The Mandate

We can ask God for help to do what Jesus commands.

Today is Maundy Thursday. Traditionally, John 13 is the gospel reading for today if you’d like to read it.

“Maundy” comes from the word that also gives us mandate. It’s simple - Jesus gave us a mandate to love each other. We don’t usually think of love as a mandate, do we? Our domesticated, rights-based thinking tells us love is, at worst, a feeling, and at best, a choice. And while it is indeed a choice to love someone, we usually think of that as something to choose when the time is right or the circumstances are favorable. Yet remembering what Jesus said was a command or a mandate…that is something that we have to think more seriously about.

Our passage from Luke today also places significant responsibility upon us as Jesus’ disciples. Jesus teaches his followers to ask, to seek, and to knock. This is not a passive posture, but an active one. It assumes that God is not distant or disinterested, but attentive and generous. There is a kind of persistence here, a trust that God is not withholding, but giving.

And what God gives is not simply what we might expect. Jesus points beyond material provision or circumstantial relief and names the gift as the Holy Spirit. The very presence of God, active and at work within and among us. This matters, because the mandate to love one another is not left to our own strength or preference. It is given to us alongside the presence of God, who forms and enables that kind of life.

When I married my wife, I began praying what felt at first like a bit of a weird and irresponsible prayer: “God, help me to love my wife more.” It felt a bit irresponsible because one might judge that I already did love her. In my young adult mind, I already loved her. A lot. But over time, I believe this prayer has helped in difficult times. Often it comes out, “Help me to love her as you love her.” And my love for her has grown in ways I never could have explained at 23 years of age. It still does.

Jesus’ command remains a mandate. On this night, Jesus kneels and washes feet. He lowers himself in a way that redefines what leadership, power, and love look like. And then he tells his disciples to do the same. Not to admire it or to reflect on it in the abstract, but to embody it. We’ve codified his command to remember the Table. But this command to wash feet…most Christian traditions sentimentalize it rather than practice it. But this is love that takes shape in action, in service, and in humility.

And it is not given under ideal conditions. It is given to a group that will misunderstand him, abandon him, and betray him soon enough. The command to love does not wait for the right moment or the right people. It is given in the midst of real life, with all of its complications.

So we ask, and we seek, and we knock. Not simply for answers or outcomes, but for the kind of life that reflects the one we follow. And then, shaped by that same Spirit, we go and live it.

Luke 11:5-13

He also said to them, “Imagine that one of you has a friend and you go to that friend in the middle of the night. Imagine saying, ‘Friend, loan me three loaves of bread because a friend of mine on a journey has arrived and I have nothing to set before him.’ Imagine further that he answers from within the house, ‘Don’t bother me. The door is already locked, and my children and I are in bed. I can’t get up to give you anything.’ I assure you, even if he wouldn’t get up and help because of his friendship, he will get up and give his friend whatever he needs because of his friend’s brashness. And I tell you: Ask and you will receive. Seek and you will find. Knock and the door will be opened to you. Everyone who asks, receives. Whoever seeks, finds. To everyone who knocks, the door is opened.

“Which father among you would give a snake to your child if the child asked for a fish? If a child asked for an egg, what father would give the child a scorpion? If you who are evil know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him?”

Prayer (adapted from the Book of Common Prayer)

God,

Your Son, Jesus Christ commanded us to love one another, and gave himself for us as an example of what that love looks like. Give us grace to receive his command not just as words, but as a way of life.

Shape us by your Spirit, that we may love not in theory or intention, but in humility, service, and truth. Teach us to follow his example, to kneel where we would rather stand, and to give where we would rather hold back.

By your Spirit & in Christ,
Amen.