Maundy Thursday, April 2, 2026
John 13:1–17, 34–35 | Christopher Ingram
He knows what Judas is about to do. He knows Peter will deny him before sunrise. He knows every person in that room will scatter before the night is over. John makes sure we understand this before the scene begins. “Jesus knew that his hour had come” (John 13:1).
And he gets up and washes their feet anyway.
Christians sang about this from the beginning. The apostle Paul quotes an early church hymn in his letter to the Philippians. Christ Jesus, he writes, “though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave” (Phil 2:6–7). Centuries later, Charles Wesley spent a lifetime trying to say what that means, and in the hymn “And Can It Be That I Should Gain?,” he got as close as anyone has. Jesus, Wesley wrote, “emptied himself of all but love.” No image to protect. No dignity being carefully managed. Just a towel, a basin, and the people he is about to lose.
Watch what he does with what he knows. He doesn’t confront Judas. He doesn’t warn the others. He kneels on the floor with a basin of water and works his way around the room one by one, including Judas. The phrase John uses, “loved them to the end,” shares its root with the cry from the cross tomorrow: “it is finished” (John 19:30). The love in this room tonight and the love completed on that cross are the same love. John wants us to feel that before Friday arrives.
Peter can’t stand it. “You will never wash my feet” (John 13:8a). We tend to read Peter as impulsive here, but there’s something more honest underneath. He doesn’t want Jesus to see what’s on his feet. Where he’s been walking. What the road has collected. This is the shadow the series has been carrying since the woman at the well, the man born blind, the tomb sealed at Bethany. The deep human instinct to keep the worst parts hidden, even from the one who already knows and is kneeling right in front of us.
Jesus answers him directly, “Unless I wash you, you have no part with me” (John 13:8b). The offer of service and the offer of salvation are the same offer. And when Peter overcorrects, asking for a full bath, Jesus must have suppressed his smile. Just the feet, Peter. Let me have just this. You’ll understand.
Then he breaks bread. Then he pours the cup. Then he says the thing that follows us out of that room and into every ordinary day of our lives. “Love one another as I have loved you” (John 13:34). As I have loved you tonight, knowing everything, kneeling anyway, giving myself away before anyone asked. That is the mandate. And the meal is what sustains us to live it.
Every time we gather at this table, we are in that room — that borrowed space, bread broken by hands that knew exactly what was coming and didn’t stop until he gave us his own self.
Prayer:God who emptied yourself of all but love, you sat at a table with the people who were about to break your heart and you fed them anyway. I bring you the parts of me I’d rather keep hidden. You already know them. Wash me. Feed me. Send your Spirit to make me the kind of person who loves the way you do, close in, costly, without keeping score. Amen.