What I Have Done to You -- Maundy Thursday

John 13:1-17, 31b-35

April 2, 2026

 

            “Do you know what I have done to you?”

            Jesus asks this question in verse 12 of our passage from John’s gospel, and I’ll be honest with you. I think it is a strange question for Jesus to ask. Why didn’t Jesus ask,

            “Do you know what I have done for you?” Or “Do you understand what I did just now? Do you get it? Do you see how I treated you? Do you see the way I have shown love to you?”

            But no, Jesus asked, “Do you know what I done to you?”

            What is it that Jesus did to the disciples? On this night, this night that we call Maundy Thursday or Commandment Thursday or Holy Thursday, we hear again Jesus’ words to the disciples about the new commandment he has given them, and in turn given to us; to love one another as he loved them. In fact, Jesus tells them, it is this love, love that they do, that will mark them, identify them, as the ones who follow him.

            Do you know what I have done to you? Do you know what I have done to you?

            You see, this was not just a clever illustration or a tidy object lesson on Jesus’ part. He was not merely demonstrating for them one possible way to show love. He was doing love to them. He took love that he felt and put it into tangible action. He was doing love to them. From the moment he took off his outer robe and tied that towel around his waist he was doing love to them. From the second he knelt before each of them, basin in hand, and began to wash their feet as only a servant would, he was doing love to them – not just verbalizing it or illustrating it but doing. He was doing love to them.

            Do you know what I have done to you?

            This passage begins where our stories of Jesus so often begin, at the table. Jesus and the disciples are gathered on the eve of the Festival of the Passover and Jesus understands that his hour to depart this world, this life, is at hand. He loved his disciples from the beginning and he would love them to the end. So, many things are happening in this story. Jesus knows this will be his last meal with the disciples. The devil is still there and still a threat but will work through someone else to attain his goal. And Jesus, sitting at table with his disciples, knowing all this loves them as his own. 

            After the meal is finished, Jesus does something that no one would have expected. He does not lecture them about what it means to love. He doesn’t just make the claim that he is a servant minister, tell them they should do that too, then leave the table. He enacts love. He washes the disciples’ feet. What is your first reaction to the idea of having your feet washed, or having to wash someone else’s feet? If your first, visceral response is “ewwwww,” then you are not alone. It is not an easy task to consider much less perform. And the disciples’ feet could not have been pretty. I suspect that they were callused, perpetually dusty and grimy from walking on dirt roads. They were not neatly pedicured. But Jesus did not flinch from touching them, from washing them.

            Even with all that they have witnessed from Jesus so far, the disciples must have surely been shocked at Jesus, their teacher, their Rabbi, kneeling before them to wash their feet. It makes sense to me why Peter responded as he did, saying,

“No way, Lord. You will never wash my feet!”

But Jesus is firm in his response to Peter.

“Unless I wash you, you have no share with me.”

Jesus loved his own, and so his own needed to understand that if they wanted to love as he loved, then this was how to do that. This was his commandment. They must willingly humble themselves. They must willingly serve others. They must willingly and lovingly perform even the most menial tasks in service to one another. If the disciples, Jesus’ own, wanted to love as Jesus loved, then they must be willing to really and truly be servants to others, even if that means kneeling in front of another, towel and basin at the ready, and wash that person’s feet. They must do love.

Do you know what I have done to you?

Jesus loved his own from the beginning and he loved them to the end. Think about what means and whose feet he washed. He washed Peter’s feet. Peter, impulsive and eager and sometimes reckless. Peter who got it wrong as often as he got it right. Peter, who would deny Jesus three times even after he swore that he would never deny him. But he did.

Jesus washed Judas’ feet. Judas has not yet been filled with Satan, has not yet left the others to betray the One who loved him. He has not yet set in motion all that would follow. But in a matter of matters, he will. Yet even though Jesus knew what Judas would do, he washed his feet. He knelt before the one who would betray him unto death and washed his feet. Jesus did not withhold doing love even to those who would hurt him the most. Jesus did love even to them.

Jesus told his disciples that he was giving them a new commandment, to do love as he had; to love as he had loved. This was the new commandment that he was giving them. Love others as I have loved you, not just with warm fuzzy feelings or flowery language, but with action. To love is to serve, so love one another, love others, serve others, in the way that I have served you.

This was a commandment that surely even the disciples failed to fulfill, at least at times. It is a commandment that I know I fail to realize, that I suspect we all fail in some way or another. It is humbling to wash someone else’s feet. It is hard. But I could readily do it for someone I loved. At the end of her life, my mother’s feet were in rough shape. But if she had needed me to, I would have washed them for her because I love her. But could I wash the feet of someone I don’t love? Could I wash the feet of someone who betrayed me, who hurt me, who broke my heart? Could I wash the feet of my enemy, or even someone I just don’t like? Even taking the literal foot washing out of the equation, to love someone, to serve someone, seems like an impossible task, an impossible love. But Jesus did not do this to set the disciples up to fail. Jesus does not set us up to fail. Jesus knew that the disciples, those in front of him and those who would follow later, would not always get it right. But that does not change the commandment. We are called to do love to others. We are commanded to do love to those we love and those we do not. We are called to do love to all of God’s children.

Do you know what I have done to you?

Many years ago, I heard a story at a family reunion about one of my great-aunts on my dad’s side. When someone in her church or her community had an older family member who was struggling, they would call my aunt and say,

“Oh Alma, dad is not doing so well. He’s tired and he feels so old and forgotten and useless, and he wants to give up.”

So Alma would get to work. She would go see this person, but she wouldn’t go empty handed. She would bring her bread pudding and her bible, and she would convince them to eat the bread pudding. Once she got them eating, she would read scripture to them. Then when they were fed in body and in soul, she would rub their feet. I imagine that some of these folks had feet like my mom’s. They had carried the weight of their owner for many years and were tired and worn out. But from what I understand, my aunt didn’t flinch at the condition of someone’s feet. She cared more about that person’s heart and soul. She fed them bread pudding, read the Bible to them, and rubbed their feet. She did love to them. She lived out Jesus’ commandment and did love.

Do you know what I have done to you?

From this moment on, it will seem as though the darkness will win. It will seem as though the powers and principalities will have the final word and the last laugh. But Jesus did not stop doing love when he was finished washing their feet. Jesus did love all the way to the cross. Jesus did love, even to those who betrayed and denied him. Jesus did love, even to those who crucified him. Jesus did love from the beginning and Jesus did love to the end.

Jesus does love to us, though we fail him, though we deny him, though we betray him. Jesus does love to us, in spite of ourselves. Jesus does love to us because that is what he came to do. For God so loved the world. Jesus did love, Jesus embodied love, and Jesus commands us to do the same.

Do you know what I have done to you?

Amen and amen.