"People just do not take the Lord's supper as seriously as they should. Perhaps it is the frequency with which we celebrate it. Too often we are merely going through the motions and not really getting out of it what we should. The problem is that we are not adequately prepared!"

Oftentimes I run across Christians who think this way and even explain their feelings. I am not advocating these sentiments if they are taken as an argument against frequent celebration of the sacrament. We can never receive too much love (too much of God's love)! However, a church committed to more frequent celebration of the Lord's supper needs to be on guard "lest familiarity breed contempt." We need to be prepared for the miracle that is about to enter our lives!

Another service of holy communion. It is nothing extraordinary, or so it seems. We have lived through many during the course of our lives. Are you excited about what is soon to transpire? If only we could share in the drama and excitement of that first Lord's supper! We are about to have that event recreated once again in our midst. If we tell the whole story and become immersed in the action that surrounds the meal, then I prophesy that our own celebration of the same meal may be a little more meaningful for you.

Here is the story: John's version of the Last Supper is a bit different from the accounts of the event which are offered by the other gospels. Not only is John's version distinct in his failure to provide many details about the actual meal (Jesus' words of institution). It is also distinct in the details he provides about Jesus' act of washing his disciples' feet at the meal. We need that kind of washing, too!

John's gospel tells us that during that final common meal between Jesus and his friends, Judas Iscariot resolved to betray Jesus (John 13:2). Of course, we already know that we have a God who works through contrasts - who brings good out of evil. Consequently, though it is surprising, it is very much in character that our Lord would bring good out of Judas' betrayal. Likewise, it is much in character that God would create good in the midst of Judas' evil at that first Lord's supper.

While Judas thought of ways to humiliate Jesus, our Lord himself, though fully aware of his own glory (John 13:3), undertook an act of self-humiliation. He washed his disciples' feet (John 13:5ff). It is one more indication of how much God loves his people. Even our treachery cannot quench his love!

Jesus washed the disciples' feet. Of course, in biblical times, washing your feet when you received hospitality from someone in their home was a standard custom. The guests had probably accumulated a good bit of dirt on their feet from the traveling that they had been doing. (Of course, sandals help accumulate more dust on your feet when you walk in them.) Usually in Old Testament times, the washing of feet was made possible by an invitation from the host, who often then offered guests the water and the guests washed their own feet (see Genesis 18:4; 19:2; 24:32; 2 Samuel 11:8). The washing was also a courtesy of the guest, an act by which guests cleansed themselves of the grime that they had accumulated in order truly to be worthy to enter and remain in the presence of their hosts.

Prior to Jesus, you washed your own feet when you were a guest. But Jesus took the next step in hospitality. He washed the disciples' feet for them!

Of course, Jesus' action, doing everything for his guests, is very much in character for God. He saves people that way; he does everything for them. He saves us through faith in Christ without any regard for works of the law that we might perform (Galatians 2:16). In the Old Testament practice of washing your own feet before socializing with your host, guests needed to do something to ready themselves for the fellowship that would follow with the hosts. But in the case of the Lord's supper, God did it all. The guest did not have to do anything. Fellowship with Jesus was not something that depended on a work of the disciples. They did not even have to wash their own feet before the meal. Jesus (God) did everything for them!

Peter did not want Jesus to wash his feet. Jesus told him later that he would understand the significance. But Peter still said "no" (John 13:7-8). Is that not the way it is with us? We are often too proud to want God to do everything for us. Or at least we are too proud to acknowledge that everything that we have is a gift from him. We do not accept gifts very well, do we? We inevitably seem to want to earn what we get. We like to think that God has been good to us, that he has given us what we have in life, because we deserve it. Yet that is not God's way. He gives his gifts free of charge.

The interaction between Jesus and Peter teaches us a number of lessons about how adequately to be prepared for the Lord's supper. You are not adequately prepared, it seems, unless you are willing to recognize that you are totally dependent on God's grace, that you have nothing to offer him. In short, you best prepare yourself for the sacrament by acknowledging how much you need it, because you have nothing you can offer to God.1

No, Peter and we do not at first want Jesus to wash our feet, to do everything for us. Peter's reluctance is just one more reminder of our sin. Yet the interaction Jesus had with Peter and us proceeds. That interaction gives us more clues concerning the kind of preparation that makes us truly ready to receive all the benefits that the Lord's supper provides.

First we cannot help but be struck by Jesus' humility in his act of washing his followers' feet. This was not a task that the host in Old Testament times undertook. You did it yourself, just like we today wash ourselves as we prepare for a meal or some other social event.

Even in the New Testament church, when Jesus' practice of washing the feet of Christian guests came to be adopted by his followers, it does not seem to have been much of a status job. The only reference we can find to the practice in the New Testament suggests that women did it (1 Timothy 5:10). Of course, in the largely sexist setting of New Testament times, if an activity was women's work, it was not worth much. Yet, our Lord, God himself, did that job on the evening of the last supper! God:humbled himself by serving us, his followers.

Jesus makes it very clear in our Gospel lesson that he knew how humiliating a task he was undertaking. John writes: "When he [Jesus] had washed their feet, and taken his garments, and resumed his place, he said to them, 'Do you know what I have done to you? You call me Teacher and Lord; and you are right, for so I am. If I then, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another's feet. For I have given you an example [or pattern] that you also should do as I have done to you' (John 13:12-15)."

Later the story even continues, and John has Jesus say: "Truly, truly I say to you, a servant is not greater than his master; nor is he who is sent greater than he who sent him. If you know these things, blessed are you if you do them ... A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; even as I have loved you, that you also love one another (John 13:16-17, 34)."

Jesus was aware that he had humbled himself, that he had assumed the role of a servant, when he washed the disciples' feet.2 (Of course, the Bible gives testimony to the fact that servanthood is at the heart of Jesus' ministry; in his death he functioned as a servant who was humbled in executing the bidding of the Lord. He died serving us [Philippians 2:5-8; Isaiah 52:13--53:12; 49:1-6; 42:1-4].) Likewise, he seems to be calling us, his followers, to a similar life of servanthood. He wants us to live a life of servanthood - to love one another by serving each other.

An awareness of our total dependence on God along with this spirit of servanthood seem to be the kind of preparation for the Lord's supper that Jesus taught his disciples that evening of the very first sacramental meal. When you truly repent of all your pride and lean on our Lord, when you yearn to serve God and your neighbor, then you are adequately prepared for the sacrament. That is the sort of preparation that frees us truly to receive all the benefits that the Lord's supper provides - to experience the real significance of his sacrament in our lives! If you have truly repented of your pride, see yourself as totally dependent on God, yearn to serve him and your neighbor, then you will never again just go through the motions in receiving this sacrament. You will really be prepared to receive it.

Of course, there is still a problem with this whole matter of some kind of preparation for receiving the Lord's supper. It was Peter's problem. It is our problem, too.

Recall, that we and Peter were uneasy with Jesus' washing our feet. We want to do something about our salvation. We like to think or act as if we could make ourselves worthy to receive the sacrament and our salvation. But Jesus would not let him and us do the preparatory work. He did it for us!

It is good that God works that way. If we had to prepare ourselves to receive the Lord's supper and our salvation, we would never qualify. I am not truly repentant of my sins like I should be, are you? I am sometimes a bit uneasy with the idea that I cannot contribute to my salvation, are you not too? I would often rather exercise authority over others and be served, rather than to serve. How about you? Perhaps our failure on these points relates to why so often our faith and our reception of the sacraments is ot a lively experience, but a mere "going through the motions."

If it were up to us to prepare ourselves to receive the Lord's supper we would be in big trouble. We would all fail the test. This was Jesus' point in responding to Peter when he objected to having Jesus wash his feet. Jesus answered him and us, "If I do not wash you, you have no part in me (John 13:8)." Jesus needs to cleanse us from our sin, or we would have no part in him and in his Father's kingdom.

Peter finally saw the light. Eventually, God's Word gets through our thick skulls, through our pride, and we respond to God's call. "Lord, [do] not [wash] my feet only but also my hands and my head," Peter cried (John 13:9)." But Jesus' words point to the ultimate ingredient in an adequate preparation for receiving the Lord's supper. They seem to point us back to our baptisms.

Jesus is reported to have said to Peter, "He who has bathed does not need to wash, except for his feet, but he is clean all over; and you are clean (John 13:10)." We are clean! Our baptisms have made us clean; in your baptism your sins were washed away. That is how Paul talks about baptism (Ephesians 5:26; Titus 3:5).

A number of biblical scholars belive that, when John alludes to water in his gospel in connection with Christ, he is referring to christian baptism.3 Consequently, in the story of the last supper, John's and Jesus' allusion to washing is really a veiled reference to our baptisms. Baptism (or at least the benefits of Christ's death and resurrection as given by the Spirit) has already made us, the followers of Jesus, clean!4 Only our feet now need to be washed; in fact, however, our baptisms have made us clean all over (John 13:10a). The washing of our feet, which prepares the disciples and us for receiving the Lord's supper, is nothing more than a touch-up operation on merchandise that is already sound. Jesus' washing of the disciples' feet in order to prepare them and us for that last meal is nothing more than putting us all back in touch with who we already are - a kind of reminder of what our baptisms have already made us. Baptism is the one indispensable sign of our preparedness to receive the Lord's supper. We need to wash up first in the waters of our baptism before we eat the (communion) meal!

Of course, in one sense, this observation is so obvious that it seems rather trivial to devote a whole sermon to the theme. Since the time of the early church, being baptized has been a necessary prerequisite for admission to the Lord's supper.5 You cannot receive the Lord's supper until you have been baptized.

However, there is something very profound about his realization. It is a word of gospel hope which frees us to receive the Lord's supper with confidence. The final word about being prepared for the Lord's supper is that ultimately we have all the preparation that we really need! We have been baptized! We already are clean!

John's version of the story of the last supper reminds us that we should be adequately prepared to receive the sacrament of holy communion if we want to obtain all its blessings to the fullest. It will mean a little more to you; this will not just be another communion service for you, if you come to the communion table aware of your total dependence on God, feeling repentant for your sins, and resolved to play the role of servant to our God and our fellow creatures.

Yet the good news is that this preparation work has already been done to you. Our preparation has been manifested. It happened to you in your baptism (Romans 6:1ff). We already have been made clean (Ephesians 5:26; Titus 3:5; John 13:10). The work of preparation, of repenting and resolving to live lives of servants, is nothing more than being what we already are. It is nothing more than an appropriation of our baptism. For a life lived denying your sin for the sake of God and your neighbor is the kind of person that your baptism made you. As such, it is not something we do. God has done it to us. He already has made us people who are sorry for our sin, aware of our total dependence on him, and ready to serve. That is the real you and me!

As you take a moment now to repent of your sin and stubbornness, to promise to live life anew as a servant to others, you are doing nothing more than becoming what you already are. It is sort of like the great natural athlete who engages in practice to sharpen his skills - to become what he already is. Jesus is just washing off the dust from our feet that beclouds this sort of cleaniness.

Come to the table, confident that God has already made you the kind of person who is ready to receive his sacrament. Come with the resolve to repent and to serve (because that is the kind of person God has already made you), and then his meal will be an occasion for deep spiritual enrichment - a true opportunity to wash off the dirt of sin from your otherwise clean body. You already have washed up, my friends; now come and eat the blessed meal that our Lord has brought for you and me and all his friends!