‘Jesus knew that the night before Passover would be his last night on earth before leaving this world to return to the Father’s side. All throughout his time with his disciples, Jesus had demonstrated a deep and tender love for them. And now he longed to show them the full measure of his love.’ (John 13:1) These words serve as a prologue for all that now follows in the Gospel story of Jesus. The ‘full measure of his love’ he will show them tomorrow, on Good Friday, when as he later puts it: “The greatest love of all is a love that sacrifices all. And this great love is demonstrated when a person sacrifices his life for his friends.” (John 15:13) Jesus going willingly to the Cross is the living embodiment, the incarnation, of St John’s earlier words: ‘For this is how much God loved the world—he gave his one and only, unique Son.’ (John 3:16) In going to the Cross, Jesus shows not only how much he loves us, but in so doing he manifests also the sheer magnitude of the love in his Father’s heart. (John 14:9) This is no ordinary affection, as St Paul reminds: “Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous person, though for a good person someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” (Romans 5:7) When we look on the Crucifix, we should see not just some gruesome and shameful end. Instead, we should see such great love, a love so profound that it can only be called Divine, a love so great that it can embrace even me … as I am, warts and all!

This Jesus will say to us later this evening: “I give you now a new commandment: Love each other just as much as I have loved you.” (John 13:34) By this, Jesus is not asking us to seek out some grand, symbolic death to prove our love. Instead, he shows us that true love is to be found in the nitty-gritty of ordinary life. So here, we are shown an extraordinary thing: Jesus, God’s Son, the Word made flesh, the King of Kings, ‘rose from supper. He laid aside his outer garments, and taking a towel, tied it around his waist. Then he poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples’ feet and to wipe them with the towel that was wrapped around him.’ (John 1:1, 14; 13:13-15) In this moment, in a downward move that parallels his becoming human (Philippians 2:6-7), Jesus puts on the dress of a menial servant and washes their feet, a lowly task reserved for the lowest of slaves. As their revered Lord puts it to them elsewhere, underlining this message: “Who is the greater, one who reclines at table or one who serves? Is it not the one who reclines at table? But I am among you as the one who serves.” (Luke 22:27) What Jesus is setting before them and us in his example is service: “Even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve,” says Jesus. (Mark 10:45)

What Jesus has in mind he puts to us tonight: “You call me ‘Teacher’ and ‘Lord,’ and rightly so, for that is what I am. Now that I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also should wash one another’s feet. I have given you an example that you should do as I have done for you.” (John 13:13-15) By this, Jesus is not looking for us to go around washing everyone’s feet, but that we might serve one another as he served us. For, as St Benedict has it, “such service fosters love.” (Rule of St Benedict [RB] 35:2)

To serve one another as Jesus did requires a specific kind of humility—one that mirrors his own. To this end, St Paul challenges us to “think of yourselves the way Christ Jesus thought of himself.” He goes on: “He had equal status with God but didn’t think so much of himself that he had to cling to the advantages of that status no matter what. Not at all. When the time came, he set aside the privileges of deity and took on the status of a slave, and became human! Having become human, he stayed human. It was an incredibly humbling process. He didn’t claim special privileges. Instead, he lived a selfless, obedient life and then died a selfless, obedient death—and the worst kind of death at that: crucifixion.” (Philippians 2:5-8) If we are to love as he loved, we must first emulate Jesus in his humility—we have to descend in order to ascend, as St Benedict would put it. (C.f.: RB 7:7; John 3:13) We have to set aside our own “status,” our own “advantages,” and stop seeing ourselves as somehow superior, in order that we might meet others where they are.

Therefore, “we must run and do now what will profit us forever,” says Benedict. There is an urgency here—not born of any anxiety, but out of a pressing desire to do what is good. (C.f.: Mark 10:17; Romans 8:19-25; Jeremiah 20:9) In following it, we will find that it does “separate from evil and lead to God and everlasting life,” as Benedict has it. He calls this desire “good zeal,” which we must exercise if we want to live the good life. (C.f.: RB Prologue:15; 72:2) What this might look like in the ordinary of our everyday life, Benedict likens to a competition in kindness: “They should each try to be the first to show respect to the other, supporting with the greatest patience one another’s weaknesses of body or behaviour, and earnestly competing in obedience to one another. No one is to pursue what he judges better for himself, but instead, what he judges better for someone else.” (RB 72:3-7. C.f.: Philippians 2:1-4) To help us live this level of selflessness, Benedict devised a twelve-step ladder of humility. The goal in its ‘ascent’ is not some sense of achievement, but a total transformation of heart: “Now, therefore, after ascending all these steps of humility, the monk will quickly arrive at that perfect love of God which casts out fear. Through this love, all that he once performed with dread, he will now begin to observe without effort—as though naturally, from habit—no longer out of fear of hell, but out of love for Christ, good habit and delight in virtue.” (RB 7:67-69) So do we arrive at Christ’s way of humble love. (c.f.: RB 7:70; Mark 1:10-11) In the Kingdom of God, love is the quiet, selfless choice that can put the needs of others before our own. In learning to be humble as Jesus was humble, we eventually stop “trying” to be good and simply begin to be good. We begin to love as he loved, and do as love does—not as a chore, but as our second nature; simply put, we become love. In that moment our transformation is complete (c.f.: Hebrews 8:10-11; RB Prologue:31; 4:42-43), and the promise of Scripture is fulfilled: “We shall be like him.” (1 John 3:2. C.f.: Romans 8:29; 8:15 17)