Perhaps you will think that as I have spoken so much of Christ's love
to the world, of Christ as the Son of Man, I may shrink from what
seems the exclusive tone of this sentence: '_He loved_ His own; _He
loved_ them _to the end_.' Shrink from it! No, brethren, I would do
the utmost to bring forth the full force of these words; to impress
their meaning upon you. I would have you observe how carefully we are
told that these disciples were chosen by Him; that His love to them
did not depend upon their faith, but their faith upon His love. I
would have you observe how this love was manifested to them all as a
body--to one and another of them individually; how they were taught
that it was only this love which was sustaining them then, or could
sustain them afterwards. Unless we do that, we shall never understand
how they were witnesses against that religious world out of which they
were called,--that world of sects and parties,--that world where all
were choosing for themselves, and none were acknowledging a loving
Will which was ruling them; where all were striving for their own
views and opinions, and none were confessing their relations to each
other; where each was fighting for ascendency, and none was content to
be a servant. We shall never understand how these Apostles were
witnesses for the original calling of their nation, how they really
represented the tribes in which God had put His name, and through
which all the families of the earth were to be blessed. We shall never
understand what that Church was which they were to bring out of these
twelve tribes to be a witness to the world what its relation to God
was, and how, by forgetting that relation, it had sunk into a poor,
dark, divided, selfish world.
If we look upon His last supper as the special education of the
Apostles for that work which they had to do in the world, we shall
prize the part of this Gospel upon which we are now entering; we shall
perceive how all the discourses of our Lord that are recorded in the
other Evangelists, from the time that they left their fathers' ships,
or the receipt of custom, till the time that He entered with them into
Jerusalem, find their fullest illustration, their deepest root, in the
dialogues and in the prayer which St. John has reported to us; we
shall perceive how the institution of the Eucharist--which, as I said
when I was speaking of the discourse at Capernaum, it was no part of
St. John's function to announce--is more perfectly explained, both in
its principle and its effects, by these specially sacramental
interviews, than it is in any other part of the New Testament. And we
shall begin to enter--it can be but the beginning of a lesson which
must last to our life's end--into the purport of that sign which,
whether it preceded or followed the giving the bread and the pouring
out of the wine, teaches us how they are to be received.
'_And supper being ended, the devil having now put 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 was come from
God, and went to God; He riseth from supper, and laid aside His
garments; and took a towel, and girded Himself. After that He poureth
water into a bason, and began to wash the disciples' feet, and to wipe
them with the towel wherewith He was girded._'
Two hints are given to us which may assist us in entering into the
meaning of this act, though, at first, they seem as if they had little
connexion with it. First, St. John speaks of what had taken place and
was taking place in the mind of Judas; secondly, of the knowledge
which was in the mind of Jesus, that He was come from His Father and
was going to Him. What has the condition of the betrayer's heart to do
with this washing? We are to learn, I apprehend, that the very
corruption which was in _that_ heart,--the very evil which had ripened
into the darkest of all purposes there,--was that from which all the
disciples had need to be cleansed. Whatever else the washing
symbolized, it certainly imported the existence of _this_ defilement,
and that there was One who could remove it. Who could take the deep
stain of covetousness, of selfishness, away from the heart of man,
away from a human society? Only He who had come from the Father of
love, that He might enter into the strictest and closest fellowship
with human beings in their lowest estate, in all their peculiar and
individual misery. Only He, who was going to the Father, that He might
unite all in Himself. And He, knowing that He had come for this end,
and was going away that He might accomplish it fully, He gives a
pledge to the disciples that when He was seemingly absent from them,
He would always be with them to do this work for them. He would be
always near them to cleanse them from that pride and selfishness which
would hinder them from being at one with each other, and from showing
forth His mind to the world.
'_Then cometh He to Simon Peter: and Peter saith unto Him, Lord, dost
thou wash my feet? Jesus answered and said unto him, What I do thou
knowest not now; but thou shalt know hereafter. Peter saith unto Him,
Thou shalt never wash my feet. Jesus answered him, If I wash thee not,
thou hast no part with me. Simon Peter saith unto Him, Lord, not my
feet only, but also my hands and my head._'
On St. Peter's-day you will not suppose that I could pass over these
words; they illustrate so strikingly, as other parts of this chapter
do, the character of him whom we are commemorating. They illustrate
the particular education to which he was subjected; the education
which is needed for the impatient and self-confident man, who must be
kept waiting, that his eagerness to know, which is in itself a
blessing, may not become a curse; who must often have the very
thoughts and convictions which are most honest and appear most
indisputable, turned upside down, that he may not exult in them as
_his_ thoughts and _his_ convictions, and so change the truth that is
in them into falsehood. But the lesson, though peculiarly applicable
to him, is a universal one, and shows the universal worth of Christ's
sign. It is true of all symbols, that we can know little of them at
first. The experience of life interprets them. And it is the hardest
thing for all of us to believe that the Highest must wait upon the
lowest; that it is not humility, but pride, to refuse the service.
Wonderful thought to take in! God must stoop, or man cannot stoop. We
must set ourselves up as gods, unless we believe that God's glory is
shown in doing the lowest offices of a man.
But why was not Peter right in that other prayer of his,--'_Not my
feet only, but also my hands and my head_?' Did he not want a thorough
cleansing? Does not each of us want it? The question is one which
requires the most careful answer. If the Bible did not give it in the
most express terms, we should be utterly at a loss where to find it.
But from first to last the Jewish nation is spoken of as a pure and
holy nation by those lawgivers and prophets who complain of its
members for being stiff-necked and rebellious. There is nothing which
the prophets are so earnest in as in persuading their countrymen that
they are the people of God's covenant, and are therefore a holy
people; that they are _forgetting_ His covenant, and _so_ are making
themselves unholy. They call upon the people to repent and turn to
God, and then He will restore them, He will purify them; the hearts
which are red as scarlet, shall become as white as wool. The Jewish
sects did not in the least understand this truth. They looked for an
individual holiness, an individual cleanness, apart from the holiness
of their nation. Each member of them wanted a holiness of his own; he
regarded his race as unholy. He did not repent of the sins which kept
him from sharing in the holiness which they all had in God.
Now our Lord was educating _His_ disciples out of this falsehood into
which their age had fallen, this falsehood which was so natural to
every one of them. He came to show them on what ground the holiness of
their nation stood. It had been called and chosen in Him. It was His
righteousness, and not the righteousness of its individual members,
which justified the titles that had been bestowed upon it. These
members were righteous only so far as they rose out of themselves; as
they submitted to the righteousness of God. It was, therefore, His
first lesson to His disciples that, as a body, they were clean and
holy because He had called them and they were complete in Him.
'_Jesus saith to him, He that is washed needeth not save to wash his
feet, but is clean every whit: and ye are clean, but not all. For He
knew who should betray Him; therefore said He, Ye are not all clean._'
They were clean as a body, as a family. Each had need to be purified
from his own individual selfishness which kept him apart from the
family, which kept him from claiming the common righteousness of his
Lord. But they were not all clean. There was one who had wrapt
himself up in his individual nature,--one solitary, selfish being, who
would have nothing to do with the family,--who would have nothing to
do with the common Lord, the Son of Man; one who had sold his heart to
the divider, to the spirit of selfishness and evil. I do not know
anything which illustrates more clearly the sense in which the
Apostles, as a body, were clean than this terrible exception; or
anything which explains more clearly what need they would have for
that daily cleansing of the feet of which He had given them a pledge.
'_So after He had washed their feet, and had taken His garments, and
was set down again, He said unto them, Know ye what I have done to
you? Ye call me Master and Lord: and ye say well; for so I am. If I
then, your Lord and Master, have washed your feet; ye also ought to
wash one another's feet. For I have given you an example, that ye
should do as I have done to you. Verily, verily, I say unto you, The
servant is not greater than his Lord; neither He that is sent greater
than He that sent Him. If ye know these things, happy are ye if ye do
them._'
In the last century, preachers were wont to speak continually of our
Lord as an example. In our time there has been a kind of revolt
against that phrase as a hard and even as an unpractical one. 'It is
very well,' we say, 'to have an example; but can we follow it? Christ
is divine, and we are human. No doubt He was human, too, in a sense;
but then surely His divinity helped His humanity, so as to put all His
acts at an immeasurable distance from ours.' I believe there is a
genuine feeling at the bottom of this complaint. I believe it is a
very wearisome and a very useless thing to talk to men about examples,
unless you can show how that he who exhibits the example has some
connexion with them, and some power over them. But, on the other hand,
we are bound to inquire what has been the effect of example upon the
world, how the men whom we meet with that are better than ourselves
operate upon us, how it is that we can be impressed by the records of
men who have departed. Christ's divinity is not a hindrance to our
understanding the might of His example; it rather explains to us the
whole doctrine and law of example. Are not that doctrine and law to be
found in this passage? If He were not the Master and Lord, if the
disciples did not say well in calling Him so, then His act would have
been a solitary one, belonging to Himself, one which they could not
imitate; but if He were their Lord in the highest sense of the word,
in that sense which John has been setting forth to us throughout his
Gospel,--if He were the Word in whom they had been created, the Word
who was their life and their light, the Word from whom every energy of
their spirits was derived,--then everything which dwelt in Him could
descend upon them; whatever shone forth in Him could be reflected in
them. And this would take place, not by their raising themselves to
contemplate a lofty ideal, but by their submitting to a gracious and
loving Will. The Highest of all showed Himself to them in washing
their feet. All they had to do was not to think themselves greater
than He, not to think that unworthy of the disciple which was not
unworthy of the Lord.
The difficulty to the formal divine is no doubt this:--'If cleansing
the feet symbolizes the removing of defilements from the inner man, is
not that Christ's work alone? Can the disciple follow His example in
doing that work?' Our consciences tell us that he can. We do know that
we may receive purification from one another, that the tenderness,
and love, and patience of one man act in a marvellous way upon
another, when those qualities seem the furthest from him, when he most
confesses that they do not belong to him. We do not set ourselves
deliberately to follow examples. The examples get the mastery over us;
there is a life in the men who exhibit them which awakens life in us.
These are facts not to be gainsaid for the sake of any system. Upon
them have been built theories about the righteousness of the saints,
and the transference of one man's righteousness to another, which are,
no doubt, very immoral and ungodly. But St. Paul's words, which are
the plea for these theories, '_I fill up in my body the sufferings of
Christ_,' are both moral and godly. For they are grounded upon the
idea which St. John is setting forth here: that Christ, the Divine
Sufferer, is the source of all purification and of all life; and that
all men, in their proper spheres, may share His sufferings, and
transmit and communicate the purification and life that flow from them
to their fellows. All difficulties about example are capable of that
solution. If we are members of one body, if He is the Head, why should
not there be a continual circulation of life from each member of the
body to every other? How can the departure of men out of this world
hinder that circulation, or cause us who are here to feel it less? May
not their power have become greater as the mortal fetters have been
taken from them? May not we feel it more?
That is a strange announcement,--'_The disciple is not above His
master_,'--to be introduced by a '_Verily_;' and yet the longer the
Apostles lived, the more they understood what need they had to be told
this truth, and told it with such solemnity. What follows reminds us
that a commonplace in words may become a paradox in action, and that
we never experience either the difficulty of a divine sentence, or the
power of it, till we put it in practice. All the crimes of Churchmen
from that hour to this, all their cowardice, their arrogance, their
baseness, their violence, have had this one root: the servants of
Christ have believed themselves greater than Christ; they have counted
it a shame and disgrace to do what He did, to endure what He endured.
Here has been the cause of their powerlessness; the very secret of His
power has been wanting in them. They have put forth the mock power
which His real power has come into the world to crush and subdue. Does
not the Christian power--the Church's power--_begin_ when it has been
brought to work _with_ this power of Him who humbled Himself, and not
against it? Do we want another ground for believing that those who
have completely washed their robes and made them white from every
stain of selfishness in the blood of the Lamb, must be mightier than
they were here? Do we want another explanation of the fact, that those
words of theirs which spoke out the true mind of Christ in them, live
and are fruitful for generations after their names, and all the
efforts they made to magnify their own names, have been forgotten?
'_I spake not of you all: I know whom I have chosen: but that the
Scripture may be fulfilled, He that eateth bread with me hath lifted
up his heel against me. Now I tell you before it come, that, when it
is come to pass, ye may believe that I am He. Verily, verily, I say
unto you, He that receiveth whomsoever I send receiveth me; and he
that receiveth me receiveth Him that sent me. When Jesus had thus
said, He was troubled in spirit, and testified, and said, Verily,
verily, I say unto you, that one of you shall betray me._'
How are these verses connected with those that went before them? how
are they connected with each other? Sometimes the thought comes to
us,--'Can we trace the processes of that Mind in that hour? Must not
His words spring out of depths into which our eyes can never look?
Must they not follow each other in an order which is altogether unlike
that of other men?' So far as such a doubt leads to reverence,--so far
as it makes us distrust our own perceptions, eager to learn from
others, certain that we can but see the smallest portion of that which
is in Him, I would cherish it. So far as it puts Christ at a distance
from us, as it tempts us to think that He was not the Son of Man
feeling perfectly as a man,--that He did not mean that the things He
said to us should be apprehended by us, and that He will not help us
to apprehend them,--so far I would eschew it, and cast it off; because
it is fatal to all sincere reverence and sincere humility.
I think He says plainly,--'I am not speaking to you all when I bid you
wash each other's feet. There is a sympathy with my mind implied in
that act. There is a submission to me, as one who has chosen you,
implied in it. That sympathy, that submission, one of you has shaken
off. He sits at my feast; He has disclaimed me. But I tell you to do
as I have done, that you may know hereafter what the secret of the
power you exert over men is. If they receive you, they will be
receiving me; if they receive me, they will be receiving my Father.'
Does it seem to you that such an assurance was likely to counteract
the humbling lesson which He had just given? I do not wonder that any
should entertain that opinion, because it is undoubtedly true that men
may give themselves intolerable airs on the strength of their being
messengers of the Most High; may curse and excommunicate all who do
not receive _their_ decrees and confess _their_ dignity, under
pretence that they are setting Christ at nought. It is true also, and
the records of the world establish the truth, that none have been so
free from pretension, that none have borne such insults, and been so
ready to die that men might not be cursed and excommunicated, as those
who have given themselves up to speak a word which they were sure was
not theirs, who have felt that they had no goodness or love of their
own to show forth, but that the Son of God was showing forth His love
to sinners through them, even as the Father showed His love to men
through the Son. There needed a '_Verily_' to confirm this sentence as
well as the other. They are, in fact, parts of the same sentence. The
disciple will think himself above his Master as long as he thinks
himself separate from his Master; when that thought ceases, he must
accept our Lord's language in the length and breadth of it: '_He that
receiveth you receiveth me_.' Dare he be an insolent, usurping,
persecuting priest, unless he inwardly denies that the meek, suffering
Jesus, who washed His disciples' feet, is in him?
And is it wonderful that the 'trouble of spirit' which St. John speaks
of, should have mixed itself with this thought, and that the image of
the betrayer, which had been appearing from time to time during this
discourse in the background, should now rise fully and terribly before
Him? 'There is one who chooses to be separate from me! one who will
stand in his own name! one who will cast me his Lord, and friend, and
reprover, away! He is one of you,--one of those whom I have sent forth
as a messenger in my Father's name and mine.' Jesus has spoken of the
Scripture being fulfilled in the act of Judas. It was a Scripture
which David felt had been fulfilled in his own case. A friend who had
eaten of _his_ bread had lifted up his heel. It had been fulfilled in
a thousand cases before David, and since. But this was _the_
fulfilment; this contained the essence of all treacheries that had
been and that were to be; this explained the principle and author of
them. If there is a Son of Man, one in whom all human feelings,
sympathies, affections, reach their highest point, one from whom they
have been derived, one in whom they reflect perfectly that God of whom
He is the image, then the betrayer of that Son of Man exhibits _the_
revolt against these feelings, affections, and sympathies, _the_
strife against this love, in which every false friend may read the
ground and the possible consummation of his own baseness. Men,
generally, have confessed this remark to be true, and have embodied it
even in their careless forms of speech; therefore they ought to
confess, also, that whatever pain and inward anguish any have
experienced from the insincerity of those who have eaten their bread
and lifted up the heel against them, must have been undergone by Jesus
with an intensity proportioned to the intensity of His love. Surely
this reflection, if we follow it out, may help us more to such an
apprehension of His sufferings, as it is permitted and possible for us
to have, than any phrases of pompous rhetoric which put Him at a
distance from us, and make us suppose that He did not bear our griefs
and carry _our_ sins.
'_Now there was leaning on Jesus' bosom one of His disciples, whom
Jesus loved. Simon Peter therefore beckoned to him, that he should ask
who it should be of whom He spake. He then lying on Jesus' breast
saith unto Him, Lord, who is it? Jesus answered, He it is, to whom I
shall give a sop, when I have dipped it. And when He had dipped the
sop, He gave it to Judas Iscariot, the son of Simon._'
St. John has not spoken of himself hitherto. Why does he introduce
himself now? When I was quoting, in my first sermon, the accounts
which are given of him by the other Evangelists, I did not refer to
the name by which he has described himself. Do we not sometimes think
that it was a kind of indelicacy and presumption in an Apostle to
claim it? Was it not setting himself above the others? Would it not
have been better that he should have let them give him the title? Are
not those which they do give him less honourable? I do not wish to
evade any of these inquiries. Let it be remembered that St. John was
writing in the full knowledge that he had been described as a Son of
Thunder, that his ambition and his desire to call down fire had been
recorded. These signs of what he was, of what he had shown himself to
be, could not be separated from him; they were fixed upon him
indelibly. None, therefore, could say that he was an object of
Christ's affection because he had shown a gentler disposition than his
fellows. Could they say, then, that the love of Christ was a partial
love, that it was not directed to mankind, that it was not the
expression of a universal love? St. John is the especial witness
against these heresies. He declares that God loved the world; and
Christ came to do His Father's will in saving it. What, then, might
be--what has been--the effect of the name, '_the disciple whom Jesus
loved_,' upon the Church? It has been felt that the story of Judas
needed this foil. The dark, solitary, separate man must be brought
into direct contrast to a man who lives only on trust. We understand
by the disciple who leant on Jesus' bosom what his condition was who
went out into the night. At the same time, we must not be allowed to
fancy that the love came forth from John. He could only be the
receiver of it. If he ever fancied himself the disciple who loved
Jesus, and not '_the disciple whom Jesus loved_,' he would be
magnifying himself, he would be claiming to be better than his
brethren. As it is, he can only regard it as part of Christ's
manifestation of the divine character that this peculiar affection
should be displayed to him. In the world of nature the distinctness of
each thing is necessary to the harmony of the whole. Can it be
otherwise in the world of human beings? Are they to be merged, now or
hereafter, in one great chaos of being? Must not each form, each
person, be brought out fully and brightly when the mists that prevent
us from seeing the perfect unity have been scattered? Personal
affections, gradations of sympathy, attachments and affinities between
this human being and that, are the barriers which sever the true life
of man from that Pantheistical absorption which is another name for
death. Should not we expect there to be a witness for these, a
restoration of them to their proper unselfish ground, in the acts and
the life of the Word made flesh?
'_And after the sop Satan entered into him. Then said Jesus unto him,
That thou doest, do quickly. Now no man at the table knew for what
intent He spake this unto him. For some of them thought, because Judas
had the bag, that Jesus had said unto him, Buy those things that we
have need of against the feast; or, that he should give something to
the poor. He then having received the sop went immediately out: and it
was night._'