Sermon for Maundy Thursday
April 2, 2026
John 13:1-17, 31b-35
Pastor Karl-John N. Stone
Maundy Thursday is a day rich with meaning. It was the night Jesus was betrayed by Judas. It was the night of the Last Supper, when Jesus promised his presence to us in ordinary bread and wine. And before all of that it was the night when Jesus washed his disciples’ feet—giving us an example of what it looks like to offer humble loving service to others in daily life.
For us in 2026, footwashing may seem like a strange way to make a point. We can easily wash our own feet in a minute or two by jumping in the shower. But in Biblical times foot-washing was a gesture of gracious hospitality. Imagine yourself back then, traveling to visit a friend. You would be walking along a dusty dirt road, wearing sandals. Or imagine you were the host, so you want to make your guests feel welcome. If you have servants, you send them out to the well, where they’d have to haul a bucket of water out of the ground and carry it to the house. Or imagine you are one of the servants. You invite the visitors to have a seat, and you remove their sandals. You pour water on their feet and scrub the dirt off, then pat them dry with a towel.
This is what Jesus did for the disciples on the first Maundy Thursday. Now, Jesus didn’t invent the gesture of foot-washing—it went back centuries before him—but in the typical way of the Kingdom of God, he reversed the usual order of things: the master became the servant as he washed his disciples’ feet.
I looked up the first mention of “feet” in the Bible, and found it in Genesis 18. This is a famous story. A key story. And it’s a story that happened more than 1800 years before Jesus. Not only does it mention feet, it specifically involves foot-washing! It’s the story of how the Lord (in the form of three men, who are often interpreted to be angels) appeared to Abraham by the oaks of Mamre, as Abraham sat at the entrance of his tent in the heat of the day. When he saw these three visitors coming, he did the hospitable thing—he invited them to come to his tent. During this visit, the Lord promises Sarah that she and Abraham will have a son—whom they named Isaac.
And when the Lord fulfills this promise, and Isaac is finally born, it sets in motion all the stories in the Bible from that point on; all of our ancestors in faith from the family of Abraham and Sarah: Isaac, Rebekah, Jacob, Leah, Rachel, Joseph. God’s story continues through their descendants, through all the highs and lows of the tribes of Israel which we read about in the Old Testament. The story keeps going: all of God’s faithfulness down through the centuries, coupled with all the times the people turned away from God—and all the times they turned back to God again and learned a deeper trust in the Lord. We can trace all that history of God with God’s people—up to and including us—back to the promise God made at that first foot-washing in Abraham and Sarah’s tent by the oaks of Mamre.
As we hear about Jesus washing the disciples’ feet in today’s gospel from John 13, we also hear even more echoes of the foot-washing story from Genesis 18—but in typical Kingdom of God style, Jesus reverses and reinterprets the usual order. In Genesis, the foot-washing took place in Abraham’s tent, the place where he and Sarah lived. Meanwhile in the Gospel of John, Jesus himself is the tent. What I mean by that is when you look at the theology of John’s gospel, the way John understands what God is up to in Jesus Christ, there is a key verse, John 1:14, that says “the Word became flesh and lived among us.” In the Greek John wrote his gospel in, he didn’t actually use the word “lived”. That’s what he meant in a general way, but the word he used is more specific. What he literally wrote is: “the Word became flesh and pitched his tent among us.” Camped among us. Jesus is God’s tent in the world, because God came to completely live and set up shop in the middle of our human experience, like a tent in the middle of a camp—and in the “tent” we call Jesus, God gives us hospitality and welcome.
Other echoes: In Genesis, Abraham called for some water to be brought so the Lord (in the form of the three visitors) could wash his own feet. Now in the Gospel of John, Jesus becomes a servant and washes his disciples’ feet.
Abraham invited his visitors to “rest under the tree”. Jesus, on the other hand, instead of resting, willingly goes to be “lifted up” on the tree of the cross, in order to draw all people to himself.
Abraham asks Sarah to bake some bread to feed their visitors. Jesus becomes the “bread of life” and says, “whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.”
Abraham runs to his herd, takes a calf, gives it to his servants, and asks them to prepare it for his guests—a sacrifice for the sake of hospitality, if you will. Jesus was already preparing for his death on the cross when he was anointed by Mary, and then he himself became the sacrifice—the Lamb of God who gave himself to take away the sin of the world. We put our faith in the promises of our Lamb of God—that his sacrifice on the cross is the way Christ restores our relationship with God; repairs our relationships with our fellow human beings; and renews all of God’s creation.
When he washed his disciples’ feet, Jesus’ actions were calling to mind God’s promise of a son to Abraham and Sarah. God’s promise for us in the gospel is that these ancient promises are now open to us all. By faith in Christ, God promises that we are all sons and daughters of Abraham and Sarah. We are part of the family of God.
Jesus told his family of disciples on that first Maundy Thursday, “Unless I wash you, you won’t belong to me.” As we prepare to follow Jesus to the cross this Holy Week—remember that you do belong to Christ, because he has washed you. He has washed you free from sin and death in baptism, he’s marked your soul with his name, he’s marked your forehead with his cross forever. And he continues to “wash your feet”, so to speak, by sending people into your life who provide comfort, or encouragement, or kindness in your time of need. He continues to use each of you to “wash other people’s feet” by sending you out into daily life as messengers of God’s mercy, justice, and way of humble service.
Jesus is still God’s tent in the world. Jesus is still camping out in the good and the bad of human life. In the tent we call Jesus, God gives us gracious hospitality for all eternity, and gives us an invitation to be “foot-washers” in daily life—people who give and receive the blessings of humble service in Jesus’ name. Amen.