Tonight is not just about the meal. Yes, we strip the altar at the close of the service, so our attention is naturally focused on the Last Supper.

However, the Gospel of John is not overly concentrated on details of the Last Supper when compared to the other Gospel writers. A mere four verses describe the meal itself (John 13:1-4). So, John is obviously trying to emphasize another overriding theme in the meaning of Jesus’ life, death and resurrection through the events of Holy Week.

You may have noticed that the baptismal font has lurked inconspicuously in the chancel area throughout Lent. In some churches it is completely removed. But it has stayed with us, this Lent. For a reason.

The Gospel of John which we read during Holy Week and the upcoming Easter season was originally used for baptism and preparing candidates for a life in Christ (Shaia & Gaugy, 2021). The Passion of our Lord is presented in John as a graphic picture of the baptismal movement down into the water and rising up out of it (Philippians 2:5-11).

Of course, Christian baptism uses water to express the elements of death and rebirth. “In the early church, deacons performing baptism were instructed to grasp the candidate around the chest from the back, lowering the individual under the water in such a way that a ‘startle response’ was triggered, thereby providing an experience of near death” (Shaia & Gaugy, 20221, p. 242). It was a visceral reminder of this spiritual movement.

Arising out of the water, the baptized was then blessed and announced to the community as moving forward into new life with Jesus.

It’s the dying and the rising that John is interested in keeping together — that pattern is indivisible in a life of faith. You can’t stay under the water forever; eventually you have to come up. Conversely when you are in the water you can’t keep your body above the water; eventually you immerse yourself in it.

As people who have and are travelling this journey of faith today, how do we move from the old into the new? How do we resurrect into new balance and move forward in Christ? Those are the questions John wants us to ask.

In the Gospel for tonight, Jesus demonstrates the inner posture out of which authentic service happens. Not from a place of dominance, self-righteousness or privilege. But, rather, from a servant posture of humility in the presence of another.

So, and notice the baptismal imagery employed by John, Jesus after supper “poured water into a basin …” (John 13:5). Imagine now the reversal, the paradigm shift: The divine presence strips down practically naked and presents himself to his disciples in a way that would have been appropriate only for marriage partners or a servant before their master. And Jesus washes their feet! “There could have been no more perfect exemplar of both the intimacy and selflessness of Spirit in service” (Shaia & Gaugy, 2021, p. 243).

Intimacy means vulnerability. Being exposed for all our weaknesses. And accepting them. Loving even the fact that we are fragile, insecure human beings. True service comes from that heart-place of letting go of our ego pretensions.

It strikes me that when we wonder how to love others who do not accept our efforts to love them, when we wonder how to be faithful servants of Christ in the world today with those whom we are called to reach, when we wonder how to serve others in Jesus’ name, when we wonder how to move from the old to the new, we need to start by allowing our vulnerability to show.

We receive Communion tonight. From a cup. Maybe the cup you use at home for Communion has a chip in it, or a crack or has some history. Maybe tonight is the night to use that cup with the chip or crack in it.

Listen to this poem by Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer who illustrates the divine beauty expressed in and from a broken cup. It’s called, “What’s in a Broken Cup” (Wahtola Trommer, 2022):                

Not everything broken need be fixed. Even the loveliest cup, the one that seemed perfection, the one that fit just right in the hand and held the favorite wine, even that cup is only a cup, and, being fashioned out of breakable clay, it was, we could say, made to be broken. The fact it was fragile was always a part of its value. In shattered fragments, the cup is no less treasured–perhaps even more treasured now that its wholeness isn’t taken for granted. There are some who would throw the pieces away. There are some who would mend them with glue or even with gold in an effort to repair. But there are some who will cherish what is broken, hold it even more tenderly now, trusting its use– though different– is no less valuable. Trusting a fragment is sometimes more than enough. Trusting in every end is a beginning, and we might now sip our wine straight from the Source.

References:

Shaia, A. J. & Gaugy, M. L. (2021). Heart and Mind: The Four-Gospel Journey for Radical Transformation. Quadratos LLC.

Wahtola Trommer, R. (2022). What’s in a broken cup. https://ahundredfallingveils.com/2022/01/10/whats-in-a-broken-cup/