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Summary
The word “Commandment” with the definite article appears in three places in the Gospel of John.
- John 10:18, “I have authority to lay my soul down and authority to take it up again. This is the commandment that I received from my father,” says Jesus.
- John 12:50, “The commandment of the Father is eternal life,” says Jesus.
- John 15:12, “This is the commandment of me, that you love one another as I have loved you,” says Jesus.
In Matthew, Mark, and Luke, Jesus says, “This is the great and first commandment, “You will love…” He doesn’t say “you should” love, but “you will.” It’s not only a commandment; it’s a Promise, like a Seed. It’s the Word of God.
In Genesis 1 on the Sixth Day of Creation, God blesses the Adam and speaks His commandment to them, saying, “Be fruitful… and exercise dominion (Care for the garden.)”
There are different ways to “exercise dominion.” Some are death; some are life. Now that I’m older, I actually enjoy mowing the lawn. It’s fun. And, “Be fruitful and multiply”? That commandment can actually feel like the reward — even, “the substance of things hoped for… (Hebrews 11:1).”
At the beginning of Day 6 in Genesis 2, the Adam couldn’t fulfill the commandment; he didn’t know how, and he was alone. To fulfill this commandment, you need a “Helper (ezer in Hebrew, as in Eliezer, “God is my help.” Throughout Scripture, God alone is our “ezer.”)
The Adam can’t find his Helper who is with him, just as infants can’t find their helper who constantly holds them in arm. They can’t find their helper, for they don’t know what a helper is, let alone, who their helper is. The Adam is not free to obey the Commandment. So, God puts the Adam to sleep and makes a particular adam, named “Adam,” and Eve. He makes male and female. And they were both “naked and unashamed” in the Garden of Delight (Eden).
“This mystery is a profound” writes St. Paul “It refers to Christ and the Church.”
As we’ll soon see, Eve is not Adam’s “ezer,” and Adam (this particular adam) is not Eve’s “ezer.” But they soon meet their ezer, although they don’t know what or who He is. They meet “The Good” and “The Life.” He’s hanging, like fruit, on a tree in the middle of the garden — a tree that looks like the tree in the garden on Mt. Calvary. In the fruit is seed. God had said, “I will make a helper fit for the Adam.”
Eve and Adam take the fruit . . . and invent clothes. They gird their loins with fig leaves and cover the very place where they were commanded to commune in order to fulfill the commandment. They are no longer in the garden of Delight. They suffer the curse: dust and pain. They feel shame: a blessing that feels like a curse for one does not have a will that’s free to obey the command. If Love is not free, it’s not Love but law written in hearts of stone.
The Commandment is Covenant Love, Eternal Life — that is, Mutual Self-Sacrifice in perfect freedom.
John 13:1-4a, literally translated (Please check me on this!), “Now before the Feast of the Passover when Jesus knew that his hour had come to depart out of this world to the Father, having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them into completion [telos: the End). And becoming supper (This is The Last Supper: Communion), when the devil had already put it 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 had come from God and was going back to God, is raised from the supper.”
If any man ever had “free will,” it would’ve been Jesus. He is the Word of God that is God, that wills creation into existence. He is literally the Judgment of God in flesh. He is the Eternal Life that wills us into existence. He is the Commandment of God. Not even death can stop him. He has made Himself Supper, and He is Risen. He can do what he wants to do . . . so what does he do?
John 13:4, “Risen from the supper, He laid aside his garments and taking a towel, he girded himself. Then he poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciple’s feet and to wipe them with the towel with which he had been girded.” Let’s stop for a moment.
Are you uncomfortable . . . perhaps, offended? I think the disciples were. They were all dressed up, trying to impress Jesus, and Jesus dresses down. He appears to be “naked and unashamed,” while his Bride (12 guys, Israel of God, Jerusalem, the harlot destined to be the Bride) is not.
This is not about sex. But all sex is about this. “All”: good, bad, unashamed and shamed, successes and failures, sin and Grace — for where sin increased, Grace has abounded all the more.
“Husbands love your wives,” writes Paul in Ephesians 5, “as Christ loved the church and sacrificed himself for her that he might make her holy (eternal, like Him), having cleansed her by the washing of water with the Word… he who loves his wife loves himself. For no man ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes it and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church, because we are members of his body. ‘Therefore, a man shall leave his father and mother and cleave to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.’ This mystery is profound, and I am saying it refers to Christ and the church.”
In the upper room just before Passover, God is making Himself fit for each and for all. In the morning, we all strip Him of His garments and take His life on the tree. And yet, on that holy night, the night before, He removes His garments and washes His Bride with water and Himself: the Word. He makes Himself The Covenant. He makes Himself the Feast. He is the Helper made fit for The Adam — His Harlot Bride. He even makes Himself the Promised Seed.
“This mystery is profound and I’m saying that it refers to Christ and the Church.”
People worry about “sexualizing” the Gospel, but I would suggest that there is a far greater danger that comes from despiritualizing sex. “Why not break covenant if there is no real communion?”
Sex must be a little like training wheels on a bike… and in this life, the training wheels often fall off, but you can still ride the bike, perhaps even better than before. And many of the very best bike riders never had training wheels in the first place. However, we all do feel shame.
Robertson McQuilken was the president of Columbia Bible College until he resigned to care for his wife, Muriel, suffering from Alzheimer’s Disease. It wasn’t the dirty diapers that had attracted him to her in the beginning, but he faithfully washed Muriel every day because he wanted to.
One night, bothered by a question, he did pray this prayer, “Father, it’s OK. I like this assignment, and I have no regrets. But something has occurred to me. If the coach puts a man on the bench, he must not want him in the game. You needn’t tell me, of course, but if you’d like to let me in on the secret, I’d like to know: Why don’t you need me in the game?”
In the morning as he and Muriel took their walk, a local drunk stumbled around them, stood in front of them, looked them up and down, and said, “Tha’s good… I’s like it!” then stumbled away muttering over and over, “I like it! It’s good.” Robertson laughed, but when he arrived back in the garden and sat down with Muriel, he realized that the Father had answered his question. He wasn’t “out of the game.” He was in the very center with Jesus in the Upper Room.
Jesus is the free will of God, and what does He do? He humbles himself, takes the form of a slave, and washes the feet of all 12 disciples, BECAUSE he wants to. That’s the part we just don’t get. He is genuinely attracted to the very place you try to hide from Him. He’s attracted to your honest little self under the fig leaves, justifications, self-righteousness, pretense, and lies — the dust you have accumulated on your journey through six days of space and time. He enjoys loving you… but something gets in the way.
John 13:6-8, “He came to Simon Peter, who said to him, ‘Lord, do you wash my feet?’ Jesus answered him, ‘What I am doing you do not understand now, but afterward you will understand.’ Peter said to him, ‘You shall never wash my feet.”
The Commandment of the Father is Eternal Life. And so, the question of the Son, our Bridegroom is “What are you so ashamed of?” He wants to touch you there, but he insists that you “let him.” How does he make us “let him”? Perhaps He writes a story of Grace that creates Faith. He said, “And when I am lifted up from the earth, I will romance all people to myself.”
John 13:8, “Peter said to him, ‘You shall never wash my feet.’ Jesus answered him, ‘If I do not wash you, you have no part with me.”
He washes you of who it is that you think you have made yourself to be, in order to tell you who it is that you actually are. He once told Peter, “You are the rock, and on this rock, I will build my church.” That night, Peter was trying desperately to make himself the Rock. And in a few hours, he would utterly fail. But the resurrected Christ found him, touched him in his place of deepest shame, and washed him with his word. He did this time and time again, until the day Peter died… and lived. Fleeing Rome, he had a vision of Jesus walking into Rome, carrying a cross. He cried out, “My Lord, where are you going?” and he heard the Lord answer, “To Rome to be crucified.” Peter turned and ran back into Rome where he was crucified with Christ because he freely willed to be; he wanted to be “with Him.” Apart from Him, you can do nothing. In Him, all things are possible.
Jesus made Peter, the Rock, from the inside out. And on that rock, He built His church. Peter’s false self (the self he thought he had made himself to be), gave birth to his true self (the Peter that loved in freedom, and gave birth to you and me).
I began this sermon with a prayer that made everyone nervous, and I may not have spoken well, but I hope that this was the point: At a time when we all worry about war and ask, “What is fake news and what is real news?” we must all surrender to the Word of God in the Sanctuary of the Soul. There, He washes us of self-righteousness and implants His Righteousness. When He knows us in the very place that we hide from Him, we give birth to Truth… not legislation, but Words of Life (Good News). It comes from our mouths and drops like seeds into the fertile soil of the neighbor’s heart. And from these Words, grows the Kingdom of God.
Their soul, like my soul, is also a womb predestined to give birth to The Commandment of God, The Free Will of God, The Truth, Beauty, Wisdom, and Life of God. That is Jesus: The Son of Man.