Love This Way: John 13:31-35 - Maundy Thursday

Have you ever been “love bombed?”

I hate to use the word “bomb” during a time of war, but love bombing is when a person or group of people overwhelm you with kindness, attention, gifts, affection, all for the purpose of making you feel more loved than they’ve ever felt before. It’s a technique used by cults, pyramid schemes, and potentially abusive romantic partners. Behind that “love” is a nefarious desire to exploit and control the person.

It happened to me shortly after I moved to West Virginia when I was 24. I visited a nondenominational church near my apartment, and as soon as I walked through the door, I was met by their welcome team, who clearly recognized I was a newcomer. A woman, roughly my age, took me around and introduced me to several people my age who were part of the welcoming team, and pointed out the location of the bookstore, the coffee shop, and the restrooms. She then invited me to fill out a visitor’s card, which I did, though only including my name and email address. 

Later that evening, more people came to my apartment with a canvas tote bag full of literature, a Bible, a mug with the church’s name on it, and they stayed at my apartment for an hour. 

I can’t accuse anyone in that church of being unkind, but I was too overwhelmed to ever go back. It wouldn’t be right for me to accuse that church of deviousness just because they came on so strong, but their actions left me concerned about what I could be getting myself into. 

It made me question if their love was real, or if they were just looking to add me to their already substantial membership. 

Any kind of loving gesture that seeks to enrich the self isn’t love. Jesus doesn’t love you to make you love him back. Jesus loves you because that’s who he is. That’s what he was born to do.

That is key to understanding the love Jesus by which Jesus washes the feet of his disciples. Notice how he doesn’t skip Judas, who betrays him, or Peter, who denies him, or Thomas, who doubts him. He washes them all. 

Though he does what he does as an example to follow, you don’t have any of the disciples washing his feet. Reciprocity wasn’t the motivation. Rather, Jesus washes feet as a way of proclaiming the meaning of his death. In other words, Jesus was born to give his life away. In emptying himself of all power and glory, and in taking upon himself all evil and mortality, Jesus became one with the world he loves. He became whole. He conquered death and evil. He fulfilled the purpose for existence. But getting there was anything but easy.

Christian love is more than just a feeling; it’s more than just an exercise. It is a state of being focused not on accumulation and ownership, but on both giving and receiving.  It takes faith to believe that you will be made whole by giving away. And very few are willing to take that leap, because it is so costly.

Kindness is always a good start. Friendliness is, too. Most people are kind and friendly. Most businesses have kind and friendly people working at the counters and waiting the tables. Most churches have kind and friendly people greeting worshipers and welcoming guests. But it’s hard to say if there’s genuine love behind smiles and good manners.

One of the biggest reasons why the Church in 21st century America is struggling is because the only thing that will draw people in and keep us together is the love that washes feet. There’s lots of things we can do to make people want to come to church. But what makes us truly the Church, what makes us the Body of Christ, isn’t what we do, but what Christ does in us. You will not know the fullness of him until you give away your right to yourself, that includes your comforts, your preferences, your pride, your ego, and the need for approval, security, and control. To be full of those things is to be empty of Christ. 

Emptying yourself is hard. Letting go is hard. Giving yourself away is hard. It was for Jesus. His love for the world could not alleviate his suffering. But it did give it meaning and purpose.

But when you hear his love proclaimed to you, when his love is expressed to you through others, you are changed. Repentance begins when the realness of Jesus’s love meets your reality. You are emptied of self-interest, and your heart is turned outward to the world God loves, just like Jesus’s heart. It’s not you who loves the world but Christ in you that loves the world. You become whole in Christ by what you give away in love. 

When we strip the altar this evening, I challenge you to think of what you are holding onto, what you fear to be without, what you loathe to lose. Believe and trust that you can let go of it all, because Christ will never let go of you. 

After all, the resurrected life has no need for worldly comforts, the approval of others, security, or control. For you are living in Christ, dying in Christ, and rising in Christ. Every day you become less, every day he becomes greater.