To Show God's Love

Read: John 13:1-17, 31-35

 

Maundy Thursday - March 28, 2013

The Rev. Kenneth R. Elkin

 

The scene: a VA hospital,

one of those wards with men whose bodies had been shattered in battle,

bodies without arms or legs, or hope.

Occasionally the ward would be visited by celebrities,

the kind of visit where they come in, get a photo of the celebrity shaking hands with a patient, and then leave as quickly as possible.

On a particular day, the men heard an announcement that a pastor, a bishop would be visiting.

They were heard to mutter, “Oh boy, here we go with the pious platitudes again!”

Later that day, the Bishop came.

He came in simply and quietly and went from bed to bed.

He remembered not to try to shake hands with an armless man.

The men were not rude, but the bishop knew they were only listening because they were a captive audience.

Each man was very much caught up in his own dreadful circumstance; what could this outsider, this well-dressed bishop know or understand?

The bishop sensed that things were at a standstill, and so he stopped talking.

He asked the nurses and assistants and his aides to leave the room, and when the doors closed and things were quiet, he began to take off his clothes.

Slowly, painfully, he removed each piece until he stood before them nearly naked and they could see his maimed and deformed body strapped together with a series of braces, pulleys, wires, and prostheses.

Then he began to speak again, using as his text He has no form or comeliness that we should desire him. [Isaiah 53]

He told them how God has identified with them and cares about them, even in their distress.

He told them of hope, even where they saw only blackness without hope.

He told them of what God does when they can do nothing themselves.

And he prayed with them and for them, earnestly and quietly.

Then after laboriously dressing again, he raised his hand in blessing:

“Now unto him who is able to keep you from falling, and to present you faultless before the presence of his glory with exceeding joy, to the only wise God our Savior be glory forever.  Amen.”

And then he left them.

 

That is a strange and wonderful story.

The Bishop was a wise man, who sensed that his words had to be visibly acted out in order for them to truly reach his hearers.

Those with shattered bodies could think only of themselves until they saw and heard the message from another with a shattered body.

 

It is not just those soldiers who react that way; it is all of us.

“Jesus loves me” sounds like so much hot air until we see this Jesus serving, even handling that most menial of jobs the foot-washing which no one else wants to do.

Until we see that he gives himself fully for us in suffering and death.

Until we hear those words: “This is my body, my very self, given for you.”

Not just for someone, somewhere, sometime; but for you and me, here and now.

 

God has shown his true nature in our Lord Jesus Christ

God has disclosed himself with words in action.

Remember in the Passion reading about the tearing of the curtain in the Temple and what that means:

The veil which hid God from us is torn in two from top to bottom.

If we did it, it would have to be done from the bottom to the top.

God has done it on his own initiative, because of his own initiative to love us.

 

This past Sunday we sang in the Hymn:

Oh, who am I, that for my sake

My Lord should take frail flesh and die?

Never was love, dear King,

Never was grief like thine.   [LBW# 94]

 

God finally gets our attention.

In the midst of our “woe is me” complaints,

God says “Here I am; hold onto me.”

 

And then in great joy we can let a neighbor in on it.

For I have set you and example, that you should do as I have done to you.

So that at length the whole world will see, hear, know, and understand.

 

Let no one say “There is nothing I can do.”

As long as we are breathing, we can still have a positive effect on someone who also needs to know by our words and actions that God loves them also.

 

This is possible because this day Jesus invites us in Word and Sacrament:

       “Hold onto me, because I'm holding onto you, forever.”  Amen