Maundy Thursday Sermon 2022

 

In the beginning things were clean.  The dirt was clean, created by love, fashioned in love into Man.  Man, Adam, whose name means dirt, was good and clean, and so was the woman made from his side.  They were made in the image of love.  They loved their Maker and loved each other. There was no need for clothing because there was no shame for any sinful desire.  It was a cleanliness of the soul.  In the beginning there were only pure thoughts, good desires, sincere intentions, and righteous actions.  In the beginning it was clean, because there was love.

 

But Man is from the earth, and as dirt can accept either a good seed or a bad seed, a fruitful grain or a noxious weed, so the heart of man accepted the seed of the devil, and dirt became dirty, man became unclean.  He ate what was forbidden by accepted a dirty seed, a false teaching, a lie about God.  God is always clean and remains always clean, but man is now dirty.  In the beginning he was clean, but now he is dirty. He does not run to God.  He runs from Him.  Because he does not love Him.  He does not have love. 

 

And then they sewed fig leaves for clothing, and then God promised another seed, the seed of the woman, who would crush the dirty snake’s head and silence his filthy lies.  God promised a seed that would make them clean. God loved them. 

 

But the noxious seed grew, that grimy lie of the devil, that sinners are like God, that they dirty are clean, grew in the children of men.  And they became filthy.  Brother killed brother.  Parents were ignored.  God’s Word was resisted.  People used others for their own earthly desires. The home in disarray, the Church nearly non-existent, and government oppressive.   Sinful man with sinful woman raising sinful children, and the dirtiness of man was great on the earth.  There was no love for God or each other.  Whatever they called love was dirty.

 

But Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord.  God told him that He needed to clean the earth, and He did.  He gave the dirty world a bath, and with a flood put to death everything that had the breath of life in it except that which was with Noah in the ark.  A drastic cleaning for a dirty world.

 

But the dirt was not merely on the outside.  It was in the flesh of Noah.  And his own sons showed it.  Ham defiled Noah’s nakedness, and the Church was again divided.  Tyrants rose again, and preached peace on earth.  Let us build a tower to heaven!  We can save ourselves from such a bath as destroyed the earth before.  They made bricks from mud and used tar for mortar.  It was a dirty tower, but they thought it looked good.  They wanted to make a name for themselves.  What does that mean?  They wanted to be able to look in the mirror and say, “I am not dirty.”  I have enough love.

 

But God confused their languages and scattered them over the face of the earth, as one throws a clod of earth on the ground and watches the dirt scatter.  Dirty people all over the earth.  But on this earth God called Abraham.  He had married his own half-sister.  He was not clean.  But Abraham forsook the filthy gods of sin, the gods of pride and greed and power and envy and vengeance – he left all the dirty gods for a God He had not seen, a God who promised to make him clean.  A God who loved him.

 

And God promised him that in his seed would be the woman’s seed, the seed that would stop the dirty lies and cleanse our dirty hearts and bless us.  And God promised the same to Isaac and Jacob and all of Israel. 

 

But it came to pass that Abraham’s descendants were enslaved in Egypt, working in the dust and dirt to build Pharaoh his storage cities.  The Egyptians thought they were dirty because they worked with animals.  The Egyptians thought they were clean.  They washed several times a day and shaved the hair off of their bodies.  But the Egyptians worshiped crocodiles and cats and their own ancestors.  The Egyptians were the dirty ones.  They loved what was dirty. 

 

So God sent Moses to free Israel from bondage, to free them from the filth and shame of their bondage.  And death came for the Egyptians and made the whole land stink and the whole land mourn over the death of their firstborn.  Death stinks with a stench that is filthy.

 

But Israel escaped the filth with the Feast of the Lamb and the unleavened bread.  The Angel of Death could not bring his stench near the doors where the blood was painted with hyssop.  The herbs in the lamb may have been bitter, but they stopped the stench of the death.  They cleansed the air from the smell of sin.  Love was there in the bitterness.

 

And so Israel left dirty Egypt, but Pharaoh’s heart was as dirty as it was hard, and he followed Israel to make them dirty again.  And once again God decided that someone really needed a bath, and He parted the Red Sea, and Israel passed through on dry ground, but Pharaoh and all his army were drowned and Israel could not only no longer see them; he couldn’t smell him either. He smelled love.

 

In the flood and the Red Sea it is the wicked who get the bath, while the righteous escape.  But Jesus tells Peter that he needs a bath.  What does this mean?  The seed of the devil is in our flesh; the slavery of sin is always pursuing us; the problem is in us; we are made of dirt, and our dirt is dirty. 

 

But what is this?  It is a man who is not dirty.  He is clean.  Who can convict him of sin?  Who can point to anything wrong that he has done?  Isn’t this the one who casts out demons and makes men’s minds clean?  Isn’t this the one who speaks and lepers’ skin is refreshed and restored and made as clean as a newly washed baby?  Isn’t this the one who called to a man dead in the grave four days, and they told him that he would stink, but the man walked out and the stench of death was gone?  Isn’t this the one who loved? 

 

In the beginning nothing was dirty.  God saw all that He had made and it was good, it was clean, we were clean.  But we have become dirty.  It is not just the people around us or the government or our family or the school or our circumstances or our lack of money.  No, it’s us.  We need a bath.  We are dirty. 

 

To wash someone’s feet was the work of a poor servant.  It is not the most enjoyable task.  Jesus had had His feet washed with the tears and hair of a woman.  Peter knew that if anyone should wash anyone’s feet, it should be him washing Jesus’ feet.  But the Son of God came into this world to cleanse us from the noxious seed of the devil.  He is the Seed of the Woman, and He came not to be served, but to serve and give His life as a ransom for many.  He came to cleanse sinners, because sin stinks, sin is filthy, sin kills, sin is dirty, and so He says, “If I do not wash you, you have part in me.”  You need My love.

 

And that is the beginning of the Christian life.  Repent.  Don’t go made fig leaf clothing.  Don’t think the wicked are so strong.  They’re dirty.  Don’t be afraid of Pharaoh’s filth.  Don’t worry about them.  Look at yourself in the mirror of God’s holy Law.  You’re dirty.  You need to be washed.  All the time.  Every day.  There is one bath, and it is the bath that destroys the wicked and drowns Pharaoh, but Jesus washes you with it every day, wherever your feet may go, patiently stooping down and washing away the filth and sin that you’ve gotten into today.  He Himself does not need to be washed, but He provides the water for the bath.  He provides the love.

 

It is the sweat that mixes with blood that pours from His clean body in the Garden.  It is the blood that is poured from a clean heart and the water the pours with the blood from His pure side – it is His life of love, His patient endurance of pain and suffering, it is His being immersed in the floods of God’s wrath against all that would destroy you – the cleansing agent is His bitter suffering and death that is distilled into water and blood that pours on you in your baptism, which calls you to come tonight, as dirty as you are, with sins that came from your heart and sins that others have tempted you to and done against you – with any dirt this dirty world has to fling at you, come to Jesus tonight, and receive His love.  Be washed, and watch the wicked world disappear in this bath.  Take eat, and the bitter death of the Lamb of God covers the stench of sin and death; take drink, and the sweet love of Christ overwhelms anything that sticks to your soul, any sin, any guilt, all shame, all dirt – Jesus is on His knees washing your feet because He loves you.

 

Brothers, if God so loved us, ought we not to love each other?  As often as we need a bath, there is the Lord God almighty kneeling down to wash us.  Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus.  Learn how to wash each other’s feet by having your feet washed.  You have been wronged.  You feel the crud and dirt of their soul sticking to you by what they have done to you.  Go to Jesus.  If he washes your own filth away, He can wash another’s filth off of you too.  And in so doing, in showing you that mercy, He will show you how to love, how to wash another’s feet.  He will teach you how to taste the bitter herbs of life so that you thank God for the smell of suffering, because it is these bitter herbs that destroy the smell of hatred and sin and death, and the angel of death passes by.  He will teach you how to love as you have been loved.   He will teach you how to give a whole world a bath not by destroying it, but by loving it.  For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.  For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through Him.  God planted a clean seed again in the earth, and now He plants His Son into your heart, and good fruit comes, fruit of a clean conscience and love that endures through sin and death. 

 

If God says you need a bath, then prepare your heart, because He comes to cleanse you with love that tasted bitter death for you.  He comes to remove whatever fig leaf excuses you have for why you are so dirty and wash you pure and clothe you in robes of innocence and righteousness that are made white in the blood of the Lamb.  Then turn your eyes to others’ feet, not to judge them, but to clean them, not to condemn them, but to show mercy and humility and love to them.  By this all men shall know that you are Jesus’ disciples, if you love one another.  Amen.