As I sat in silent prayer this morning, I saw an image of the Last Supper. It did not look like Da Vinci’s famous painting where all the disciples were lined up on either side of the Lord. It was a busy and noisy gathering. Conversations occurred between clusters of disciples, and the Lord engaged in some of those conversations.
Then the mood of the meal changed when Jesus got up from the table.
“He got up from the table, took off his robe, wrapped a towel around his waist, and poured water into a basin. Then he began to wash the disciples’ feet, drying them with the towel he had around him” (John 13:4-5).
Everything that had divided the disciples was put on hold as the Lord began demonstrating His love. He even washed the feet of Judas, His betrayer. The Lord was revealing the depth of His love to disciples who did not yet fully understand the purpose of His Kingdom.
The Lord’s expression of love caused Judas to leave the meal and betray Jesus. Only after Judas departed did the Lord begin to reveal the deeper truths of His Kingdom. The disciples still had their opinions and personal histories, but the Lord was demonstrating that He was able to work with all of them amidst their differences if their hearts remained moldable to His purpose.
“This is my commandment: Love each other in the same way I have loved you” (John 15:12). This was something much larger than imitating a foot washing ceremony in future gatherings of the Church. It was the kind of love that could take place in any group of disciples, each with their own opinion about how to live this life.
The Lord was transitioning their understanding from being slaves to their opinions to becoming friends with God. “You are my friends if you do what I command” (vs. 14). The Lord wanted to reveal deeper things to His friends if, in their diverse friendships, they could keep the Lord’s love central in their thinking.
We have just gone through a very challenging election. Opinions and declarations were made telling others we knew the full extent of God’s love. A division within the Church has emerged.
The Lord is about to stand up in the current dinner of our faith and reveal once again the depth of His love. That revelation will reset the Church. It will not include those who have rejected the Lord and the ones He loves.
What remains will be a group of disciples who will be required to love those they abandoned when emotions were running high, and the love of God was not being properly expressed. This kind of reset is only possible when we are friends with those who are friends with God who hold a differing opinion and who don’t see life through the same lens we use to interpret our reality.
He was speaking to me of this very same thing this morning. It can no longer be about differences in opinions, but who is unified in Christ.