Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, why does Jesus go to the cross? Why does He give us His body and blood to eat and drink? Why does He suffer being arrested and mocked? Why does He wash His disciples feet? Why does He permit Himself to be nailed to the tree and mocked by all who pass by? Why does He give His body into death for our sins? The answer, of course, is to save us from our sins. To pay for our sins once and for all and bring us once again into the Father's kingdom. But WHY? Why does the Son of God take our sins upon Himself and take them away by His blood? To what end? For what purpose? This He tells us when He tells His disciples: “I have given you and example that as I have done for you, do for one another. A new commandment I give to you: Love one another as I have loved you.” In short, what Jesus does for us, He does so that we might learn to do the same for those around us. If the Lord rescues you from your sins just for your own sake, so that you can boast that you've avoided hell, then He hasn't done anything. But if He rescues you so completely and entirely form sin and death that you can live only for others, loving and forgiving them, serving them and helping them, well then! The Lord's really pulled something off there!
To love others as Jesus loves us means first knowing how it is that Jesus loves us. How is that? In what way does Jesus love us? He loves us by giving His life into death in our place for our sins. St. John tells us that Jesus knew that He had come from the Father and was going back to the Father and that all things had been given Him by the Father. That means that whatever He does, He knows that He is the Father's Son. Whatever happens, whatever He must suffer, He is confident that He will return to the Father. That's the kind of faith and confidence that allows Jesus to put up with His disciples who seem to have no clue what He came to do. These are disciples who, when Jesus talks about one of them betraying Him, begin arguing about who is greatest! For such hard hearted people as His disciples and you and I who are always trying to figure out how we can angle things for our own benefit—for such selfish disciples, the Lord goes to the cross. But first He washes feet. He scrubs their little piggies in a show of how He loves them. Why wash their feet? Why not wash their head and hands? They're already clean. That's baptism. But sometimes, often, they step in it. They get sin all over them. So Jesus washes their feet. That is, He absolves them. Forgives them. He does this because that's His work: to forgive sins. And it's in the light of what follows that He does it. He can wash their feet, He can absolve them of their sins, because He is going to pay for them. Jesus is so confident in His Father that He can undergo death as a sinner for sinners. The way in which Jesus loves His disciples is this: He lives with them, puts up with them and forgives them. That means He doesn't hold their sins against them. Rather, He takes their sins into Himself and gets rid of them at the cross.
Is that how you love others? When they step in it, when they put their foot smack into a stinky pile of sin, do you wash their feet? I remember once once of daughters stepped in something unpleasant. What Jesus teaches me to do is to take a hold of them, tell them it's OK and clean their foot for them. Is that what I did? No! Instead I got all upset and yelled at them for not watching where they were going and now I would have to clean up their mess and couldn't they do things right? And isn't that how we mostly act when people step in it? And I'm not just talking about piles of poo, but all of our sins. When people sin against us, say terrible things to us or about us, when they should help us but don't, when they should be better to us and they aren't. What do we do? “Here, looks like you've stepped in it. Let me grab my towel and wash it up. Don't worry about it.” In other words, forgive each other. Put up with each other. Endure one another. DON'T treat one another as if they've sinned at all. Is that how we do it? Not usually. Usually if someone steps in it, we get on their case. Because we're so right and they're so wrong. Because they should know better. Because it's their fault and we need to hold them responsible. Brothers and sisters, that's not loving like Jesus. All such living does is show that we don't really believe our own sins are forgiven, if we dare to hold someone else's sins against them. There's our repentance: our neighbors step in it all the time and instead of washing feet, instead of forgiving and absolving, we wrinkle our noses and run away from their smelly sins.
Jesus loves His disciples, right up to the end because He knows where He comes from and where He's going. Pay close attention to those words! Jesus knows without a shred of doubt that He is His Father's. Therefore it doesn't matter what the world thinks of Him or does to Him, He can love it by giving His life for it. Just think: Jesus dies for the sins of a world that couldn't care less that He is here to save them! No gratitude. No thanks. Unasked for. But He does it because He's confident in His Father. That's the kind of confidence your Lord gives you by forgiving you your sins. When Jesus answers for your sins, they are answered for! Your sins are forgiven. You are clean in the waters of Holy Baptism. But you still step in it! So what does your Lord do? Throw a fit? Scold and punish you? No, He washes your feet again in the waters of Baptism by speaking absolution. No, you're not baptized again. But by virtue of your Baptism, your pastor absolves you and pronounces you forgiven. Then he feeds you with Himself, His own body and blood in a Supper He instituted the same night as He washed those sin-stinky feet. Brothers and sisters in Christ, consider for a moment what your Baptism, what absolution, what the Supper all mean: they mean that Christ has answered for YOUR sins. It means you know where you have come from and where you are going. It means you can love others as you have been loved by Christ.
So do it! Go and wash the feet of the people around you who step in it! Forgive them. Overlook their sins. What if they don't want your forgiveness? What if they don't care that they hurt your? What if they really deserve to be punished for what they've done? What if they hate you even if you forgiven them? Well so what? What does it matter? Do you know where you come from? From water and the Spirit, you have been born from above. Do you know where you're going? Filled with Jesus' own body and blood you're going to be raised on the Last Day and be with the Lord. So do good to others. Forgive their sins. Treat them not like they deserve but as if they are perfect and holy, which they are in Christ! Learn from Jesus His example of love which goes even to death to cover and remove the sins of others. That is the love that marks Christians and sets them apart from the world: they love by forgiving, even those who don't deserve it. What joy, isn't it, when you've stepped in it, to hear your Lord's forgiveness; that your sins are not held against you. Then what joy will it be for others to hear that from you! And if they aren't happy? So what? You have a Father and a Savior and eternal life! You know where you're from and where you're going. So love others as Jesus loves you!
Brothers and sisters in Christ, our Lord does not undergo the suffering that He does so that we can walk around boasting about how we're Christians and saved. He rescues us from our sins so we don't have our sins dragging us down and ruining us. And he takes away our sins, not so we can live for ourselves, boast about what we are in Jesus, and look down on others! No, He forgives them so that we learn to forgive others. He loves and serves us so that we might learn to love and serve others. Therefore the Christian faith is not a selfish faith but a selfLESS faith. It's not about YOU. It's all about Jesus and what He's done for you and all about your neighbor and what they need you to do for them. So, dear brothers and sisters, when you step in it, run to your pastor and say, “Wash my feet Pastor, I stepped in it.” And then, when those around you step in it, grab your water and towel, the water and towel of absolution, of forgiveness. Just as you are with a doubt, forgiven in Jesus. Your ten little piggies are clean again. And now that you've been washed for Supper, your banquet awaits! Amen.