Several years ago, I phone my friend, Frank, to check in on him. Frank and his wife, Jane, were in their 90’s at the time. Frank said he and Jane were doing well and, in fact, they were just about to sit down to have a conversation about the purpose of language. Frank then asked, “George, would you like to come over and join us in the debate?” As tempting as Frank’s offer was to converse about the purpose of language, I declined. I just wasn’t feeling it at the time.
But the idea of understanding the purpose of language is not a frivolous one. Language is essential to us. Language is informative, it is expressive, and at times it is directive. Language can be conveyed verbally, artistically, by facial expressions, and even occasionally by hand gestures.
The creator of language in all its varied forms is God. The first page of our Bibles tells us that God used language and spoke, “Let there be light and there was light.” God saw the light and called it good. God created man and woman and gave them the capacity for language. God gave us language so that we could be informed, that God would be expressive towards us, and that God could give us the direction we need. But at the heart of God’s use of language toward us and for our benefit, is to convey in as many ways possible that God loves us, and that God wants us to love each other.
Listen to how Jesus’ follower and dear friend, John, explained to his church God’s use of the language of love. John wrote, “7 Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. 8 Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. 9 This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. 10 This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. 11 Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. 12 No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us” (1 John 4:7-12). John used language that was informative, expressive, and instructional to convey that God is love and that we who have been born of God through Christ are to love. And, perhaps most importantly, John said that God expressed his love not in a single sentence but in a single life, the life of his Son. “10 This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins” (1 John 4:10). Jesus was and is the embodiment of God’s language of love for us.
Dr. Gary Chapman, a Christian marriage counselor, has concluded after years of study and counseling that there are five distinct love languages created by God to be used to convey love. These five love languages are: Words of Affirmation, Quality Time, Acts of Service, Gifts, and Physical Touch. Dr. Chapman said that we may relate in some way to all these forms of love language, but each of us has one language that speaks to us the most.
Jesus used these love languages continually with all the people he met but perhaps never more profoundly than when Jesus and his disciples gathered in the upper room to share that final Passover meal. John who so eloquent wrote that “God is love,” painted the scene of a loving setting in that upper room. John said, “1It was just before the Passover Festival. Jesus knew that the hour had come for him to leave this world and go to the Father. Having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end” (John 13:1)
John was making it clear to us that Jesus’ primary purpose of gathering his disciples in that upper room was love. Earlier we sang about the love in this very room was enough for one like me, for all of us, and for all the world. We can think of those lyrics as the scene in the upper room played out. Everything Jesus would say and do in that very room was motivated to convey God’s love to the disciples in the memorable and indelible ways.
The first love language Jesus used with his disciples was quality time together. John said that Jesus knew his arrest was imminent and that his life would be taken. In that knowledge, Jesus decided he would spend his last hours with his disciples, away from the crowds and the noise of others, giving them his undivided attention. Jesus, in spending time with his disciples, touched their hearts in a way that mattered, a way that made the disciples know that they were important and special.
John recalled that, “2 The evening meal was in progress, and the devil had already prompted Judas, the son of Simon Iscariot, to betray Jesus. 3 Jesus knew that the Father had put all things under his power, and that he had come from God and was returning to God” (John 13:2-3). Jesus knew that even though he loved Judas as much and in all the ways he did with the other disciples, Judas opened his heart to Satan. Satan’s approach to language is to take all the languages of love and twists each of them. Quality time must be given upon demand. Touch is always sexual. Acts of service must have expected. Words of affirmation are to be continual and ever greater. Gifts are expected to received and when given must be adored regardless of their quality. Judas choose to live by a perversion of love, a love of self over others.
John wrote that Jesus’ knowing the time had come for him to return to the Father and knowing of Judas’ betrayal of love, “4 Got up from the meal, took off his outer clothing, and wrapped a towel around his waist. 5 After that, he poured water into a basin and began to wash his disciples’ feet, drying them with the towel that was wrapped around him” (John 13:4-5). Jesus had engaged in expressing love using three love languages.
First, Jesus engaged in an act of service by caring for the needs of his disciples. People’s feet in Jesus’ day were subject to considerable amounts of dirty and filth as they walked within their own village and between villages. Washing a person’s feet was usually offered by the host of a gathering by ordering a servant to perform that task. Using a servant, meant the act of foot washing was an impersonal act between the host and the guest. Foot washing was a job for the servant. But when Jesus, the leader of the group, stripped down and washed his disciples’ feet, Jesus made the foot washing an act of service used to express love.
Second, in washing the disciples’ feet, Jesus necessarily rubbed, massaged, and dried his disciples’ feet. Jesus loved his disciples through physical touch. Proper and loving physical touch brings about a deeply intimate connection often causing the recipient of the proper touch to feel a sense of peace and serenity. Jesus wanted his disciples to know one at a time that he loved them. We sang about this feeling earlier today when we sang, “Then the hand of Jesus touched me, and now I am no longer the same. He touched me, O, He touched me, and O the joy that floods my soul! Something happened, and now I know, He touched me and made me whole.”
Through the foot washing, Jesus expressed love to his disciples as an act of service and physical touch but a greater expression of love, a love expressed by a gift, was also given in the foot washing. To understand that expression of love we need to read a bit more about what John wrote.
John wrote that as Jesus was washing the disciples’ feet, Jesus came to Peter. Peter said to Jesus, “6b “’Lord, are you going to wash my feet?’ 7 Jesus replied, ‘You do not realize now what I am doing, but later you will understand.’ 8 ‘No,’ said Peter, ‘you shall never wash my feet.’ Jesus answered, ‘Unless I wash you, you have no part with me’” (John 13:6b-8). It was in this moment that the foot washing was no longer about removing physical dirty from the soles of Peter’s feet. The foot washing symbolized the acceptance of Christ’s offer, his gift, of salvation. Jesus wanted Peter to understand that Jesus offers a gift to those who would receive him, a gift of eternal life. To have eternal life, one must accept the gift. To refuse the gift, as Peter suggested he would do, “you shall never wash my feet,” was to reject Christ and his offer of salvation. In rejecting Jesus’ foot washing, Jesus said to Peter then “you have no part with me.” What Jesus was saying to Peter, and the others may not have been understood at the time but promised that the soon would understand.
Jesus, through the foot washing, was showing a third love language, the gift of eternal life by being washed of sin by him. This gift became understood after Jesus’ death and resurrection and was proclaimed by all the disciples. Paul wrote, “For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 6:23).
There was one more expression of love for Jesus to share with his disciples in this moment. John wrote, “12 When he [Jesus] had finished washing their [his disciples’] feet, he [Jesus] put on his clothes and returned to his place. ‘Do you understand what I have done for you?’ he [Jesus] asked them. 13 ‘You call me ‘Teacher’ and ‘Lord,’ and rightly so, for that is what I am. 14 Now that I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also should wash one another’s feet. 15 I have set you an example that you should do as I have done for you. 16 Very truly I tell you, no servant is greater than his master, nor is a messenger greater than the one who sent him. 17 Now that you know these things, you will be blessed if you do them’” (John 13:12-17).
Jesus used the power of words to affirm to his disciples that they shared the intimate relationship with the Son of God. That through that relationship, they had been blessed with unique privilege in the kingdom of God. Not only that, but that they could extend and expand that blessing if they would willing shared love with others.
What can we make of this moment in the upper room with the washing of the disciples’ feet? I think there are three things we should carry with us today.
First, God loves you. I don’t mean that in some flippant way as often love is used today, “Luv ya!” “Luv ya more!” I mean God through and through loves you. He sent Jesus to express that love because we can best understand love from when it is expressed by a person. Jesus expressed that love through all the ways we can receive it. He loved by giving his time. Jesus loved by doing acts of service and touching those around him. He loved by sharing the gift of salvation, an assured place at God’s table. Jesus loved by being the Word of God and affirming that we, ourselves, can be lifted up and be children of God.
Second, we need to grab hold of the reality that we have been redeemed. To be redeemed means we have a new life. The old life, past mistakes, errors, and disappointments have been wiped clean. To be redeemed is to be washed clean – fully. When we are fully washed, redeemed, the allure of Satan’s twisted words about ourselves and others can be cast aside. When we are redeemed, we are no worried about the future or our destiny. Knowing we have been redeemed is a blessing and gives us peace.
Third and finally, we need to recognize the world is exceedingly hungry for love that is proper and pure. Because we are blessed by the love of Christ and our redemption in Christ, we can serve others in love. We can make the existence of Christ in this world real as we share quality time with others. We speak to others of the reality of Christ when we extend our hands to those in need and affirm them with the physical touch of the body of Christ. We lift others up when we do acts of service for them without expecting anything in return. We can encourage people through the circumstances of life with positive words of hope. And we can most importantly, share the gift of redemption through Jesus with them. These are the ways we can bring the basin and towel from that upper room to life in and through us.
Let us pray together knowing God loves us, has redeemed us, and calls us to serve one another.