The Love in the Supper: a meditation  John 13:1-35

https://youtu.be/MhTVOTz3B4g

Introduction

We live in a time, in the Western world at least, of little spiritual discernment. Millions of Christians, by reaction or reaction, have been distracted by a noisy gong and a clanging cymbal (1 Cor 13:1) some of whose trumpeting bears the marks of the beast (Dan 7:8, 11, 20; 11:36)[1]. A topic which must not detain us further lest we fall prey to the problem it represents. In the COVID/post COVID era as people keep talking about a time of reset or the “new normal”, any emphasis on technology to impart the reality of the Word made flesh (John 1:14) will ultimately prove misleading. Here in Australia a very recent and lengthy report on “The Future of the Church”[2] had much good practical material, with a fairly predictable focus on leadership.  We certainly do need to “exhibit love in our public voice” instead of telling people that they are “wrong”, but first of all there needs to be a revival of where all this started in the beginning. Which is the manifestation of the sacrificial love of Christ to the Church.

Spontaneous Expansion of the Church

Following my teaching on the Lord’s Supper last week I see a deep connection between the spontaneous expansion of the Early Church and the weekly gathering together of communities of believers in homes around an evening meal, celebrating their new life in Christ. We must pay close attention to the form or shape of the Lord’s Supper as handed down by Jesus and practiced in the Early Church.

The Form of the Supper

I chose John as our main reading because chapters 13-17 occupy the same space his Gospel story as the Lord’s Supper in the other Gospels. These narratives explain how Jesus will be with the disciples after he returns to the Father (John 13:36; 14:1ff; 16:4ff.). Not by foot-washing or shared bread and wine as such, but by a love greater than space or time. What washing feet and distributing bread and wine have in common is that they exhibit a prophetic realism drawn from Christ’s command to “do” what he did (Luke 22:19; John 13:15; 1 Cor 10:16).

The text of John 13 is especially climactic, “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.” Jesus is conscious that he is departing this world and returning to the eternal glory with his Father in heaven (cf. John 17:5).  As such he loved his disciples “to the end”, which means “to the end of his life” and “fully”. The fulfilment of Christ’s perfect love is highlighted by the dark action of Judas, “2 During supper, when the devil had already put it into the heart of Judas Iscariot, Simon’s son, to betray him,”. The clash of between the kingdom of God and the dominion of the devil is about to reach a climax.  This is an action tied to the end of the world, for Satan’s attack  through Judas on Christ is essentially one with the final action of the beast in his attempt to destroy the Church on earth (Rev 13).

“3 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, 4 rose from supper. He laid aside his outer garments, and taking a towel, tied it around his waist. 5 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.” (John 13:1-5)

Having received “all things” from the Father Jesus is now the conqueror in advance of his death and resurrection. Immediately he reveals to his disciples how he conquers.  Jesus rising from his place to wash their feet manifests the final victory of service in laying down life for others. This is a movement of power and glory masked in the eyes of the world under the humility of serving. The authoritative service that conquers the “world” passes from Jesus to us (1 John 5:4).

Later in this same discourse in John 13 Jesus spoke these immortal words, “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. 35 By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”” (John 13:34-35). This communication of love happens as we share in the service of the cross towards one another.

Back in the second or early third century the early Church Father Tertullian imagined pagans looking at Christians and saying, “Look . . . how they love one another (for they themselves [pagans] hate one another); and how they are ready to die for each other (for they themselves are readier to kill each other).” These were not sentimental feel good statements, because around the same time another Christian writer (Octavius by Marcus Minucius Felix) was remarking how the Romans found talk about loving brothers and sisters as suggestive of incest or scandalous notorious depravity (Tacitus). Being loathed by the world contributed to a dynamism in the way the early Christians celebrated the Lord’s loving presence which we have largely lost.

Love Feast

Despite the contemporary impression that singing is the centre of meeting together, feasting in the presence of God was the highlight of Hebrew and Christian worship. In the Old Testament, at Sinai, “Then Moses and Aaron, Nadab, and Abihu, and seventy of the elders of Israel went up, 10 and they saw the God of Israel…. 11 And he did not lay his hand on the chief men of the people of Israel; they beheld God, and ate and drank.” (Ex 24:9-11). And we know that the climax of the whole story is “the marriage supper of the Lamb.” (Rev 19:9) which fulfils the prophecies of the old covenant messianic banquet (Isa 25:6-8). The early Christians understood that through the Lord’s Supper they were in touch with these end-times realities in the fulness of their fellowship together.

In the revival context of Acts 2 (immediately following Pentecost), “they devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers…. with glad and generous hearts,” (Acts 2:42, 46). Everything which constitutes the Church in its essential nature was present in their gatherings. Even more illustrative of the foundations of the Church is a passing refence to the dangers of false prophecy in such fellowship; “These (false teachers ) are hidden reefs at your love feasts, as they feast with you without fear,” (Jude 12). Jude literally describes calls the Lord’s Supper as “love/agape” in the plural (agapais), and the sense “feast” (in “love feast”) is imported from the context of celebrating eating together  a meal (as the Passover and Last Supper were cf. 1 Cor 10:16ff.).

The “love feast” was an integral part of apostolic worship until during the second and third centuries when the agape meal was eventually separated from the Eucharist. Churches began celebrating the Eucharist in the morning and hosting the love feast of a common meal in the evening. Much of this had to do with an emerging theology of priesthood, altar and sacrifice; as well as to abuses in the Supper which led to the banning of the love feast by the fourth century.

Revival of Love

Paul speaks of the Lord’s Supper in the most intense way, “Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed. 8 Let us therefore celebrate the festival, not with the old leaven, the leaven of malice and evil, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.” (1 Cor 5:7-8). Sharing in a meal signified acceptance and fellowship, and the love feast in the church was to be a living example of unity. In the likeness of the death of Christ the love feast practiced indiscriminate but particular love. The first Christians loved all people (cf. John 3:16) but there was also a special prophetic action of love between them as members of the same family of God. This love was radiant and potently evangelistic.

We have lost much of the power of these practices. Researching this meditation I came across a reference that reminded me of some words from an old associate, the article said that the abuses of the Lord’s Supper in Corinth followed the lines of social class i.e. rich and poor, and were just like the collegia or “clubs” of the ancient world. A club is a select group that exists for the benefit of its own paid up members. How many of our churches have become clubs?

Conclusion

The way forward for the Church today should embrace a form of meeting together that reflects the prophetic action of the final form of love Jesus modelled in John 13 and the Lord’s Supper. The “love feasts” of the early Christians expressed an intensity of love which flowed out into the spontaneous expansion of the Church. This speaks of a new model, really the old one (cf. 1 John 2:7-11), built on “love one another”. Such love in the way of the Christ is the reason the world was created, what could be more attractive than that? This sort of attraction involves the descent of the Holy Spirit to manifest in our midst all the gifts and graces of God. “And the Lord added to their number day by day those who were being saved.” (Acts 2:47).