Love to the End
This sermon reflects on the disorienting tenderness of Jesus’ final night with his disciples, where love takes the unexpected shape of kneeling to wash feet. In a moment that confuses and unsettles, Jesus invites his followers—not to understand everything—but to trust and receive a love that feels both intimate and undeserved. “Love to the End” calls us to be transformed by that love, so that we might embody it for one another, even when we do not yet fully understand it.
The Glimpses of Grace podcast is a ministry of Grace Episcopal Church in Gainesville, Georgia. We are passionate about supporting the spiritual growth of souls, and we hope these sermons and conversations meet you where you are and enrich your soul as we all continue to make meaning in the world today.
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Transcript
His hour had come.
And having loved his own who were in the world,
he loved them to the end.
And yet he says to them—
“You do not know now…
but later you will understand.”
Time is a weird thing.
Scientists tell us it’s what keeps everything from happening at once. Writers imagine it as a river, or a circle, or something that can bend and fold in on itself.
Storytellers can stretch a moment or compress a lifetime—
shaping time so that meaning becomes clear.
But the folks inside the story?
They don’t get that luxury.
They live it the way we do—
one moment at a time,
without knowing how it all fits together.
That’s where the disciples are tonight.
We, of course, know how the story goes.
We stand on this side of the cross—
and even more, on this side of resurrection.
We know what’s coming,
but they don’t.
So when Jesus rises from the table,
wraps a towel around himself,
and kneels to wash their feet—
nothing about it makes sense.
It’s the wrong moment. It’s the wrong order. It’s the wrong person. Foot washing belongs before the meal, not during.
It belongs to servants, not teachers.
And so Peter says what we would say,
draws the line where we would draw it:
“No. Not this. Not you.”
Because it’s not just confusing, it’s uncomfortable.
To be served like that.
To be known like that.
To have someone kneel before you in such tenderness—
it exposes something in us.
Our pride. Our resistance. Our sense of control.
Or maybe something even deeper—
our fear that we are not worthy of such love.
“You will never wash my feet.”
Jesus doesn’t argue.
He doesn’t explain everything. He doesn’t provide a timeline.
He says, simply: Trust me.
“Unless I wash you, you have no share with me.”
Let me love you.
Let me come close.
Even when you don’t understand.
God doesn’t always work in ways that make sense.
God doesn’t always work within our timeline.
God doesn’t always work in forms we would choose.
But God is a love that was there in the beginning,
a love that took on flesh and stepped into time,
a love that kneels at the table,
touches skin, washes feet, and refuses limit.
Jesus gives that love a shape:
“You also ought to wash one another’s feet.”
Love one another as I have loved you.
Not in theory, not at a distance,
but up close, with tenderness,
…it’s costly.
We don’t always recognize what God is doing while it’s happening. We don’t always understand the moment we’re in.
We don’t always see how love is at work
when things seem confusing, always changing, or we’re at a loss. But Jesus says,
“You do not know now…
but later you will understand.”
Tonight, I invite you into two things at once:
(1) to receive love.
Even if it feels uncomfortable,
even if we don’t fully understand it.
(2) to become love—
for one another.
His hour had come.
And he loved them to the end.
So that we—
washed, held, transformed—
might go and love to the end as well.
Amen.