Dennis Tuuri

Please stand for the reading of God’s word. John chapter 13.

Now before the feast of the Passover, when Jesus knew that his hour had come that he should depart from this world to the Father, having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end. And supper being ended, the devil having already put it into the heart of Judas Iscariot, Simon’s son, to betray him. Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands, and that he had come from God and was going to God, rose from supper and laid aside his garments, took a towel and girded himself.

After that, he poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples’ feet and to wipe them with the towel with which he was girded. Then he came to Simon Peter. And Peter said to him, “Lord, are you washing my feet?” Jesus answered and said to him, “What I am doing, you do not understand now, but you will know after this.” Peter said to him, “You shall never wash my feet.” Jesus answered him, “If I do not wash you, you have no part with me.” Simon Peter said to him, “Lord, not my feet only, but also my hands and my head.” Jesus said to him, “He who is bathed needs only to wash his feet, but is completely clean.

And you are clean, but not all of you. For he knew who would betray him. Therefore he said, “You are not all clean.” So when he had washed their feet, taken his garments, and sat down again, he said to them, “Do you know what I have done to you? You call me Teacher and Lord, and you say well, for so I am. If I then, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet.

For I have given you an example that you should do as I have done to you. Most assuredly I say to you, a servant is not greater than his master, nor is he who is sent greater than he who sent him. If you know these things, blessed are you if you do them. I do not speak concerning all of you. I know whom I have chosen. But that the scriptures may be fulfilled, ‘He who eats bread with me has lifted up his heel against me.’

Now I tell you before it comes to pass, that when it does come to pass, you may believe that I am he. Most assuredly I say to you, he who receives whomsoever I send receives me, and he who receives me receives him who sent me.” When Jesus had said these things, he was troubled in spirit and testified and said, “Most assuredly I say to you, one of you will betray me.” Then the disciples looked at one another, perplexed about whom he spoke.

Now there was leaning on Jesus’s bosom one of his disciples whom Jesus loved. Simon Peter therefore motioned to him to ask who it was of whom he spoke. Then leaning back on Jesus’s breast, he said to him, “Lord, who is it?” Jesus answered, “It is he to whom I shall give a piece of bread when I have dipped it.” And having dipped the bread, he gave it to Judas Iscariot, the son of Simon. Now after the piece of bread, Satan entered him.

Then Jesus said to him, “What you do, do quickly.” But no one at the table knew for what reason he said this to him. For some thought, because Judas had the money box, that Jesus had said to him, “Buy those things we need for the feast, or that he should give something to the poor.” Having received the piece of bread, he then went out immediately, and it was night. So when he had gone out, Jesus said, “Now the Son of Man is glorified, and God is glorified in him.

If God is glorified in him, God will also glorify him in himself and glorify him immediately. Little children, I shall be with you a little while longer. You shall seek me and as I said to the Jews, ‘where I am going, you cannot come.’ So now I say to you, a new commandment I give to you, that you love one another as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this all will know that you are my disciples if you have love for one another.” Simon Peter said to him, “Lord, where are you going?” Jesus answered him, “Where I am going, you cannot follow me now, but you shall follow me afterward.

Peter said to him, “Lord, why can I not follow you now? I will lay down my life for your sake.” Jesus answered him, “Will you lay down your life for my sake? Most assuredly, I say to you, the rooster shall not crow until you have denied me three times.”

Let’s pray. Father, we thank you for your word and for your spirit. And we pray now that the spirit would minister this word to us, illumine our hearts and our minds to understand these words and to be transformed by the power of your spirit that we might consecrate all that we have to your service in Jesus’ name we ask it. Amen.

You may be seated and the nursery people may be dismissed with the young children.

I arrived and did not get the outlines out until about five minutes before the service. So some of you may not have the outline. I think it would be good for you to have it. Mike, could you see if people need an outline?

Thank you. Raise your hands if you need an outline, please.

We’re dealing today with the Lord’s Supper as we go through the order of our worship. You should have probably discerned that from the opening hymn of praise, “Shepherd of Tender Youth.” It’s a song that was written over 1,800 years ago and is a delight to this church where we welcome our children to the feast that the Lord Jesus Christ has prepared for all his people as their shepherd.

We also sang about God’s peace. And if you’ve been listening to this series, you’ll remember that communion correlates to the peace offering of the Old Testament worship cycle. So that’s what we’ll be dealing with today as we discuss the Lord’s Supper in the context of our worship.

I’ve had several conversations over the years with various people about how one would like to die. Not a common topic, I suppose, but I’ve often kind of thought it’d be good to have somewhat of a lingering death. It might sound a little odd, but in the scriptures, last words are important.

I know of a woman who died recently of cancer and apparently wasn’t really informed of the full extent of the cancer, nor was her family. And that’s kind of the way our world is, you know, living in a denial of death. But for us as Christians, we of all people should not look at things this way. We have recorded in John 13:1-17 the last words as it were of our Savior. As I said, last words are important.

Paul gives last words in some of his epistles. Joshua’s last words are important. Moses’ last sermons are important in the book of Deuteronomy. And our Savior’s last words in John 13-17 are also very important for us.

I also want to talk a little bit about his last action recorded for us in John 13 through 17. The book of John is structured in such a way that chapters 13 through 17 all take place in the context of the last supper.

And as we consider the communion or Eucharist portion of our worship, it seemed good to have a little review on your sheet as we did last time about where communion is and the flow of the worship to focus primarily on our Savior’s last words. We’ll only deal with chapter 13. More could be said of course about this and probably this coming year I’ll be bringing some sermons from the book of John, as it is my Bible course for the high schoolers this year.

So I am beginning to study it in more depth.

Now we know that the communion portion of our service—hopefully we know by now—is according to the model revealed in the Old Testament worship system the third phase of our worship before God. We know that it follows the purification offering represented by our confession of sins. I would mention of course that in the context of the foot washing that our Savior enters into in John 13, I think we can make reference to this purification offering and will when we get to the text directly.

It is as if he is preparing his disciples for partaking of the last supper and our purification ritual liturgy—confession of sins and receiving the assurance of forgiveness—is preparatory to the preaching of the word. The sharp two-edged sword of God that cuts us up, puts us on the offering we rededicate and consecrate ourselves anew in the ascension or whole burnt offering phase of our worship layered over with our tribute offering.

The grain that we bring, processed grain required in the book of Leviticus in the Old Testament. So the processed work that we bring throughout the rest of the week comes before God as our tribute offering to our great King layered on top of the whole burnt offering and our total dedication in response to God’s word which has both cut us apart and healed us and made us new people in Christ.

And so we move from the flow of these offerings. It’s this tribute offering layered on top of the preaching of the sermon and the offering and of course frankincense—the intercessory prayer of the church for the world. All of the liturgy being preparatory in a sense to the purpose of God’s calling his people out to pray for the world and to seek the conversion of the world through prayers for the world and the destruction of the ungodly and the exaltation of the elect in Christ.

And then we get to our third focus of our worship service which is the New Testament correlation to the peace offering. The distinctive element of the purification offering was the death aspect of it. The Day of Atonement was a purification offering and death is the primary significance of that. While the whole burnt offering is killed, the primary significance or stress on the whole burnt offering is ascension and consecration.

And so it moves up that way. The primary significance of the peace offering in Leviticus chapter 3 is the offerer himself gets to partake of a meal with God. All offerings are food for God. Another Hebrew word that’s used for all the offerings of the Old Testament is “to draw near.” So we draw near and we have food with God. But all the offerings save the peace offering is consumed either by God’s representative the priest or by God directly in the smoke.

The peace offering’s significance is that the offerer in the Old Testament system got to eat a portion of it and it says explicitly with his family and friends. So it has this idea—the great culmination of the flow of the offerings—being to sit down, have a meal with God, you and your friends and the priest and it represents then the coming work of the Lord Jesus Christ, the last supper and our communion meal that we come to at the conclusion or height of our worship service together.

Every Lord’s day, God invites us to his house. He says, “Come on over on Sunday. When you come in the door, I want you to wash your feet. Don’t muck up my carpet and stuff. After you wash your feet, we’re going to sit down and we’re going to have a little talk. I’m going to bring some renewed knowledge and wisdom to you. Ask you to set aside the wisdom of the world in place of my wisdom. I’m going to instruct you.

And after I’ve instructed you and you’ve paid tribute to me with your offerings and in your prayer, then I’m going to feed you and I’m going to cause you to rejoice this day with me and with the friends and family that I brought into my house with you this day.”

So God says he brings us to his house. He cleanses us. He feeds us with his word and then he feeds us with the sacrament and causes us to have life, joyous, celebratory life in the presence of God and the presence of his people.

And so the Old Testament tracked this same way. The feasts tracked from Passover to Pentecost to Tabernacles—tracked from deliverance where death is the primary significance to new knowledge where the word of God comes at Pentecost to his people, the Law coming down from Sinai, to the great celebration at the end of the year, the feast of Tabernacles or Booths. It tracks that way from Aaron’s rod that blossoms in the holy place—the word of God in that holy place—and the manna come down from heaven, the source of true joy, union and communion with God and with all those who partake of the heavenly manna as well.

The Old Testament tracks this way. Our worship tracks this way. And this is why we have communion at the place we have it in the context of our service.

Now, most people don’t know what we’ve been focusing on in terms of what we believe is the divinely ordered flow of worship. Most churches have stressed elements of worship. Most churches have a sermon, an offering, a prayer, praise, confession of sin, communion.

The elements of worship have been stressed by the church historically, but really the flow of worship has been lost in the last couple of hundred years. These elements seem to want to be part of a process by which we are moved from death and resurrection to consecration and then to communion at the end of the service. And that flow of service is important to us. It transforms who we are whether we like it or not.

What we do ritually here—particularly as we meditate upon that ritual—focuses us on the pattern of how our lives are to be lived out. And we know these things. We know that most churches today have a hard time doing what Jesus simply tells them to do in reference to the Lord’s Supper. I mean, Jesus clearly uses wine, but most churches don’t use wine. Jesus says that worship is covenant renewal and he wants you to come and have a meal with him.

And yet, most churches when they get together on Sunday don’t have a meal with the Savior. Paul records—or Luke records in Acts—that they got together the first day of the week for the purpose of breaking bread, communion. And yet, churches today don’t typically involve communion every Lord’s day. It’s simple. When you get together, have the Lord’s Supper, have wine, have bread, invite all your friends and family who have confessed their sins, including your children, to my table.

Easy. And yet, churches don’t do it. And we can pride ourselves because we know these things and we’re doing these things. We understand this flow of worship. We know now a little more of the Old Testament worship patterns that inform us of what Jesus brought to culmination in his work 2,000 years ago.

But I want us to focus today from John 13 on something that must be layered into the heart of all that we do here in terms of communion.

Now, of course, communion is an encapsulation of the whole gospel. And you know, there is never enough time to speak about all that’s involved in communion. But I want us to look at John 13 and look at something that I think is absolutely critical. And now this isn’t really new for us. We’ve talked about this before. We know that in 1 Corinthians 11, the thing that’s being corrected by the Apostle Paul is breaking up the unity of the church.

We know that unity is important. But I want us to look at some of the last words of our Savior here. And one of his last actions, his last action explicitly talked of in this text as an example for us. We want to talk about this upper room discourse. We want to talk about Jesus’s last words and last deeds.

Now, I’ve given you a little outline of chapter 13. I haven’t given you a whole outline of the whole section. Don’t want to confuse you, but I think it is worth noting that chapters 14, 15, and 16 go on to talk about the Father, the Son, and the Spirit—the Father and giving us our requests and prayers, we bring them to him. Jesus being the true vine and Jesus sending the Comforter. Jesus rehearses at the last supper the covenant renewal where we have union and communion with the triune God.

Jesus rehearses in the rest of the upper room discourse—the last supper sermon—our union with the Father, the Son, the vine, and the Spirit, the Comforter. And so that’s the context for these things.

And we want to look specifically at how all this starts and then a couple of the first elements of the literary structure of chapter 13. I’ve given you a little brief outline at first. First, there’s a prologue. It’s kind of an introduction to the entire upper room discourse.

Then Jesus engages in an act of foot washing. Judas then leaves to betray our Savior. Jesus then gives them this new command—new in the sense of renewed—to love one another and to love their neighbor. And then there’s some interaction between Jesus and Peter at the end of the chapter and a clear break there in the literary structure.

So we want to look at those things, look at these elements and draw out some important truths of the Lord’s Supper and what it memorializes for us.

First we want to say that the Lord’s Supper, in terms of the prologue, memorializes three things. First, it memorializes the love of the Savior. We read in verse one, and please follow along in these texts if you will. It’ll help with the flow of the sermon. I think if you actually look at your Bibles as we speak about these verses. Verse one of chapter 13.

Now, before the feast of the Passover, let me just say there that we have here a specific time marker given for this portion of John—before the feast of the Passover.

One way to outline or structure the book of John are the three different Passovers that are given or that serve as time markers for the discussion that John has of our Savior’s ministry. The three synoptic gospels—Matthew, Mark, and Luke—deal primarily with one year of Jesus’s ministry. John covers all three years of ministry. And he does it and draws our attention to it by talking about three specific Passovers.

The first Passover is mentioned, next Passover of his next year of ministry and the third Passover at the end of his third year of ministry is what we have here in verse one of chapter 13. It’s a way to structure the book and I think it’s more than that and at the end of the sermon I’ll draw out some illustrations from that threefold model that I read recently, primarily from the pen of Jeff Meyers. But we’ll talk more about this.

Put that away in the back of your brain. We’re going to go back to these three Passover time markers at the end of the sermon.

But Jesus says—it says—at the feast of the Passover, when Jesus knew that his hour had come that he should depart from this world to the Father, having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end. Okay, so the scene is set. This is the third and climactic Passover of our Savior’s ministry.

Death overshadows this entire period. He is going to his death. He knows what is happening here. He knows that his hour has come, his hour of death on the cross and resurrection. He will depart from this world to the Father. Jesus knows that his death will be a portal—a gateway or door—to a return of union with the Father. Jesus comprehends his death as painful and difficult as it will bear the sins of all his elect people.

But he sees that as a transition to be with the Father. Jesus is the firstborn of us, correct? We follow in Jesus’s steps. You know that song we sang this morning, “Shepherd of Tender Youth”—”lead us where you have trod.” From now until we die, verse four of that song goes on to sing. We tread in the steps of Jesus and those steps move toward a death and they will for us as well.

And one of the things that happens as you transition into mature adulthood is that you become more acquainted with death as an element of your life. You get to middle age and friends start dying and parents start dying. Then you get to where I’m about to enter—a week from tomorrow I’ll turn fifty—and you’re moving toward death in a very obvious deliberate way. Now you know that your hour is coming. Maybe twenty, thirty years, maybe ten, you don’t know. Your hour is coming.

As you mature, you mature toward death. But our Savior here instructs us and the Spirit wants us to know that just as Jesus knew that he would depart from this world to the Father, so we’re to see our own deaths as portals, passageways to the Father, to the joy of being in the presence of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. So Jesus instructs us here that death is a passage to the Father. And he knew this of his own death.

And having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end. Now we are like these disciples. We are in the world. Jesus is leaving the world here to go to the Father. And he knows he’s leaving his disciples in the world. Now he has loved them in that world. He has been with them, served them, taught them, ministered to them. He’s loved them. But the explicit expression here is he loves them to the end. See, to the point of his death and resurrection. That death is a loving of his disciples to the end.

You know, John, in his epistle—in his first epistle—following up on this thought, you know that here in his love, Jesus laid down his life for us, not that we loved him, but that he loved us and laid down his life for us. His death is this love to us and this is going to form the basis of everything that happens in this first chapter. Really, everything that happens here is an expansion of this idea that he loves to the end and he assures us that our end is a transition to the presence of the Father as a way to encourage us to tread where he has trod, to love each other in the context of this church, in the context of the fellowship we have, to love each other to the end.

Jesus puts the last supper in the context of this memorialization of the love of the Savior. He loves to the end.

Secondly, the Lord’s Supper memorializes the reign of the Lord Jesus Christ. This is one of the great things we’ve rejoiced in this last decade or two—is that we know that communion, the Lord’s Supper, is not about, you know, Jesus not winning. It’s about his reign and his victory that came as a result of what he accomplished on the cross.

And that’s here too. I believe in verse three. Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands, that he had come from God and was going to God, arose from supper and laid aside his garments, took a towel and girded himself. Jesus knows in the context of the last supper and he puts this in here. The Spirit puts it here. John wants us to meditate on this. Jesus knows that the Father has given all things into his hand.

As we approach our death, as we mature, or as we come to the Lord’s Supper, we know that it’s a memorialization of the reign of the Lord Jesus Christ, that death leads to victory, that suffering leads to exaltation and glory. And he’ll repeat this in the corresponding part of this outline under the section that I’ve entitled the command to love. Jesus knows that he reigns, that all things have been put into his hand, and that he is going to God.

And it’s interesting talk here. He had come from God and was going to God. And some commentators have seen in verse four a picture of his coming forth from God to serve his people. We read in verse four that he rose from supper and laid aside his garments, took a towel and girded himself. So he takes off the exterior robe. Robes are garments of authority, of visage, or strength. And he takes those garments off and girds himself for strength with the towel instead.

And some see here a picture of the Lord Jesus Christ removing himself from the presence of the Father to come to mankind as it were and to humble himself to take upon himself the sins of his people. Setting aside all his claims that he could claim for those years of ministry. Setting aside his royal prerogative and the Lord Jesus Christ comes to serve. Now again, all this works together and we see that what’s really going on here is our Savior is stripping aside his authority so that he might submit in service to the disciples and might serve them and lead them actually and be their master through his service to the disciples.

But our Lord Jesus Christ reminds us here that the supper is a memorialization of the reign of the Savior.

Third in this opening section, this prologue, the Lord’s Supper memorializes the service of the master. And this is really more to the point of the direct focus of what I think we need to remember as we come to the table. Verse 5. After that, he poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples’ feet to wipe them with the towel with which he was girted. Then he came to Simon Peter and Peter said to him, “Lord, are you washing my feet?”

Jesus moves here to the foot washing of the disciples. Now Peter is given here as an example of us—fallen man desires to know what is the reason for the things that God wants us to do. Peter says, “I don’t understand this. I don’t understand why you’re washing my feet. I don’t understand why you’re the one kneeling down to wash my feet.” And Jesus says, “Well, whether you understand it or not, do it. You’ll understand a little bit.

I’m going to do something here and then I’m going to give an explanation. But you’re going to have to be patient and wait till the explanation comes. You’re going to have to obey for obedience’s sake.”

John Calvin commenting on this talks about the necessity of God’s people learning this lesson well from Peter—learning the lesson that indeed we cannot understand all things that God instructs us to do. Yet we should obey them anyway.

Calvin says this: “We are taught by these words that we ought simply to obey Christ even though we should not perceive the reason why he wishes this or that thing to be done. In a well-regulated home, one person—the head of the family—has the sole right to say what ought to be done, and the servants are bound to employ their hands and feet in his service. That man therefore is too haughty who refuses to obey the command of God because he does not know the reason of it.

But this admonition has a still more extensive meaning and that is that we should not take it ill to be ignorant of those things which God wishes to be hidden from us for a time. For this kind of ignorance is more learned than any other kind of knowledge, when we permit God to be wise above us.”

Calvin says that just as in the home we have the training where the father should be able to say things and the children should not have to ask why. So now, what’s probably the most repeated phrase of childhood, middle childhood particularly, is “why do we have to do this? What’s the meaning?” And you know, God frequently gives us meaning for what he commands us to do. It’s not wrong for parents to give meaning to their children. But children, young boys and girls, see Jesus said, “Do something here. Receive the washing of your feet at my hand. Do this.” Peter says, “I don’t get it.” Jesus says, “Too bad. I’ll explain it in a while, but right now do it. If you don’t do it, Jesus says, you have no part with me.”

The word is “communion” there—Greek word is translated “communion” in other places. If you don’t do this, receive what I’m going to do, your foot washing, you have no union or communion with me. You can’t come to the table without humbling yourself to obey me even when you do not understand the reason.

Children, when your fathers command you and do not give you a reason, they are acting like your Father in heaven. They are training you for your adult life when you don’t understand half of what’s happening as you go through your mature adult life. You’ll need to have learned that lesson well as a child to obey your parents without knowing reasons. And as Calvin said, even more than that, to be happy that God calls you to do things that you don’t understand what they are. That is wisdom to obey God in that particular way.

Calvin went on to say this: “In short, until a man renounced the liberty of judging as to the works of God, until a man renounces the liberty of judging as to the works of God, whatever exertions he may make to honor God, still pride will always lurk under the garb of humility. So if you don’t learn the lesson of simple submission, of honoring God without knowing the reasons, then when you do obey him, even when you’re given the reasons, there’s still pride that lurks in there.

You understand? What God is doing is driving pride out of our hearts by giving this example of Peter who foolishly doesn’t want to obey unless he knows the reasons. And yet all too often that’s just who we are as well.

Okay. So the Lord’s Supper memorializes the service of the master. Now in the context of this, the Lord Jesus Christ lays aside his garments and then he is girded with strength to serve. He girds the towel about his midsection.

Now, that is normally a position of girding up your loins for strength. And I think there’s something to be said here for our Savior removing the external shows of glory or majesty or reign or power or strength and instead girting himself with strength to serve. When we come to the Lord’s Supper, we’re to be girting ourselves, memorializing that the Lord Jesus Christ has exhorted us to his service—to serve one another the way that his foot washing serves his disciples.

Let’s talk explicitly now then about the foot washing, Roman point B on your outline. And here I have three more memorializations.

So first of all, when we do the Lord’s Supper, we’re memorializing the love of the Savior, the reign of the Savior, and the service of the Master or Savior. And then as we look at this foot washing that our Savior enters into, we see here that other things are memorialized.

First, the Lord’s Supper memorializes Christ’s atonement.

Peter, as I said, doesn’t want Jesus to wash his feet. And the Lord Jesus says, “Well, unless you let me do this, we don’t have fellowship, you and I. If I don’t wash you, you have no part with me.” So then, Simon Peter says, “Well, in that case, wash all of me.” And Jesus says, “He who is bathed needs only to wash his feet, but is completely clean and you are clean but not all of you.”

A little bit confusing at first, but what Jesus is saying is you have once for all bathed yourself and the illustration is one that comes from that time—dusty streets. People would take a bath in the morning. They’d be clean. They’d walk around streets to get to somebody’s house. The only thing that be dirty is their feet. Well, Jesus says that Peter has been definitively once for all cleansed. That’s what the word “bathed” means here. And that having been once for all cleansed, the only thing he needs is a small foot washing as he goes along his way.

And he says, “You’re all clean.” In other words, you’re all bathed. All you need—you’ve been definitively cleansed. But there is one of you that has not been definitively cleansed, and that’s Judas, of course. And he goes on to talk about that here.

So, the point is that as we come to this, it seems to me that our Savior is engaging in what would be understood by Jews at that time as a purification or cleansing akin to the purification offering at the beginning of our service. Remember that the purification offering at the beginning of the service, the worship in Leviticus, is not for big awful sins that have been done. Those are the reparation offering. It is for the normal sins that defile us in the context of the time as we go from sacrifice to sacrifice.

You know, you’re part of the congregation of Israel. You’ve been cleansed definitively through your circumcision and now you’ve got to be cleansed. You have to purify the altar and you’re purified through the purification offering as you come forward every time to offer your ascension offering.

So in the same way, it seems like our Savior is preparing his disciples for reception of the supper which will follow by this engagement in a purification offering of sorts—a washing of them. Now the atoning work of the Lord Jesus Christ is what definitively cleanses us. Of course, the Old Testament Day of Atonement was a purification offering and it removed all the defilement that had built up all year long. The great day of atonement that prefigures the work of the Lord Jesus Christ on the cross, making full atonement for the sins of his people.

So when Jesus prepares them for the supper, he reminds them of their definitive atonement, their definitive cleansing that has happened once for all to them and that has been affected by the coming work that he’ll do on the cross and his atoning work.

In the same way, as we come to the worship of our Savior, we don’t get rebaptized every Lord’s day. We rather get our feet washed. We get our sins that have built up over the week. We confess those and acknowledge them to God. And he assures us that they’re forgiven through the work of the Savior.

So Jesus’s atoning work is referred to here in his declaration that they are totally clean already, definitively once for all cleansed. And so are we through the work of the Lord Jesus Christ.

But secondly, the Lord’s Supper memorializes Christ’s continuing sanctification of his elect. You know, this washing of the feet is a picture of the disciples going from glory to glory. It’s a picture of the disciples definitively cleansed through the work of the Savior—except for Judas—still needing the sanctifying work of the Savior applied to them.

And as we’ve said about communion, it’s a ritual of covenant continuance. It indicates our continuance in the covenant. And as we come to the Lord’s Supper, we do so in the context of memorializing the sanctifying work of his people that Christ continues to effect—through symbolically here the washing of their feet.

You know, it’s interesting. Because in a recent movie that I saw, there were these—it was a depiction of Andronicus, one of the plays of Shakespeare, that’s quite gruesome. The scene, the opening scene in this particular modern version of it, is Titus returns from warfare against the Goths and just before this scene in this particular modern version of it, Titus’s grandson is playing with little toy soldiers.

It’s kind of one of those deals where they bring modern life into the, you know, ancient Rome and bring all these things. It spans zero to 2,000 AD. So this grandson’s play of little toy soldiers and these guys and they come marching back and a very kind of symbolic depiction of this Titus and his men. They’re caked with mud. They have armor on of course and they’re walking in a very stiff kind of stylized way that makes them look like toy soldiers like the little boy has been playing with.

And then when they come back and after they’ve been received back and the way they kind of reintegrate back into life in Rome is they take a bath, they take a shower and three of them specifically are standing under these three water ducts where this water comes pouring down and all the dust—the dust of death as it were—is cleansed away. The dust pictures their, you know, the horrible battles that they’ve had to enter into and the warfare and death that has coated them and clothed them. The dust, death, all washed off and they become human again.

Well, in a way that’s a picture of baptism, whether the author or whether the producer intended it that way or not. John is replete with images of water from beginning of the gospel to the end of the gospel. And this water is pictured both as definitively cleansing his people—we are totally bathed—but also removing the dust that unless we remove it builds up and cakes us.

Now, you’ve gone through this last week and you’ve sinned in various ways. And unless Jesus washes you from that sin, as it were, applying his work to you, applying the same water that is pictured at the baptismal font, but yet here in a sanctifying sense, what happens is that dust builds up and pretty soon you’re all coated with dust. You see? So Jesus says you have to be part of this ongoing process of him sanctifying you or you have no union and communion with the Lord Jesus Christ.

The Lord’s Supper is a memorialization here in the last words of our Savior in chapter 13 of John of both of his full atonement on the cross—totally cleansed—but also of his sanctifying work by which he removes us from our sinfulness that continues to plague us.

Third, the Lord’s Supper memorializes service in the body of Christ. And I’ve talked about this and this is really, I think, the main freight of this entire chapter of John and is the main freight of this particular portion of the last discourse of the Savior and it is the primary application point I hope that we all take away from this sermon.

The Lord’s Supper memorializes service to his body. You know, he’s told them that he’s going to tell them what’s going on here. And he does. He begins to explain in verse 12, “Do you know what I have done to you? You call me Teacher and Lord, and you say well, for so I am. If I then, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet.

For I have given you an example that you should do as I have done to you. Most assuredly I say to you, a servant is not greater than his master, nor is he who is sent greater than he who sent him. If you know these things, blessed are you if you do them.”

Now, the Lord’s Supper has an emphasis on the doing of it. In 1 Corinthians 11, it isn’t something we’re supposed to meditate on, discuss at great length. It is a ritual that Jesus gives us to do as a memorial of him. And our Savior here in his words recorded by John emphasizes this doing of this thing.

If you know these things, blessed are you if you do them. And what is the doing of them? The doing of them is service to the body of Christ. To follow in the steps of the Savior by serving one another. This will be reiterated as we get to the next section after Judas in his command to us to love one another—same thing really, same thing being reiterated twice for emphasis and being bracketed by Judas and Peter, which we’ll talk about in a minute.

But our Lord Jesus Christ as he moves his disciples to a true consideration of what the Lord’s Supper is about, he talks to them of their unity and their necessity to serve each other the way that he has served them.

We know lots of great things about biblical worship now and the Old Testament worship cycle and the flow of biblical worship and we know neat things about bringing our kids to the table and using wine and having communion every week and that there’s victory. We know all this stuff, but blessed are we if we do what we know. And Jesus says that as we come to this portion of our worship, what you should know is that your life is to walk in the steps of the Master and his life was to take off him external shows of authority and strength and to be girded with strength to serve his disciples.

Now, this is a pale foreshadowing of him being stripped and then put to the cross to serve us where he lays down his life. But it is a foreshadowing nonetheless that is important for us to meditate on.

If we know all these great things, we are not blessed unless we do them. And what we are called to do here is to see that as we come to this supper, we do so with a commitment to serve the Lord Jesus Christ by serving those whom he has sent into our life, doing practical acts of service. That’s what God calls us to do.

That’s why, you know, we don’t use the railing. The railing, at least in my understanding of it, kind of stresses individual—again, me reflecting before Jesus and just me and him. It’s all about me and him. But our Savior, as he leads them to the last supper, says it is all about all of you together serving and loving one another.

It is so easy for us to be deluded to think that we kneel at the railing and serve Jesus and we never enter into service of those that he calls his brothers and sisters that he’s called us into context of whom he sent into his life and our life and we’re supposed to receive as we receive him.

It’s so easy to fool ourselves that we have a great relationship with Christ. But God says the way to demonstrate that, the way to show if you really do or not is to enter into service to one another. I ask you and I ask myself, what practical acts of service do you do for the saints? Do you ever wash somebody else’s feet? I’m sure most of you do. I know most of you. I’ve seen you do it. I praise God for that.

May we grow and increase in that commitment to serve and love one another.

There’s another thing to this. If we can make correlation from this action of our Savior to the purification offering, and our Savior seems to do that when he talks about, you know, you’re totally cleansed. You just need to be sanctified. Then it seems like the service that he wants his disciples to perform to one another certainly are the acts of compassion and kindness and helping each other out and exhorting one another. “Do you need any help? How could I help?” All that stuff is very important.

But it seems also we’d want to layer into that what he’s telling his disciples to do is to perform the sanctifying purification portion of the worship. And by way of application, then all of us are to encourage and exhort one another and to serve each other not just in getting our cars fixed or our homes moved or our children babysat or whatever it is. But we’re to encourage and serve one another to righteousness, to remove the dust from each other’s feet that threatens to climb up and encapsulate us and make us less than human.

You know, that’s what happens to Christians. They don’t have that confession of sin or sensitivity to their failure to love Christ and the body. And pretty soon, it isn’t just their feet. They’re nearly cloaked up. And now they’re like those toy soldiers coming back from war. And they’re not helping anybody. They’re out for themselves. It’s every man for himself in the context of the war.

The baptismal waters and then the flowing waters that come forth from Christ’s altar cleanses us and makes us human again. As those toy soldiers in Andronicus become human, flesh again instead of just dust, the death is washed off.

I praise God for the knowledge that we have and I praise God for the way that many of you have served one another. I pray that we might always keep this at the heart of our communion together as we come to the table to meditate on this obligation.