For the Sake of Love
April 2, 2026 • Maundy Thursday • Year A
Exodus 12:1-4, (5-10), 11-14 | 1 Corinthians 11:23-26 | John 13:1-17, 31b-35
We are awash in God’s divine presence, but we might miss it or not even realize it if we don’t first position ourselves in a manner to be receptive, open, and vulnerable to God. Everything we know and think we know, everything we experience exists within the presence of God, only we often forget. Subconsciously or intentionally withdrawing from the presence of God, any clarity of God’s reality becomes clouded, our priorities scattered or, worse, misaligned with God’s will and hope for us to be united–not just as one but as one in Love.
Tonight Jesus offers us a new commandment, only it’s not new . . . and not just because we hear it every year at this time. Even for the first apostles, the command to love one another was not new, already in the Hebrew Bible as part of the Holiness Code in Leviticus for our Hebrew ancestors and contemporaries. In Leviticus, there’s the call to love one’s neighbor as one’s self and likewise love the stranger or sojourner. Interestingly, the word used for love–אהבה (Ahavah)–is the kind of love that conveys profound care and selflessness toward others, one that emphasizes community and mutual respect in relationships. The Holiness Code upholds a clear sense of what is just according to the Lord, and mutual care matters significantly, for those alike and for the stranger.
While listening to an interview with Rabbi Shai Held, I resonated deeply with the way he described how some faithful people describe their religious tradition by saying what it’s not. This can backfire as he describes how some Jews in America have internalized Christianity and ended up assimilating rather than maintaining the integrity of their own tradition, solely using Christianity as a foil. In effort to reclaim that love truly is central to Judaism, Rabbi Held has written a book, Judaism is About Love: Recovering the Heart of Jewish Life. During the interview he said that it’s a trinitarian Christian thing to say, “God is love,” and it’s a Jewish thing to say, “God is loving.” The kind of love Rabbi Held points toward is “an existential posture,” a “disposition” that guides actions, how one navigates this life. Held offers that another Hebrew word for love, hesed, which we often translate as “lovingkindness,” might be better translated as “love in a way that begets kindness.” If we conduct ourselves in a manner oriented through love, our actions speak loudly of our fundamental beliefs, something our traditions share.[1] Our understanding of God in our religions differs, but I am reminded that the God of the Bible is God from beginning to end. God dealing in love is not new.
How humans deal in love has changed over time, due in large part to the media industry. In popular culture, we reduce love to sentimentality or romanticism, a feeling or emotion that is prone to change or manipulation and isn’t everlasting. We face a risk in our tradition by saying “God is love” without realizing that many understand love only to be that fleeting, feel-good feeling. That kind of love does not have room for nor does it include the broad range of emotions we experience in our lives. Rabbi Held warned that if religion is solely about feeling love, then our religion asks us to suppress other emotions like anger, frustration, sadness, and rage. And when those supposed unsanctioned feelings are suppressed, they become a ticking bomb, or we outsource them to others who can express them openly.
What was new when Jesus spoke to his disciples over that last supper is that Jesus embodied a fullness of love. We say faithfully that “God is love” because according to our tradition, God is a love of care, of respect for all. Yes, God is present in our familial and romantic love, and God is there in our covenantal love that demands our disciplined commitment. Our religion has and expects of us an emotional intelligence that believes all our emotions–as part of our whole self–can be brought to God. Jesus tells us to love one another as he loved us, knowing that we won’t, don’t, or maybe even can’t fully understand what he is doing. In his existence and in his actions, he fully embodies the complexity of love.
“Lord, are you going to wash my feet?” Simon Peter asked.
“You do not know now what I am doing,” Jesus replied, adding, “but later you will understand.” Is this later after the betrayal is revealed? Later after his trial and crucifixion? Or later in a few moments when he checks back in with the disciples to ask them, “Do you know what I have done to you?” Jesus, the Son of God, has inverted the roles of teacher and student, of one supposed to be superior to the one inferior. Jesus did for the disciples what a servant would have been called to do for their master, perhaps what servants were literally on hand to do that very night.
And in his example, Jesus puts surprising love into action from a posture of vulnerability, supplication, and intimacy. You cannot wash the feet of another from a posture of superiority. Jesus took off his outer robe, in a sense baring himself to his disciples, even to the one who will betray him. Love one another . . . vulnerably. Love one another actively. Love one another without restriction or hesitation. Love one another when it is unexpected. Love one another when it is not understood. Love one another when it is not deserved. This is new because God incarnate was doing the loving in action, in humanity, among us, and inviting us to follow his lead.
From the other gospels and from our lesson to the Corinthians, we’re reminded that it was this last supper when Jesus took the bread and wine and gave us the words that will lead us ever forward in consecrating the sacraments, making holy the food and drink of eternal life through Christ. When we no longer see Jesus face to face as the apostles did, we are to remember that he was among us, remember that he is among us through the power of the Holy Spirit, remember that in our partaking of the blessed Bread and Wine that we are truly re-membered, brought together in the one Body that is Christ, that exists eternally in unity with God. And all this from a new commandment, a little water, a little bread, a little wine, and all love.
I find myself hesitant to call forth the fullness of the presence of Jesus Christ this night. It feels too close. To remember Jesus at the feet of the disciples draws me near to my unworthiness. To remember Jesus breaking the bread as his own body will be broken wrenches my heart, even more as he passes the cup knowing that it is his blood that will spill, willingly, because God so loved the world. To remember all this and to call Jesus Christ close is to feel his words whispered clearly to my soul, “You also should do as I have done to you.” The least I can do is wash the feet of my neighbor, those whom I love. But I know Jesus is asking more. Not only wash the feet of my betrayer, but love them; humble myself to those whom I think are less than me; open myself to those who don’t know yet the power of love even when it’s a risk. All this and more I hear as Jesus says clearly, maybe even desperately, as he implores us to “love one another.”
But when we allow ourselves to focus on the love of Christ, we realize that we don’t have to summon it; it’s already there. We only have to cooperate with who we are created to be, surrendering ourselves to the posture of love that is among many things gentle and kind, patient and understanding, humble even as it is strong and everlasting. We remember the enduring love of God and pray that through our actions, everyone will know that we are disciples of Jesus.
[1] https://onbeing.org/programs/shai-held-on-love-and-judaism/
~The Rev. Sara Milford