Details: John the Beloved - Sermon for Holy Thursday

Sermon for Holy Thursday, Year of Our + Lord 2022
Witnesses to Christ – John the Beloved: Details

   The Apostle John has lots of labels:  Gospel writer.  The brother of James, those famous sons of Zebedee, also called the Sons of Thunder.  Perhaps John is best known as the Beloved, the Apostle whom Jesus loved.  John, along with his brother James and Simon Peter, were the inner circle of Jesus’ 12 disciples.  Again and again, Jesus included only these three at critical events, for example, the raising of daughter of Jairus, on the Mount of Transfiguration, and in the Garden of Gethsemane, while Christ prayed till He sweat blood.  Perhaps in part for this intimacy, John’s Gospel reads differently than Matthew, Mark and Luke.  Less chronological story, and more detail: long conversations, inner thoughts and specifics recorded to bring us inside Christ’s mission. 

   Being so close to a great project, knowing so much about a thing that is happening, is not altogether easy or even good.  As they say, you don’t really want to see your sausage being made.  Better to ignorantly enjoy your brat fresh off the barbie, rather than go into the factory and see exactly of what and how your sausage is made.  Knowing too much might make you lose your appetite.  Knowing all the inner workings of a great project might make you falter in your part of the mission. 

   It would not be surprising if now and then John felt like he was seeing too much, learning too many difficult-to-swallow details.  John refers to himself in his Gospel narrative as “the disciple whom Jesus loved.”  That sounds like bragging, like pietistic arrogance: “I’m so special, Jesus really loves me.”  But that’s not what John is doing.  John was as close as anyone to the ministry of Jesus, not for any quality in John, but wholly by our Lord’s choice.  This closeness, along with his own struggles and failures, made it extremely clear to John how unworthy he was.  John knew how remarkable, astounding really, was the fact that Jesus loved him.  John isn’t saying that Jesus loved him more than others, but rather that it required exceptional levels of grace, forgiveness and patience to love him, sinner that he was.  And yet Jesus did love John. 

   John, like his fishing partner Peter, was not always a humble man.  Nor gracious.  When a Samaritan village didn’t receive Jesus, John with his brother asked if they should call down fire from heaven to destroy them.  Jesus rebuked them, for He came not to destroy lives, but to save them, (Luke 9:51-56).  John had a lot to learn.  And the more he learned about the Way that Jesus would love him, and the whole world, the more John’s humility grew.  John came to understand the depth of Christ’s love, for him and for all people.  This detailed knowledge changed John, forever. 

   But it wasn’t easy.  The details of the Way of Jesus are disturbing, especially when seen up close.  As John saw them, most especially on the night we commemorate here this evening, and the day after.

   On the night Jesus instituted the Holy Meal we will once again celebrate here tonight, John saw and heard a great deal.  From John 13 through 17, the Beloved Apostle fills five chapters of his Gospel with these details, the extended teaching of Jesus in the Upper Room.  “I am the Vine, and you are the branches.”  “An hour is coming for everyone who kills you to think that he is offering service to God.”  “The Holy Spirit will convict the world concerning sin and righteousness and judgment.”  “I and the Father are One; if you have seen Me, you have seen the Father.”  John gives us these, and many more mysterious details.    

   Another detail of this evening tests the strength of the disciples’ faith that all things are
possible for God.  Because on this night, Jesus takes bread and wine, and declares them to be His Body and Blood, given and shed for the disciples to eat and drink.  What in the world is Jesus doing? 

   This particular detail had to be very confusing, and perhaps offensive.  Because Moses in the Torah had clearly and repeatedly prohibited as grave transgressions both human sacrifice and the drinking of any kind of blood from any animal, let alone human.  But now Jesus turns these prohibitions upside down, and says take, eat, my sacrificed Body.   Take, drink, my sacrificed Blood.  Eat and drink, not in sin, but for the forgiveness of sins. 

   Which had been the point all along.  Human sacrifice is sinful for us, and pointless, because no mere human being’s life can pay for the sins of another.  Yet we still struggle with this temptation today, sacrificing one life to supposedly help another.  Indeed, the killing of unborn children is held up as a critical part of women’s health and a crucial tool for allowing women to find fulfillment and happiness.  This deceitful message couldn’t be farther from the truth.  Abortion tears souls and families and societies apart, silently ruining lives, of unborn babies, and their parents and families, and whole nations. 

   In the Bible, we hear of the testing of Abraham when God called him to sacrifice his only son Isaac.  This sacrifice would not have achieved any good purpose, and God never intended that Abraham should actually do it.  But this frightening episode did point to the final, infinitely valuable sacrifice, which God’s only Son, the eternal and divine Son Jesus Christ, would make, willingly, for the sins of the whole world.  Including the sins of those deceived and complicit in the lie of abortion and other forms of destroying life. 

    God through Moses teaches, and biology confirms, that the life of man and beast is in the blood.  Even more, the blood of the Man who is also God is filled with life.  Not just earthly life, but rather it is filled with the very Life of God, the life that flows from the great I AM, Yahweh, the Lord who is the source of all being and life. 

   God the I AM: that is Who sat at the head of the table in the Upper Room.   That is Who hung on the Cross, pouring out His lifeblood for us.  That is Who feeds us here, hiding His majesty, power, love and grace under simple bread and wine.  The blood of the Lamb, shed to wash clean our robes, returns us to innocence, and empowers us to live another day in this sinful world.   Christ feeds us with Himself, and then sends us out from His table as Christians, literally, “little christs,” anointed and restored to confess the Truth of Jesus in our lives every day, until that Day when Jesus takes us home. 

   These are bracing, mysterious details for John and the others to process.  But probably not as immediately difficult as that other spirit troubling detail of Holy Thursday.  “Truly, truly.”  “Amen, Amen,” says Jesus, “one of you will betray Me.”

   What?  One of us will betray you, Lord?  Who?  Which one?  Not me, Lord? 

   The disciples looked at one another, uncertain of whom He spoke. One of His disciples, whom Jesus loved, (that is, John), was reclining at table close to Jesus.  So Simon Peter motioned to him to ask Jesus of whom He was speaking.  So John leaned back against Jesus, and asked, “Lord, who is it?”

   Jesus answered, “It is He to whom I will give this morsel of bread when I have dipped it.”  So when He had dipped the morsel, He gave it to Judas, the son of Simon Iscariot.  When Judas ate the morsel of bread, immediately Satan entered into him. Jesus said to him, “What you are going to do, do quickly.” (Let’s get this over with.)  Now, no one at the table, (no one at the table other than John, that is), knew why Jesus said this to him. So, Judas immediately went out. And it was night.

   It was night indeed.  The hour of the power of darkness had arrived.  A man who had spent three years living and learning and serving alongside Jesus became the agent of Satan, the worst traitor in history, who betrayed the Holy Son of God to the Jewish authorities, leading to His arrest, torture, crucifixion and death. 

   And this was God’s plan.  Without excusing the guilt of Judas, or the Jews and Romans, or the guilt of you and me, without overlooking how bad it all was, this was God’s plan all along.  A plan not to excuse sin, but rather the Plan of Salvation, made in eternity.  A plan to atone for our sin, to take it away from us wretched, weak humans, and lay it on the all-powerful shoulders of the Lamb of God.  In order that He destroy sin’s power to accuse us, forever. 

   Details.  Painful, frightening details.  John saw and heard them all, even standing at the Cross as the end drew near, receiving the charge to care for Jesus’ mother, Mary.  Then John heard the great cry, “It is finished.”  The final bitter detail, that turns out to be the heart of the Good News. 

   For there is now no more sacrifice for sin; it is finished.  God’s Son has made the once for all sacrifice.  One sacrifice, by the One God-Man, to atone for, to pay for, all the sin of all people.  Therefore, in Jesus Christ there is forgiveness and restoration for all people, even for those who drove the nails into Jesus’ flesh.  Even for those who have aborted babies or broken families or whatever other horrible thing you and I have done.  Full and free forgiveness, in Christ, for all people.  Believe it!  This glorious detail, revealed on the morning of the Third Day, is the life of the world. 

   Details.  We continue to hide so much about ourselves.  Our recurring failures.  Our thoughts that we try to control, but cannot.  Our sinful appetites and hurtful words and actions.  We do not want anyone to see our messy insides, the sins we cover up.  We try to hide them away, because we fear no one would ever want to be our friend, if they knew. 

   But God knows.  Jesus knows.  And yet He is still your Friend.  For He has already done all that is necessary to rescue you from yourself.  And to rescue you from the sinners around you who hurt you and drag you down.  And to rescue you from Satan, who wants nothing more than to distract you from this blessed Truth, that there now remains no sacrifice for sin that you must make.  Because Jesus has finished it.  His shed blood, His broken body, His gracious words of forgiveness and promise and consummation, these facts, these details are your rescue, your deliverance, your joy, and your Supper, tonight, and forever and ever, Amen.