cross for Jesus to express to His disciples and to us, His complete and total love.

Now before we dig into the text, I want to explain the origins of Maundy Thursday.

I don’t know if many people really understand it, so it is best to start on a level playing field.

Really, the best way to explain it, is to just explain the word!

Maundy is most likely derived from the word Mandatum, which is the word used by Christ just after our text for the day.

Here His words (read)

John 13:34

A new command, a new mandate.

Mandatum.

So what people celebrate on Thursday of Holy week, is both the last supper AND this new mandate, or commandment.

Love one another, just as I have loved you.

But there are many ways to say I love you, aren’t there?

And that mandate comes on the heels, so to speak, of Jesus doing just that!

Showing us His love, through the selfless acts of a servant.

So let’s open our hearts and our Bibles to God’s word...

John 13:1

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pray

[firstslidepichere]

What do you do for those people you love in life?

And not the normal stuff, I want you to take a second and think of the off the wall stuff you do for those you love.

For our girls, the answer is pretty out there.

Olivia makes things.

Little notes.

Crafts.

Art.

And Daisy dances or snuggles.

They both have different ways to show us they love us.

And to be fair, we show them love in different ways too!

I think the most off the wall way I show love is to make up funny names for them, and I am pretty prone to tease them too.

Whatever the way, we each have our own way of showing others that we love them, and that they are special to us.

[picofJesuswashingfeet]

Well in this moment, Jesus had his own way too!

And really, if you pay any attention to the text at all, you can see that it wasn’t really an expected method of showing love!

You can read it there in our text.

Jesus gets up from supper and takes off his outer clothes.

Church I can see the wheels turning right then!

I mean, what on earth is He going to do?

Why is He taking off his clothes here at the dinner table?

I mean Kate and I are pretty easy going, but we wouldn’t let our kids do that!

They must have been pretty taken aback.

But it doesn’t stop there!

Jesus grabs a basin and fills it with water.

Then, He grabs a towel and starts washing their feet.

Now let me be very clear here, church, this would have rocked their world.

Understand that at this table were 12 people who believed that Jesus was, at worst a great prophet, and at best, was the Son of God, and in the case of John, we can gather from his own Gospel that He already thought Jesus was God in flesh!

[talk about typical exegetical stuff???…hold judas stuff until just before rogers ending...

And he is going to clean your feet.

Imagine that.

Church, I can’t imagine paying someone to wash my feet much less having the Creator of the Heavens and the Earth bowing down to clean them!

How humbling, and unbelievably confusing that must have been for them.

[lovepic]

[lovepic]

But it was, in that moment, exactly how Jesus wanted to show them He loved them.

In fact, apart from the cross, this is likely the most clear moment we have of how much Jesus valued and loved his Disciples!

This is a striking demonstration of God’s love for us.

This desire to make us understand how special we are to Him and to His plans.

So special, that He had to show us through this act of humility and service.

But bigger than that, I think that this demonstration of love is so poignant because it is a private moment.

A moment unseen by outsiders.

A moment, also, that comes with no other “thing” attached to it.

This is just pure, one on one, human interaction.

[familyhuggingorsomething]

How quickly we forget about that type of love.

It is so easy, at least in our society now, to show love through trips, or toys, or technology, and especially through social media.

We buy flowers and cards that say I love you, but fail to buy time to offer to those we value the most.

We offer empty words for the approval of the world, hoping to satiate the emotional appetites of those we should be serving.

After all, there are many ways to say I love you.

I read an account, this week, of a social worker who works with terminally ill patients.

This person had compiled a list of what their patients told them that we should all appreciate while we are still alive.

Things they looked beyond before they knew death was near.

Things that we too, if we are honest, seem to forget while we are trying to fulfill some other unnecessary set of obligations.

Here is what they said they would miss:

LPT: After working with terminally ill cancer patients, here's a list of what they say you should appreciate while you're aliveSocial

submitted 2 hours ago * by Thisthingcalled_lifex3

Watching my sons throw a baseball

The things my patients say they'll miss the most are NOT seeing the World Landmarks, buying fancy things, that new car, "living it up" party style, etc.

Here is an actual compiled list:

Listening to my grandparents tell stories

Watching my sons throw a baseballListening to my grandparents tell storiesMy girlfriend surprising me with a kiss on the cheekHolding my wife in my arms knowing there's no where in the world I'd rather beGram's Sunday dinners and the whole family getting togetherMy dogSeeing my fiancé smile and feeling his arms wrap around meMy daughter running to me when I get homeThe smell of flowers and rainThe day I got married.

I said I never would.

And then I met her.