To The End.
By Booyeon Lee
John 13:1-17, 31b-35
…He loved them to the end.
I am struck by the completeness of John 13:1. Jesus had a singular purpose on his journey to the cross – to love until the end. This is a transformative, world-changing kind of love. Just by gazing at it, we can be changed.
Knowing that “he had come from God,” (vs. 3) Jesus could have risen above it all and chosen a way out, but instead, he subjected himself to the tragic human condition and injustice, and stayed on course to the cross. It is that improbable, radical love that moves Jesus to get up, as he looks across the table at the last supper with the disciples. I see him getting up from the table, taking off his outer robe, and tying a towel around himself (vs. 4). The room falls silent as he pours water into a basin (vs. 5), gets down on his knees, and reaches for the feet of his friends. Perhaps he knew how traumatizing his bloody, brutal death will be for the disciples and wanted to show them another form of sacrifice. Something they will remember by his touch and warmth. Something they can cherish and do for one another.
Jesus chose to love us “to the end” caused a tectonic shift in humanity. Emulated, it is the only kind that can change the course of history. On this late winter day in 2022, the world watches helplessly as a Ukrainian president stands his ground while the Russian forces close in on Kyiv. Seeing a clear way out to save himself and his family, he stays put, defiant in the face of brutal death.
That solemn yet easy gaze of the young president as he tells his people – “I am here to stay; that’s all I have to say” – has mobilized Ukraine, and perhaps the world, in unexpected ways. The way of Jesus’ love, even when reflected by those who do not believe in him, is a song the world longs to sing. It is a “scent of a flower we have not found, the echo of a tune we have not heard, news from a country we have never yet visited” (C.S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory). For the followers of Christ, it calls us to embrace the reality that Jesus has already loved us with this love – to the end.