The Farewell Easter 5A

The Farewell

“Jesus knew that his hour had come to depart from this world and go to the Father. Having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end.” [John 13:1] Thus ensues what many perceive as the most unusual portrayal of the Last Supper, unique to the Fourth Gospel. No mention of bread or wine. Instead, Jesus strips down, wraps a towel around his waist, and begins to wash people’s feet. There were the twelve disciples, including Judas who would betray him. There must have been other men, women, and children who had accompanied him into Jerusalem to participate in the annual festival of Passover – itself the remembrance of a long ago farewell. Farewell to Pharaoh, farewell to Egypt, farewell to several generations of slavery. The event that marks a new beginning in the lives of those descendants of Sarah and Abraham, Rebecca and Isaac, Leah, Rachel and Jacob.

 

Washing all those feet was his way of saying “Farewell.” It was a way of expressing his love for them all. Even for Judas the Betrayer. He issues a new commandment. Which may strike some as rather pretentious. But this is the logos, the Word. The embodied Word that was with God in the beginning. The Word through which all things came to be. The Word which is the light and life of the world. He had helped a lawyer reduce the 613 commandments of the Sinai Covenant to the simplified formula: Love the Lord with all your heart, with all your mind, and with all your soul; Love your neighbor as yourself. For God is Love. So, if the Word was with God in the beginning, and the Word was and is God, surely, reasons narrator John, the Word has the authority to issue a new commandment: Love one another, as I have loved you. I risk my life out my Love for all of you. Just as I love you, you are to Love one another. N.B the “you” in the Greek text is plural – as in, “Just as I have loved y’all!”

 

Peter. Peter was uncomfortable with the foot washing until Jesus commanded him to submit, or have nothing to do with the Risen Lord ever again. And Peter at the end of chapter 13 insists he will follow where Jesus is going on Friday, the Day of Preparation for the Passover. N.B. Maundy Thursday was not, according to narrator John, the Passover meal. Jesus tells Peter, “No, where I am going you cannot follow right now. And before the cock crows tomorrow morning, you will betray me three times.” Peter refuses to accept any and all of this. Peter’s heart is troubled. So are the hearts of all those who traveled from Galilee to Jerusalem with Jesus to celebrate the festival of farewells and new beginnings.

 

“Do not let your hearts be troubled. Commit yourselves to God, commit yourselves also to me.” He goes on to say he is going back to whence he had come – His Father’s house where there are many dwelling places. And I am going to prepare a place for y’all. And I shall return and take y’all to myself that where I am, there y’all may be also.” Then comes the problematic part: “And y’all know the way to the place where I am going.” Those with troubled hearts allow as that they do not know the way. How can we know the way, they say. One imagines Jesus, after three years of living the Love of God, his Father who is the full embodiment of Love, heaving a sigh of disappointment and disbelief. Thus begins his Farewell Discourse meant to comfort their hearts.

 

By way of clarification (no pun intended), he states, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one can come to the Father except through me. If y’all know me, y’all will know my Father also. From now on y’all do know him and have seen him.” Let’s remember who is being addressed here – the community of those who have followed Jesus from Galilee to Jerusalem. His gathered community of those interested in loving God and loving their neighbors. He is not addressing only Peter. Or, Thomas. Narrator John portrays him speaking to a particular community of people, not to the whole world. Jesus does not make a statement about the relative worth of other religions, other philosophies, or other ideologies. The lack of clarity, however, is signified by this particular community’s continued lack of understanding.

 

Jesus then tries to help them to understand. He says, in effect, the way in which I call y’all to walk, the truth and the life I call you to embody, is the way, the truth and the life of the works I have been doing: accepting others, all others; healing and welcoming into our fellowship those with disabilities; feeding those who hunger and thirst; welcoming strangers, even those foreigners who are utterly unlike us; bringing all people into the world of God’s shalom for all people. To commit yourselves to me, is to continue the works that I do…” and then comes the the kicker! “…and in fact, greater works than these, because I am going to the Father.”

 

With all the attention on “the way, the truth, the life,” the truly most controversial statement of all is that we who wish to follow the Christ, and bear his name as our own, will do greater works than he does. We need to just let that sink in. Take a breath, and just let that sink in.

 

These are meant to be words of comfort for their troubled hearts. And yet, they are also words of awesome responsibility! These words are also meant for us, his gathered community here and now. We are to be those people in this world who do the things he does, “and greater things than these!” Then comes his promise. “I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If in my name you ask me for anything, I will do it.”

 

These prayers of ours are to be related to do the works he does, and greater things than these. This is not, “O, please, Jesus, let me win the lottery!’ Or, win a football game. Or, find a parking space. It is an invitation to pray something like this: “Please Lord, help us to feed even more people than you did when you walked among us.”

 

It is easy to overlook what this last part really means. Despite the cross, despite the tomb, despite his return to being the Word that is with God and is God, and through prayer and the works themselves, he is still with us even though he is gone. This farewell discourse goes on through chapter 17 in which Jesus prays to the Father on our behalf, which concludes: “Father, I desire that those also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to see my glory, which you have given me because you loved me before the foundation of the world. Righteous Father, the world does not know you, but I know you; and these know that you have sent me. I made your name known to them, and I will make it known, so that the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them.” It is his farewell and a new beginning for us all.

 

This is how he settles their troubled hearts. It is all about the Father’s love for Jesus, and for those of us for whom Jesus is the way, the truth, and our life. That Thursday night began: “Jesus knew that his hour had come to depart from this world and go to the Father. Having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end.” And this is how it ends: I made your name known to them, and I will make it known, so that the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them.” Let not our hearts be troubled. For he is in us, and we are in him. Now and forever. And ever. Amen.

Der Abschied – The Farewell

-                - Gustav Mahler 

He dismounted and handed him the drink of farewell.

He asked him where he would go

and why must it be.

He spoke, his voice was quiet. Ah my friend,

Fortune was not kind to me in this world!

Where do I go? I go, I wander in the mountains.

I seek peace for my lonely heart.

I wander homeward, to my abode!

I'll never wander far.

Still is my heart, awaiting its hour.

The dear earth everywhere

blossoms in spring and grows green anew!

Everywhere and forever blue is the horizon!

Forever ... Forever ...