“Truly, Truly” × 3 — Part One

I invite you to turn with me to the thirteenth chapter of the Gospel of John and to follow along as I read from verse 1. John chapter 13 and reading from verse 1 to verse 22:

“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 to the end. During supper, 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, rose from supper. He laid aside his outer garments, and taking a towel, tied it around his waist. Then he poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples’ feet and to wipe them with the towel that was wrapped around him. 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.’ Jesus answered him, ‘If I do not wash you, you have no share with me.’ Simon Peter said to him, ‘Lord, not my feet only but also my hands and my head!’ Jesus said to him, ‘The one who has bathed does not need to wash, except … his feet, but is completely clean. And you are clean, but not every one of you.’ For he knew who was to betray him; [and] that [is] why he said, ‘Not all of you are clean.’

“When he had washed their feet and put on his outer garments and resumed his place, he said to them, ‘Do you understand what I have done to you? You call me Teacher and Lord, and you are right, for so I am. If I then, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet. For I have given you an example, that you also should do just as I have done to you. Truly, truly, I say to you, a servant is not greater than his master, nor is a messenger greater than the one who sent him. If you know these things, blessed are you if you do them. I am not speaking of all of you; I know whom I have chosen. But the Scripture will be fulfilled, “He who ate my bread has lifted his heel against me.” I[’m] telling you this now, before it takes place, that when it does take place you may believe that I am he. Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever receives the one I send receives me, and whoever receives me receives the one who sent me.’

“After saying these things, Jesus was troubled in his spirit, and testified, ‘Truly, truly, I say to you, one of you will betray me.’ The disciples looked at one another, uncertain of whom he spoke.”

Amen.

And we pray together:

Break thou the bread of life, dear Lord, to me,
As thou didst break the loaves beside the sea.
[Here on this] sacred page I seek thee, Lord.
My spirit longs for thee, O living Word.[1]

Amen.

Well, as I read, you would have very quickly noted that we have three “Truly, trulys” in the passage that I read. There are actually four “Truly, trulys.” The last of them comes in chapter 13, in the very final verse: “Jesus answered, ‘Will you lay down your life for me? Truly, truly, I say to you, the rooster will not crow till you have denied me three times.’”[2] We leave that for later. But this morning we’re looking at verse 16: “Truly, truly, I say to you, a servant is not greater than his master, nor is a messenger greater than the one who sent him”—the question of humility. And then, in verse 20: “Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever receives the one I send receives me, and whoever receives me receives the one who sent me”—the dignity that is attached to the bearing of the story of Jesus. And then, in verse 21: “After saying these things, Jesus was troubled in his spirit, and testified, ‘Truly, truly, I say to you, one of you will betray me’”—the treachery of one of the disciples.

Now, the challenge, or one of the challenges, that is represented in the way we’ve undertaken to work our way through these “Truly, truly” passages is that it is unfair of us to simply drop down onto a verse. That then demands that we pay attention to the context. And in paying attention to the context, it sometimes takes us quite a long time to actually get to the very verse in question. And I fear that that might be the case again this morning. I say that just to alert you. Sue and I, on a beautiful Tuesday morning, before it turned to rain later in the day, were out walking in one of the Metroparks, and we didn’t realize what a journey we had set for ourselves. And although we were keen to finally end it, we stopped again and again just to look at things. And if all you want to do is to get to your destination, then, of course, you can pass by many things that may be of interest.

And there is something of an analogy of that in the way in which we work our way through the text of Scripture. One of the things that the teacher has to do is to decide: How many things are you going to stop and look at before you get to your objective? And that I found as challenging this past week, in chapter 13, as I had before. Hopefully I do better than last time.

But you should note, if your Bible is open, that Jesus had left the crowd—because, remember, we said last time, chapter 12 is the end of Jesus’ public teaching ministry. There is more that will be in the public in terms of his death and crucifixion and resurrection, but in terms of his actual instruction given to the crowds, there is a transition from 12 and into 13. And Jesus, if you like, has left the crowds with his words ringing in their ears. He has said to them, “I did not come to judge the world but to save the world.”[3] People would have heard that. “I have come into the world as light, so that whoever believes in me may not remain in darkness.”[4] Afterwards, as they were going home, as they sat in the evening at the meal, they may have said to one another, “I wonder what he meant about that. What does he mean that we wouldn’t walk in darkness?” Someone else says, “Yes, I remember he said, ‘The light is among you for a little while longer. … While you have the light, believe in the light, that you may become [the] sons of light.’”[5]

All of this Jesus is proclaiming in the company of the crowd and in the company of his disciples. Perhaps this evening, as we come to the final of these “Truly, trulys,” we will be struck by the way in which his call to “believe in the light while you still have the light” runs in distinct comparison to the thirtieth verse and the concluding phrase: when Judas walks away, John simply says, “And it was night.”[6] He had heard Jesus say, “Believe while you still have the light,” and he chose to walk out into the darkness.

Well, as I say, the public ministry ends, and now he gathers with his disciples in order to prepare his disciples for the fact of his departure. And in my notes I said to myself, if I was going to work my way through this passage, I would want to make sure that I understood the things that we’re told concerning Jesus’ knowledge. So, for example, it begins in 13:1, “Now before the Feast of the Passover, when Jesus knew that his hour had come to depart [from the] world [and] to [go to] the Father…” Jesus was completely aware of this. In verse 3, “Jesus”—again, his knowledge—“knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands, … that he had come from God,” that he “was going back to God,” he then proceeds in the washing of their feet. In verse 11: “For he”—that is, Jesus—“knew who was to betray him,” and “that [is] why he said, ‘Not all of you are clean.’”

Now, I noted that because it stood out to me in contrast to what he says to Peter in verse 7, when Peter characteristically begins to interact with Jesus in a way that none of the others do—which seems to be par for the course for him—when in verse 6 he says, “Are you going to wash my feet? You would wash my feet?” And then Jesus says, “What I am doing you do not understand now, but afterward you will understand.”

And so I paused on that, and I want to pause on that for a moment and address it with you. Because what Jesus is saying to Peter in the express immediacy of all that is about to unfold in terms of the cross is actually true for each of us in all of our lives. There’s not a person within earshot of me right now who is making their journey through life, professing as a follower of Jesus, and what Jesus says to Peter he might realistically say to us. You actually use our names: “Alistair, what I’m doing you do not understand now, but afterward you will understand.”

Isn’t that the case when the shadows come? When one wheel falls off, as it were, the wagon? When the times of joy seem to somehow or another be sprinkled with disappointment, with anxiety, with uncertainty, with the prospect of death, with the loss of loved ones, with the unanswered prayers for our children or for our grandchildren? And Jesus says, “You may not understand right now, but one day you will understand.”

It made me think of the song that the Gaither Band loves to sing—always clapping, as they do, which is fine. It begins,

Trials dark on ev’ry hand,
And we cannot understand
All the ways that God will lead us
To that blessed promised land. …

[But] by and by, when the morning comes,
[And] all the saints of God are gathered home,
We[’ll] tell the story of how [he’s] overcome,
[And] we[’ll] understand it better by and by.[7]

Peter wasn’t unique in this. His colleagues didn’t get it either. Jesus knows. Jesus knows all about our troubles.

In fact, this is what makes quite remarkable the statement at the end of verse 1. Knowing that he’s about to depart from the world and return to the Father, and “having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end.” I said to myself, “Well, there is something that I need to stop on as well.” Because the disciples did not understand. Again and again in the Gospels, when Jesus explains to them that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer and die and on the third day be raised again[8]—for example, you’ll find this in Mark 8—and Mark simply says, “But they did not understand what he was saying to them.”[9] “Having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end.” “He loved them.”

The cross is the irrefutable proof of the love of Jesus. It is an undeniable demonstration of the love of Jesus.

Do you know how much Jesus loves you? Do you believe how much Jesus loves you? That’s what I wrote to myself. Because think about this: Jesus knew where he was going. Jesus knew what awaited him. Jesus knew that when he said to them, “Watch and pray [so] that you may not enter into temptation,”[10] they all decided to have a sleep, and he came back, and he found them sleeping. Jesus knew that they would deny him. Jesus knew that one would betray him. But it didn’t stop him from loving them. “He loved them to the end.” How wonderful is this? We know all kinds of love: marital love, boyfriend-girlfriend love, affection, brotherly-sisterly love, and so on. But so much of my love, our love, is filtered, because we tend to dispense the generosity of our affections largely in response to the well-being or the acceptable behavior of the one whom we love.

But not Jesus. Jesus will never reject any of his servants because of our feeble service—that’s a big encouragement—because of our weak performance. Every one that he receives he keeps. Those whom he loves at the first he loves to the end.

There is no love like the love of Jesus,
Never to fade or fall,
Till into the [heart of the living] God
He has gathered us all.

Jesus’ love, precious love,
Boundless and pure and free!
Oh, [come] to that love, weary, wand’ring soul!
Jesus plead[s] for thee.[11]

The love of God for us in Jesus is immense. He loved us before we knew him. He loved us before we had any interest in him. He loved us enough to pursue us.

And having brought us, having given us, entrusted us to his Son—John 6: “All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never [turn them away]”[12]— “never turn them away.” You come through a bad week, feeble, floundering, forsaken. The devil comes and knocks on the front door of your head and says, “See? See? I told you it would never work, you’d never continue.” Tell him to go to where he belongs, and turn your gaze to Christ, the love of Christ.

That is why, incidentally, when we studied Ephesians—many years ago now, it seems—part of Paul’s prayer for the Ephesian believers was along these lines. Can’t read the whole prayer. It’s in Ephesians 3:18. He’s praying that “you [would be] rooted and grounded in love,” that “[you] may have strength to comprehend” what? Well, “to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.”[13]

There has to be a reason why the tiniest children, still in their infancy, lay hold of “Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so.”[14] When Karl Barth, the theologian of the early twentieth century, was asked in a conference, “What is the greatest theological insight you have ever had?” he replied in the words of that children’s chorus.

The love of Christ passes knowledge. Passes knowledge. Jesus’ love for his disciples was not in evidence on account of their having met his expectations. Jesus’ love for you, as a follower of Jesus, is not tied to your ability to meet his expectations. The cross is the irrefutable proof of the love of Jesus. It is an undeniable demonstration of the love of Jesus.

And that is why the foot washing—which we will pass over briefly—that is why the foot washing needs to be understood in light of that to which the foot washing points. I have heard a number of sermons on foot washing that was okay, but it largely came out as a sort of guilt trip, or it had a sort of story of “You know, there are certain things that can only be fixed with a bucket of water and a towel.” And you’re like, “Whoa, I’m not sure that’s what the foot washing is about.” You know, you’re just going, “Wait a minute.” And when I looked at this again, I realized: no, it is the cross that makes sense of the foot washing, and it is the foot washing that points forward to the cross. After all, all of this conversation about whether you’re clean or you’re not clean, the cleansing—there is a fountain that cleanses. It wasn’t a bucket of water in the context of this supper.

So, it is very important—and this is as much as we will say—that the foot washing is actually an acted parable of what is about to take place on the cross; that the cleansing flood that is provided in the shed blood of Jesus is the only place, is the only fountain where our sins are washed away. All the way through the Old Testament—you get it in Leviticus, where the word is that there will be a cleansing from sin.[15] You go into the psalmist, and the psalmist says, “Cleanse me from my sin and I will be whiter than snow. Make me a new person.”[16] Where was that going to take place? At the cross. And Jesus, as he does what he does in setting himself down as an expression of his humility, is pointing forward to that ultimate expression.

That’s why in the conversation, when Peter, classically, does his thing, as I said—“You’re going to wash my feet? That doesn’t seem right.” It’s a bit like John the Baptist, remember, in the baptism: “I should get baptized by you, not you by me.” Jesus says, “Let it be so now to pursue all righteousness.”[17] And here Jesus says, “Unless I wash you, you’ve got no part in me.”

Now, clearly, he’s not talking about, “Unless I do this…” “This that I’m doing is simply an expression of the great washing.” And then Peter, of course, classically gets it 50 percent right, and he says, “Well then, if we’re going do it that way, don’t do just my feet. Do my hands. Do my head. Do the whole shooting match!” Jesus must have thought, “Oh man, this is unbelievable!”

But let’s just notice this—and we’re almost to get to our first “Truly, truly.” Let’s notice this. Because people, often young Christians, will come up with this: they say, “Well, if Jesus has cleansed me from all of my sin and if my past is resolved and so on, why do I still need to come to him for forgiveness?” Well, the answer to that is straightforward. That is that being washed in the cleansing blood of Jesus, we are cleansed from our sin. But we’ve still got to walk through the journey of our earthly life. And as we walk through the journey of our days, there isn’t a day when we don’t fail. There isn’t a day when I don’t come short. There isn’t a day when I don’t need fresh supplies of mercy. There isn’t a day when I don’t have to come to Jesus and say, “My feet, Jesus. Forgive me. I spoke out of line. I was jealous. I know that I’m accepted in you.”

Well then, what’s the distinction? Well, the distinction is that once we’ve been brought into the family of God, he loves us to the end. So what happens in our disobedience? What happens in our faltering? Does it remove us from the family, and then we have to be re-adopted? No, it doesn’t remove us from the family, but it removes us from the enjoyment of fellowship in the family—that sense of disappointment and failure and the cloud coming down. “Forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.”[18]

Okay. So, the foot washing serves not only as an illustration of all that is about to take place in the cross, but it also serves as an example for the living out of the life on the part of his disciples. And that is why when he says in verse 16, “Truly, truly I say to you, a servant is not greater than his master, nor is a messenger greater than the one who sent him,” he’s arguing from the greater to the lesser: “If I then, being your Lord and Master, do this, you then must do this for one another.” Jesus is their Lord, and he’s their Master, and yet he took the lowest place.

And what he’s saying is simple. “It is therefore unthinkable,” he says, “that you who are my servants should consider yourselves too great to follow the pattern that I have established.” That’s why it was so helpful that we had read for us in Philippians chapter 2, perfectly revealing to us the steps down on the part of Jesus. Peter does the same thing in his letter, where he says to his folks in chapter 5, “Clothe yourselves, all of you, with humility.”[19] The word that he uses there is the word for an apron that would have been used by a servant in the act of foot washing. And they would take that apron, and they would wrap it around themselves as they engaged in what they were doing. And so Peter says, “What I want you to do is actually metaphorically wrap that thing around yourselves and so serve.” Somewhat ironical and wonderful, isn’t it, that Peter should return to this when he himself didn’t do such a great job on this occasion?

Now, I’m going to leave aside the question of whether the practice of foot washing should be a regular ordinance of the church. Those of you from a Roman Catholic background know that the pope does this once a year, which seems to me not to be an immediate, obvious application of John chapter 13. But nevertheless, some of the Moravians continue to do this. They see it as a rite of the church. I think for myself that I’m perfectly happy to wash your feet if you need that done, and I suppose you might be prepared to do it for me. But I also recognize that it’s very possible to put a system in place which actually reveals nothing of the heart attitude that is necessary. I can still have a jealous spirit. I can be resentful. I can do everything. I can wash your feet… Yeah, okay.

So, I think it’s an “as”—that “you should do as I have done,” not “what I have done.” “It’s okay if you want to do what I’ve done, but what I want you to do is make sure you do as I have done.” In other words, “As servants, you need to be ready to perform the lowliest of services”—that menial tasks are not to be beneath us.

Now, this, of course, is something that Jesus emphasized. You find it in Matthew. You find it in Luke. And he even refers to it again in… Is it chapter 15? Yes, in chapter 15—if you turn over a page, where he’s talking about “If the world hates you, it hated me,”[20] and so on. And then he says, “Remember the word that I said to you: ‘A servant is not greater than his master.’”[21]

Now, what brings this home with such a punch is the fact that when you read in the Synoptic Gospels—for example, when you read in Luke and in chapter 22—Luke tells us that in this very context, a dispute had arisen. So Jesus is now demonstrating the lowliness of his persona, which is going to be magnified, dramatized in the cross. And in that context, in that supper, as they’re all laid out on the left-hand arms with their feet hanging out the back, in a “U-tube,” eating, they’ve got an argument. And what is the argument? “A dispute … arose among them, [so] as to which of them was to be regarded as the greatest.”[22] That’s good, isn’t it? I think I can identify with this better than the foot washing. It’s as though Jesus decided to address that issue by doing the unthinkable—that he would do that which they would be unprepared to do for one another.

Bishop Ryle says, “Well would it be for the Church if [the] truth [of verse 16] was more remembered, and real humility was not so sadly rare.” Pride is the elemental human sin. Pride! If you think about it, jealousy is just pride, because we think we should have something else. You can trace it all to there. Ryle goes on, “Perhaps there is no sight so displeasing in God’s eyes as a self-conceited, self-satisfied, self-[centered], stuck-up professor of religion.”[23] “Perhaps there is no sight so displeasing in God’s eyes as a self-conceited, self-satisfied, self-contented, stuck-up” professing Christian. Boy, it rings, doesn’t it?

It’s interesting that Ryle should write in this way. Because using Ryle’s Expository Thoughts, which he’s done on all of the Gospels, I was struck this week—and I went back to check on this—I was struck by the way in which… I wanted to see… So, Ryle says, “There’s nothing… This is a bad thing.” So I said, “Well, I wonder how Ryle was.” ’Cause he’s dead now. He’s been dead a long time. Well, you get an insight into people in the way in which they write and so on. And in his preface to his Expository Thoughts, he writes to say, “I am very sensible that I have often failed to hit the mark.” Really? “I have not been ashamed in many places to confess my ignorance.”[24] Really? Aren’t you supposed to say, “I’m Bishop Ryle, I graduated from Cambridge, I’m incredibly clever, and I’m sure everybody’s going to just fall at my feet and marvel at the erudition that is represented in my Expository Thoughts”? Well, that’s what he’s talking about: no.

Competent critics will probably detect in the work not a few errors and mistakes. I lay no claim to infallibility. But I can honestly say that I[’ve] never handled the Word partially or deceitfully, and have done my best to show “the thing as it is” …. On the whole I cannot help hoping, that, in spite of many deficiencies, the notes will be found [helpful] to thoughtful readers.[25]

And then he quotes,

The conclusion I arrive at, after a diligent examination of many Commentators, is always one and the same. I trust none of them unreservedly ….

The book … now sent forth [is sent] with a deep conviction in the author’s mind, that it contains many defects, inaccuracies, and blemishes, but with an earnest desire and prayer that it may help some readers to a better understanding of one of the most interesting portions of Holy Scripture.[26]

You see, the disciples failed to understand what we are tempted to miss, and it is this: that the fact of greatness—the fact of greatness—is measured by a different yardstick than the yardstick that is used in our culture. The yardstick that is used in our culture will have to do with either your height, your width, your skinniness, your intelligence, your forcefulness, and so on. The yardstick that is used in the New Testament is the yardstick of humble service. And that hadn’t registered with his disciples.

C. S. Lewis talks about how when he became a Christian, he says,

When I first became a Christian, about fourteen years ago, I thought … I could do it on my own, by retiring to my rooms … reading theology, and I wouldn’t go to the churches …. I disliked very much their hymns, which I considered to be fifth-rate poems set to sixth-rate music. But as I went on I saw the great merit of it. [Because] I came up against different people of quite different outlooks and different education.

And then he says,

And then gradually my conceit just began peeling off. I realized that the hymns (which were just sixth-rate music) were, nevertheless, being sung with devotion and benefit by an old saint in elastic-side boots in the opposite pew, and then you realize that you aren’t fit to clean those boots. It gets you out of your solitary conceit.[27]

Preaching to the Keswick Convention twenty-four years ago, Stott, in dealing with the opening chapters of 1 Corinthians, says something very similar. And I quote this very purposefully, because it’s so good. He’s talking about the way in which, in the Corinthian church, they had a real problem with preferring one against another: “I’m a big guy for Paul,” “I’m a big guy for Apollos,” and so on.[28] Nothing is new under the sun. And he says what happens is that “we see [the] thirst for power everywhere” in our culture: “in politics and public life; in big business and in industry. … And we also see it here in the pulpit,” he says, “which is a very dangerous place for any child of Adam to occupy. Power is more intoxicating than alcohol and more addictive than drugs. … I want to tell you frankly,” he says—2000—

that I am scared of the contemporary evangelical hunger for power. …

At no point does the Christian mind come into more violent collision with the secular mind than in its insistence on the weakness of humility. The wisdom of the world does not greatly value humility. We’ve drunk in more than we realize of the power of Nietzsche’s philosophy. He worshipped power, dreaming of the rise of a ruling Aryan race, that would be tough, masculine, brash … oppressive. He despised Jesus for His weakness. The ideal of Nietzsche was the Übermensch, the super man. The ideal of Jesus was the little child. There was no possibility of compromise between these two images. We have to choose between them.[29]

Well, we’ll come back to this and pick it up in the evening hour. For a moment let us pray.

And Jesus said, “Whoever knows these things—whoever knows the right thing to do—must do it.” And James says, “Whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, for him,” or for her, “it is sin.”[30]

Look upon us in your mercy, Lord, we pray. Set us free from ourselves and our own selfish preoccupations. Surely it’s pride that wrecks a business office, a group of lab technicians, a baseball team, a family, a pastoral team, an elder board, a church. Meet us where we are, gracious God, and grant to us forgiveness for our sins and the fullness of your Spirit so that we might increasingly become like Christ, in whose name we pray. Amen.

[1] Mary Ann Lathbury, “Break Thou the Bread of Life” (1877).

[2] John 13:38 (ESV).

[3] John 12:47 (ESV).

[4] John 12:46 (ESV).

[5] John 12:35–36 (ESV).

[6] John 13:30 (ESV).

[7] Charles Albert Tindley, “When the Morning Comes” (1905).

[8] See Mark 8:31; 9:31.

[9] Mark 9:32 (paraphrased).

[10] Mark 14:38 (ESV).

[11] William Edensor Littlewood, “Wonderful Love of Jesus.”

[12] John 6:37 (ESV).

[13] Ephesians 3:17–19 (ESV).

[14] Anna Bartlett Warner, “Jesus Loves Me, This I Know” (1859).

[15] See Leviticus 16:30.

[16] Psalm 51:7 (paraphrased).

[17] Matthew 3:14–15 (paraphrased).

[18] Matthew 6:12 (KJV).

[19] 1 Peter 5:5 (ESV).

[20] John 15:18 (paraphrased).

[21] John 15:20 (ESV).

[22] Luke 22:24 (ESV).

[23] J. C. Ryle, Expository Thoughts on the Gospels: St. John (New York: Robert Carter and Brothers, 1878), 3:14.

[24] Ryle, 3:vi.

[25] Ryle, 3:vi.

[26] Ryle, 3:ix–x.

[27] C. S. Lewis, “Answers to Questions on Christianity,” in God in the Dock: Essays on Theology and Ethics (1970).

[28] See 1 Corinthians 1:12; 3:4.

[29] John Stott, “Power through Weakness,” in One Lord, One Church, One Task: 2000 Keswick Ministry, ed. Hilary Price (Carlisle, UK: OM, 2000), 28–29.

[30] James 4:17 (ESV).