A sermon preached at St. Mary’s by Graham Low on 17th April 2025
I’d like to begin tonight by mentioning symbols, because they are particularly important in tonight’s worship. Symbols are sounds, or words, or objects in which we find a surplus of meaning. A surplus of meaning. They are about communicating something without being exactly specific. Traffic lights have an exact meaning and so are not symbols but signs. In some contexts actions or objects ‘speak’ to us in ways that we can only partially describe in words. These are symbolically important, but less than specific.
Sensitivity to symbols is important in the Christian life. They help us hold together traditions of church communities, and they deepen understanding of matters of faith. For Christians Jesus Christ is our determinative symbol, who in his humanity communicates an infinite surplus of meaning, leading us to think of him as divine.
Tonight we entered through the door, into a consecrated place – made holy – through prayer. We see the font – where our Christian life begins – with water the source of life, and the gift of the Holy Spirit, symbolized by the glass dove. Then we enter the nave – a word meaning boat – symbolically carrying us, the Christian community, together through the calms and storms, the sorrows and joys of life, with God.
We see the lectern – a pivotal for reading and reflecting upon scripture, and life in and with God. Vestments are worn to identify people with a role rather than individual personality. The physical light of candles symbolizes God’s light. Some bow as a gesture of reverence. All of us sing praise. The cross reminds us constantly of our Lord, some signing themselves as reminders of its significance. And at the end of the service tonight the altar will be stripped – taking us into the desolation of Good Friday, while reminding us of the chaos of the disciples.
More than any other day in the Christian year, the richness of symbols, scripture and prayer, help us to enter the core calling of all Christians. We not only recall the betrayal and eventual arrest of Jesus, the last supper, and the agony in the garden, but are called to allow them to re-present themselves to us now, and to allow ourselves to be changed by them.
In his letter to Corinthians Paul makes a link between a past event and the present community. He reminded the Corinthian Christians that the celebration of the Lord’s Supper makes a fundamental connection with proclaiming the death of Jesus. This meal is not merely a commemoration, but a command of Jesus to us all. Here the believer and the whole Church stands between the death of Jesus and his parousia, his coming again at the end of time. As Paul says, for as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes. Here symbolism points us to the depth of our encounter with Christ.
Tonight’s passage from John’s gospel is reflected symbolically in today’s liturgy, as Clare takes off her chasuble and washes our hands. This passage urges re-presentation rather than mere recollection of what happened in the upper room. This is about Jesus’ humility and service. It foreshadows the death of Jesus and thus his ultimate act of servanthood. By virtue of his service to his disciples and the service of his death, Jesus radically challenges all conventional and hierarchical notions about leaders and followers.
John alone of the gospel writers tells us about the washing of the disciples’ feet. Though John does not tell us about the last supper, we can be sure that John’s readers and hearers are familiar with the Eucharist. Now John is placing a new emphasis upon loving service as part of the meaning of the Eucharist.
It is important for us to realise that foot washing was routine in hot counties: it was a menial task by servants, by inferiors for superiors, and often by slaves who were usually women, or students for their teachers. It was unthinkable for teachers to wash their students’ feet. Yet that is what Jesus does. It is an acted parable to remind those around him that they are to be servants and not lords. Luke reminds us that Jesus rebukes his disciples for discussing who among them is greatest, with the words, I am among you as one who serves. Yet this foot washing is not just a moral example. It comes at a turning point in the gospel as John moves us from Jesus’ self-revelation through signs and personal encounters to the hour when he is to be glorified. The verbs used here and the language have already been used by John to speak of both Jesus’ death and resurrection. Here Jesus is loving his own to the last. Peter is reluctant about all of this. But he changes. Maybe we too have to be open to Christ symbolically washing our own feet, to remove the dirt and mess of our lives, so that we may share in his work of service and reconciliation.
At the end of this passage, Jesus gives his disciples the very core of what it means to follow him.
34I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. 35By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.’
If we could act in this way then the enormity of the suffering that humans impose upon each other in Gaza, Ukraine and Sudan, and in so many other placed would be hugely reduced. Then we could put our efforts into ensuring that everyone has enough food, water, housing and healthcare to meet their basic needs.
Tonight is a night for us not only to remember Jesus’ mandatum, his new commandment, but to renew our own efforts to follow it, to love each other, to be reconciled with each other, particularly when we find this hard.
I know as well as any of us how easy it is to say that we shall love and serve each other and how hard this is to do. To renew our ability to do this we must first face up to our own wrongdoing: only then can we be free to begin to love our neighbour or God. To nourish and sustain us in this calling of love and service, Jesus instituted the Eucharist on this night, with its links to the past, present and future.
In a minute or two we shall be invited to the washing of hands. This is a sacramental act: outwardly a symbol of cleansing; inwardly revealing fundamentals of what Jesus has asked of us as his followers: confessing, forgiving, sharing, loving. By doing this we not only remember Jesus’ loving service. We now also take part in, we re-present, the act of loving and serving each other. Thanks be to God. Amen.