Gospel of John Chapter 13 verse 1. Now before the feast of the Passover, when Jesus knew that his hour was come, that he should depart out of this world unto the Father, having loved his own which were in the world, he loved them unto the end. that part of the journey to the cross and this brings us very close to the cross.

Last week when we saw the book of Matthew, Matthew's account started when it was just two days to the Passover. and every disciple, especially Matthew and John, when they wrote of the sufferings of Christ, they wrote it in various different dimensions and perspectives. So when Matthew wrote his sufferings of Christ, he as a disciple of Christ, who was very close to Christ, touched him so much was the aspect that here is somebody who fulfills all the prophecies that the Jews were waiting for. And so there is a deliberate emphasis given to how the Lord Jesus, through His sufferings, fulfilled the prophecies. beginning to that narration, a hard stop to the life of Christ and a sort of a jerk when it comes to narrating the death of Christ. Matthew reserves three chapters, John reserves almost half the book to just narrate what happened a few hours before his death. And both of them, when we bring it together, we have a beautiful picture of the Messiah, the Jewish Christ, that they were waiting for.

When Matthew was so interested to show how Christ fulfills the prophecies, John takes us in a different dimension and shows it all the more beautifully. In fact, the account of John is very endearing. It's something that... stirs up our emotions if we travel like how John takes us through the course. Matthew started it at two days before the Passover. John takes us to the very eve of the Passover, where in beginning of verse 1 he says, before Christ is going to be crucified. And that is the point at which John begins his narration of the sufferings, where we are so close to the cross, it's hardly going to be 12 hours before Christ will breathe His last. It's at that point when John begins to narrate the sufferings of Christ. And he's reserved half of the book just for that. That's the weightage and importance He gave to those last 12 to 18 hours in the life of Jesus. Well, Matthew, right from the start of the book up till the end, He gave emphasis to the writings that were fulfilled. John, on the other hand, is a book of intimacy, is a book of closeness and nearness, where John looked at Christ and was constantly looking at the One who was with the Father from above, who is of God, who has come out from God, who is God, unto whom are given all things, who is eternal life that was with the Father and has now incarnated.

It is only John who described that incarnation in such stark words where He said, Word has become flesh. He took the audacity to ascribe flesh to Christ and said that now God has become flesh, as manly as one can ever get, flesh of our flesh and bones of our bones. John brings us right to the burning bush. not beyond the line which we can cross, but He brings us so close to the divinity and the humanity of Christ. For John, it was somebody who we could touch, we could hear, we could see, it cannot get more intimate, more closer than that. And so, for one who looked at Jesus Christ in such nearness, such dearness, with such oneness that the son enjoyed with the father, such intimacy and fellowship that the son enjoyed with the father. If somebody begins to write about the sufferings of Christ in such an angle, always pulling together those strings of how Christ is of God and belongs to God, is with God and is God and now is on the Cross, it is the greatest of all constraints. It is balancing out the greatest of all contradictions, and John does it so delicately and so beautifully well.

For John, it is of one who could be touched, who could be seen, who could be heard, who could be lived with, who could be abided with, who could be dwelt with, who could be... find His chest as the reclining and the resting place, that's how near one could get to Christ, and if that's how near one could get to Christ, what would it mean for that person when he sees Christ on the Cross? So for John, it is way more than the fulfillment of the prophecies. For John, it is seeing the One who is God from the beginning and continues to be God despite being on the Cross. So John, when he writes the epistle, he doesn't write about the cry on the cross where the Lord cried out, My God, My God! He does not talk about Christ being separated from the Father. On the contrary, John makes it all the more clear that the Father is always with me. That's how Christ would say, The Father is always with me. You would all leave me. but the Father is always with me. And so how do we now look at the suffering servant with whom God is always with Him, with whom the One shared divinity with God? How do we look at such a one suffering?

We read in verse 1, this is John's angle of suffering, in verse 1 of chapter 13, Now before the feast of the Passover, when Jesus knew that His hour was come, that He should depart out of this world unto the Father. And that's the beginning statement, the introduction to the sufferings of Christ in the eyes of John, that here is someone... going out of this world back to the Father. For John, the sufferings of Christ was mere stepping stone for Christ to enter unto his glory. That Christ was going back to where he came from. And so in all of these sufferings and all of the pain, there will be this foundational truth that brings all the narration together that here is someone going back to the Father. Here is someone going back to the glory that he had before the world began. Here is someone going back to the place where he inherited, where he was seated up in the heavens. At one point, Christ even rhetorically asked the Pharisees, Do you want me to rise up to the heavens for you to believe? And this was going to happen now. Christ was going back to heaven. This is the best way one can ever look at the sufferings of Christ.

More than what men could do to Him, more than the rejection that Christ suffered at the cross. that the end of it was joy, joy unspeakable, at the end of it was glory, glory that He had before the world began, at the end of it was the glory that He shared with the Father, at the end of it was the Son of God being glorified and with the Son of God, God being glorified. This is the best way one can ever look at the sufferings of Christ. that in the midst of all the horrible things that men could do, at the end of it all, it was only for Christ going back to the Father, that this cross was a mere way for Christ to ascend back from where He came, to take up His rightful place at the right hand of God, to enjoy the fullness of joy available in the presence of God, to be made higher than the heavens, that this horrible cross was just a mere way, a mere path, a mere route for Christ to go back to His glory. And that's the best dimension you could ever have of the sufferings of Christ, that at the end of it all, here is someone going to glory, here is someone departing out of this world, here is someone going back to the Father.

Christ never lost a vision of this truth in his own sufferings. At one point, he chided the woman saying, You weep not for me. I am not a subject to be mourned for. You could look at the sufferings of Christ and be in tears, but Christ says, Weep not for me. When the Lord told the disciples, He said that their heart was filled with sorrow, but the Lord told them, If you knew I am going to my Father and that my Father is greater than me, then your heart would be filled with joy. You would rejoice because I go back to my Father and my Father is greater than me. That the matter of Christ going to the Father was not a matter of sorrow, should not have been a matter for the disciples to be sorrowful to have slept over it. It was a matter of great joy that for the first time in the whole of human history, there will be one person who ascends to the high holy hill of God, who will make those gates go up and will ascend to the right hand of God as man in flesh. And so there cannot be something more glorious.

At the backdrop of this horrible cross, at the backdrop of this shame and suffering and pain, is the fact that Christ is going to the Father, that this is the way to the glory. And so Christ was so crystal clear when He spoke to the Pharisees. He said, You will see Me sitting at the right hand of power and coming. in the clouds of heaven, that this is how it will all go down. This is going to be the end of it. Sitting at the right hand apart and coming down in the clouds of heaven. This is how the Son of Man will come. Where the cross nor the grave was His goal. He was only going back to His throne. that at the end of it, this is not a loser's cry. This is the greatest triumph over sin and death when someone ascends and belongs to the very glory of God. And so this is the heart of Christ in all the sufferings who set the joy before Him to despise the shame and the cross. who had the glory that He was inviting Himself to at His forefront, at His frontlets of His eyes. This was His heart.

When He prays, He prays, O Lord, the hour has come to glorify the Son and that You would be glorified with Him, that unto Him should be given the glory that He had with You before the world began. And the hour has come that they should be with Me. And so Christ looked at this as just mere sufferings that enter into glory, that He would chide the disciples at the road to Emmaus who were very sorrowful. And He said, don't you know of the prophets who have prophesied that these are the sufferings Christ will suffer and thereafter enter into glory? This is Christ going on His path of glory. This is Christ going back to where He truly belonged. This is Christ going back to the Father who considered Him His beloved. This is Christ going back to the Father whom He loved and the One who truly loved Him. This is Christ going back to assume His fullness of glory in human flesh. This is Christ in all His glory. This is the best way we can see the cross. This is the best way we can see His pain.

And the way that John begins the narration of the whole incident by this one statement shows that this is going to be the underpinning foundational truth of the whole narration, that this is only mere journey to the throne. You see, we hate this thought. In fact, any Jew who was looking out for the Messiah would hate this thought. They would not want a Saviour who would be exalted at the cost of humiliation, who would triumph at the cost of a sacrifice or who would enter glory at the cost of sufferings. But that's the path that the Lord showed, that the path to exaltation is a path of humiliation, that the one whom who truly humbles himself, there has been never someone so humbled like Christ, there has never been someone so exalted like Christ, that the path to the glory of God is through the most enormous path of the Cross. And so that beckons an important question. that would come to any reader when he reads this verse.

Why the cross? Why should Christ go through the cross to enter into glory? Why couldn't it be more simple? Wasn't Christ more eligible than Enoch to have just been simply taken away? Wasn't he more eligible than Elijah to be just simply more taken away? That if he was to even die, wouldn't it be a great thing? that if he were to die like Moses without the eyes and public knowledge of anyone where nobody even knows where his body was buried. Why should he be a public spectacle? A curse on the tree hanging before all? Why should he gain so much shame, so much sorrow, so much pain? Why should the cross be the path to the throne? Why should Christ suffer so much to gain back what He truly deserves, to assume the glory that is truly His and that no one can snatch it from Him? Why should Christ go through such pain and such sorrow? Why should we accept a saviour that goes through humiliation just for the sake of exaltation and only to gain back what he is that truly belongs to himself?

John continues at verse and says, He should depart out of this world unto the Father. having loved His own which were in the world, He loved them unto the end. And this is the balance that we are looking throughout the book of John, a very delicate balance, where Christ wants to go to the Father who is out of the world, but He has His own that are in the world. And is there a way that He can go back to the Father who is out of the world, not leaving aside those that are in the world? Is there a way for Christ to go back to the Father whom He truly loves, not leaving behind those whom He loves as well to the end? Is there a way that He can assume the glory that He had before the world began and also share it with worms who are in mighty clay? Is there a way that he can go to the Father who is out of the world and have all those that are in the world along with him? Is there a way where he can go to the Father in all holiness, in all righteousness, in all glory and have those as well that are of his, in that same holiness, in that same righteousness, to share in that same glory with the Father?

Is there a way where he can have the same fellowship that he had with the father before the world began and share it with all those that are in the world? To the Father that is out of this world, to us who are in the world, is the cross, is the path of the cross, is the path of the suffering servant, that Christ would not have the glory that truly belongs to Him without us. that here is Christ departing out of the world but not without us, that He would not ascend to the holy hill of God without leading captivity captive. He would not go back to the Father without gaining unto Himself those that the Father gave to Him. He would not go back to His glory without gaining unto Him sons of glory. And this is the cross in full picture, the very first statement of the narration that John brings us. Christ going out to the world while loving those that are in the world. And that explains the cross. That explains everything that Christ had to go through.

So the Lord told Peter, you cannot come with me now, but you will follow thereafter, that I go to prepare a place for you and that He will come, that the cross is going to be a matter of sorrow, like the sorrow of someone who's pregnant and giving birth. Such will be the travel that you will go through, but then you will have a joy that no man can take it away from you. that the Cross is the path of the Saviour leading all those that are prisoners in darkness unto the Kingdom of God. And so it is John, when he begins this narration, he lays his underpinning foundational truth in that story and when he ends it, when Christ is resurrected, when Christ meets the first witness, even a woman, Mary, Christ says, I'm going to the Father. But Christ says, I'm going to My Father and Your Father, My God and Your God. That Christ would not go back to the Father without making His Father our Father, His God our God.

And this is the cross, this is the sacrifice of a paschal lamb, where Christ goes back to His glory with us in it. goes back to His Father with us giving the authority to call Him Abba, goes back to His Lord with us giving the right to call Him My Lord. That Christ on the Cross would be forsaken of His own God, so that now we can say that the Father and the Lord of our Saviour Jesus Christ is ours. that Christ would not enter glory without those that are in the world to be with Him and behold His glory. And so just as He goes to the cross, He prays this prayer, which is also in this book, and He prays this prayer, praying that, Lord, those that are with Me should be with Me in glory, that they would behold the glory that You have given. And so, if it takes the cost of a cross, if it takes the cost of so much pain and sorrow and suffering, for Christ to have only got the glory that He only had before the world began, but to, along with it, gain our sons of glory, the children of God, Christ most willingly went forth doing it. And so, in these last few hours before the cross, we see a Lord who is spending His time with the disciples.

And there are three important things that happened in these last few hours. The first thing, He washes the feet of the disciples. The second, he sets the Lord's Supper, he ordains the Lord's Table. And the third, he gives his final discourse, the things that he could only share with his own. And now each of these three things is worthy and a meditation of its own. But we want to look at these three things in the light of the sufferings, in the light of this path to glory, a path that He wanted us as well to go along with Him. And so we read in verse 3 of John 13, After that, He pours water into a basin and begins to wash the disciples' feet and to wipe them with a towel, wherewith He was girded. The first step in that journey, Christ knowing that He is given all things, the first step that Christ would do is to assume the role and a form of a humble servant, taking water and towel and wiping the feet of the disciples.

And the lessons can't get more profound than this. for nobody can have a more higher, more glorious view of himself than Christ. There can be no one more God like Christ, who is God, to whom are given all things, who comes from God and has to go back to God. There can be no one more exalted, no one more glorious. and the one who is the most glorious, the most exalted one, the most honourable one, the most beautiful, the most fairest one, such a one assumes the most lowest position, that he would go down to the feet of his disciples, where it cannot get lower than that, where he goes down to the very feet of his disciples, to wash away their wipe, to wash away their dirt. Here is the Lord of Eternity dwelling in humanity, kneeling in humility to wash away our sins.

And so the law to drive this beautiful strong picture that there can be no greater heights, no greater depths to which Christ has gone and condescended, where He has now reached the very feet of men. It cannot get lower than that. that if there is anything that it takes to wipe away our sins, Christ assumes that role. And so He comes to Peter and Peter says, Lord, You cannot wash my leg. Isn't it such a disgusting thought for a Jew? Out of all the people, the Messiah Himself wiping and washing the feet of His own disciples. This is how one of the songwriters says, this can happen on any ordinary day, in any ordinary time, this parable can come alive again. where one is willing to kneel, another is willing to yield. where Christ is willing to kneel and go down to the lowest level, to our own feet. and what He expects of us, that we are willing to yield.

That if Christ is about to go to the cross and even become sin for us, where there is nothing more worse than that, where He has to be forsaken of God eternal, God in His holiness, where there can be nothing more devastating than that, if Christ is going to go to such deep levels, where he will experience eternal domination, eternal separation that only a sinner in hell will experience. If Christ is going to go to that levels, if that is His willingness to kneel, to go down and become a worm, even a crimson worm on a cross that bleeds crimson red, if that is the level to which Christ will go to just wash our feet, can we just yield it? Can we just yield ourselves? For the law told Peter, you will have no part in me until you are washed. that the Lord would wash the feet of disciples as much as they are willing to yield it. that if there is any depths required for us to be victorious over sin, and Christ has gone down to those depths of all depths.

Then what is required of us is now to yield, to not restrain like Peter, but to be washed in the blood of Christ. But here is a greater truth that the Lord wanted to show the disciples. He was asking the disciples now to do this between themselves. He was showing the disciples that He, being the Master, has become a servant, and now you need to be a servant to one another, and wash each other's feet. And this is now something very painful. where Christ is asking the disciples to do to each other what He did to him them. And so you could probably look at this and, like some Christians do, literally wash each other's feet. It would not be a sin, but it's far from truth to consider it an ordinance where we have to do it. But no doubt, if we ever do it, it would be greatly humbling where we wash each other's feet. But there is a greater truth in this because Christ was not merely washing the feet and the dirt of people. He was condescending.

He was becoming a servant to all. He was becoming a nothing to all, even to His disciples. And then for Christ to say, now you got to do this between each other, is Christ inviting us into that role of a suffering servant, suffering for the sake of others, to do to others what Christ has done to us? where the washing of the feet is just mere symbolism of the great sacrifice that God, Christ, had to endure at the cross, where the assuming of Himself as a servant is just a mere symbolism of the most humiliating form of servanthood that Christ assumed to be a servant on the cross. And now Christ is inviting us to be those servants to each other. And so this is the basis, this is the foundation where even Paul says, Husbands, love your wife, for Christ, having loved the Church, gave Himself for it, that our life, our love, should be a reflection of His Sacrifice. So John would also say the same thing, that we are supposed to love the brothers, as Christ has loved and given Himself, that our measure of love to each other... should be to the point of death.

Now that is more than washing each other's feet. where our measure of love and servanthood to each other should be to the point of Christ dying on the cross for them. Like Paul saying, I am fulfilling what is lacking in the sufferings of Christ for your sake. Where we are asked to love one another not just in our needs, not just in our abundance, but even to the point of death. where Paul would talk of the Galatian believers this way that if it was really possible, the Galatian believers would pluck their eyes off and give it to Paul. Now that is a love unto death. That is a love of utmost that the Lord has shown to us, that the Lord wants us to be not lords over each other, where we don't bicker like the disciples wondering who is greater than the other, that who is more honoured than the other. But Christ on His way out of this world showed us that we ought to love to the point of death. and this is the true meaning of washing each other's feet.

Where one is willing to yield and the other is willing to kneel. where if it were necessary of our life for the sake of someone's salvation, we would be most willing to give. Where if it was a matter of our own blood and our life that someone would enter unto heaven, then we would most gladly lay our lives down. that if we were to love our brothers who turn out to be our enemies, just like we were enemies to Christ, and still love them to the point of death, this is the true meaning of washing each other's feet. This is the invitation that Christ invited us to, not for Him to alone suffer, but for us to follow that example. Having washed their feet, Judas leaves the rule. And there is much debate over the fact whether Judas left the room before the table was established or after the table was established. Either ways that are... these are just questions and disputes that don't matter. At the end of the day, the Lord established a great ordinance, an ordinance of great importance.

And so they are all sitting around like a Jewish family with Jewish emblems and signs, celebrating a Jewish feast of Passover, remembering bondage and liberty, where Christ out of nowhere takes the bread, He takes an unleavened bread. And for a Jew, that unleavened bread means the haste with which they left Egypt. They had no time to make a leavened bread, so they made unleavened bread. Unleavened bread always typifies haste, urgency. You see that again in the case of Lot, when Lot had to serve to the angels, he made unleavened bread. Bread was not readily available and he had to do it quickly. Obviously, he can't wait for the bread to be leavened. He gave them unleavened bread. Unleavened bread talks of the haste with which you can make things done. And that is what they were remembering, the haste with which they got the deliverance, where they couldn't even make a good meal for themselves. And Christ takes that symbol which has an Old Testament connotation, an Old Testament meaning, and says, Now this bread is my body.

That this uneven bread, now for one hour, will speak about me and my body. He takes Jewish symbols and infuses New Testament, New Covenant principles. symbols that they knew so well, he now says, this is my body, you need to eat it. and then he takes a cup. Now in the Jewish feast there were actually four cups. Let's look at a passage in Exodus chapter 6. and verse six. Exodus 6 and verse 6, Now, there are five I wills. Five times you read, I will, I will, I will, I will do this. In fact, the fifth one and the fourth one are together. There is an ant over there. I will take to you for me a people and I will be to you a God. So, generally, there are just four I wills and the Jewish people took these four I wills and took four cups to symbolise it. The first is, I will bring you out of the burdens of Egypt. and this was a supernatural event where God in heaven wrought deliverance to slaves in a nation. Now we can just pass over this as common knowledge but we need to understand how impossible was this act.

These are slaves for generations and would have been slaves for all their generations. There was no one going to show them pity. There was no one going to deliver them and neither are they in their own ability ever going to come out. For a matter of contemporary examples, if you want to see, even today you have these kind of people, stateless people. There's a group of people called the Rohingya Muslims. They're neither citizens in Myanmar or Bangladesh or India. Nobody will ever care for them. Nobody will ever give them liberty. How can these people ever come out of that bondage? How can they ever get life once again? No way. No man is going to do it. and that was the condition of Jews in Egypt. where God wrought deliverance, he says, I have come down. When nobody could bring them out, God did it with a great mighty hand of power.

But that wasn't enough. It wasn't enough to bring them out of Egypt. The second is, I will bring you, rid you out of their bondage. And you see, there are two different things here. We cannot take it for granted that just because someone is out of Egypt, he is also out of the bondage of Egypt. because the Israelites came out of Egypt, but their hearts were still in bondage of the things of Egypt. They walked out of Egypt with their heart behind. And these are two different things that God promised He is going to do. He is not just going to make them go out, but rid them of the bondage. Pharaoh was long dead in the bottom of Red Sea. Unfortunately, He still commanded mastery over those people that were on their way to... promised land. They were still in bondage of a dead master. And the Lord says true deliverance is not just coming out of Egypt, but deliverance from bondage. But the third thing is the most important thing. I will redeem you, which means I'm going to buy you out.

And the Jews named this third eye-will as the cup of blessing. So, when they took the third cup, they remembered the fact that God redeemed, He bought them, He purchased them, He literally destroyed a nation as a cost for redemption. He paid a price to buy the people. It is the third cup that denotes redemption. And Paul says, we drink the cup of blessing. So when the Lord was saying, take drink this cup, He was most probably holding this third cup, most probably referring to the third idol, a will of redemption where God out of heaven will come to redeem and pay the full price and make us own. But you see there was a fourth cup as well. And the Lord says, you drink, but then the Lord said, this cup I will not drink until I sit in my Father's kingdom.

So, most probably the fourth cup, which signifies the ultimate restoration, the ultimate glorification of just not Christ but also of His people, where the people will be God and God will be of the people, where sin will be destroyed. the fourth cup that talks of the coming back of Christ as a reigning King, where I will be to you a God and you will be to me My people. That fourth cup, the Lord refused to drink on that night. He said, I will drink it at My Father's Kingdom. Again, referring to the fact that the cross was not the end. And that's the beauty of a faith that we can have, like that of a criminal on the cross, saying, Lord, remember me when you come into your kingdom, that the kingdom is the end, the glory is the end. At this point, I would like to conclude and note the fact that the law told us to do this like a commandment, do this in remembrance. You see, the Jews did this, that is to drink and eat once a year. The Lord told them, do it once a year. Now imagine if we all did it just once a year.

Imagine there was just one day of 365 where we remembered the cup and the bread. How little will be that memory? How little will be that remembrance? Where we go back to our life all the other days of the year and just one day a year, we remember the deliverance. That's what the Jews do even today. They just have one day to remember. But for us, it's written that, as often as you drink, now that's the frequency, as often, it's deliberately not given how many times, but it's meant to mean it is definitely not just once a year. It's meant to mean it's not just once a month. In fact, as often, as often as you drink. and the believers in the first century, they did it every first day of the week. They made it a point that every first day of the week, there will be a remembrance of the death of Christ, that in eating this and drinking this, we will show the death of Christ.

How beautiful is that remembrance that every one day of week, the very first day of the week, we come around to refresh our memories of what Christ has done, to refresh our memories of the bread and the wine. and that it cannot be taken lightly, that it cannot be taken a matter of convenience, that we only come when it is easy, that we only come when it is possible to come, and we only come when it is more probable for us to come, that the slightest inconvenience becomes a great, great reason for us to miss the table. No, this is a privilege. The Jews do it just once a year. We have the privilege to do it as often as we wanted. as much as at least first day of the week to refresh our minds of what Christ has done. The irony in all of this is like how the hymn writer says, Need thou say, Remember me? Was it necessary for the Lord Jesus to even ask us to remember? Was it necessary for Him to even drive a commandment of remembrance? Was it necessary for Him to ask us, to command us and make it a matter of obedience?

If Christ has done so much to bring us to the glory of God, shouldn't it be our most natural, most reasonable response that we do this, that we remember Him? How can it be a matter of forgetfulness? But the Lord knows us. He knows we are dust. Like a father, He tends and spares us and knows our feeble frame. He knows the fact that we are so prone to forget a matter of such great deliverance. And so then He made it a commandment. He made it a matter of obedience for us that you need to do it now. Do this in remembrance of Me. And there is great joy and great blessings, great fellowship. in the coming together of Saints in the Name of Christ, to remember and to show forth His Death. On the way to the Cross, the Lord set forth this ordinance for us that we will do it till He comes. May His Name be glorified.