Reading
John 13:16-20
16 Very truly I tell you, no servant is greater than his master, nor is a messenger greater than the one who sent him. 17 Now that you know these things, you will be blessed if you do them.
18 “I am not referring to all of you; I know those I have chosen. But this is to fulfill this passage of Scripture: ‘He who shared my bread has turned against me.’
19 “I am telling you now before it happens, so that when it does happen you will believe that I am who I am. 20 Very truly I tell you, whoever accepts anyone I send accepts me; and whoever accepts me accepts the one who sent me.”
Comment
Jesus has just washed the feet of his disciples, as the hour of his passion approaches. That bowing before those whom he loved to the end prefigures the lowering of God into the depths of human misery and suffering, his making himself present in our fragile nature.
Just as a slave has no greater privileges than the master and an ambassador has no greater importance than the one who sent him, the disciples are called to humiliate themselves by obeying the word of God and placing themselves at the service of their neighbor. But far from mortification as an end in itself, they will find the true beatitude. Because when we are one with the other, his joy is our joy.
Jesus speaks of his imminent betrayal using the words of Psalm 41: "one who shared my bread, has turned against me." (Ps 41,9). Showing someone your heel was a sign of contempt and hostility. In the context of the Psalm is recalled the betrayal of David by Achitophel, which ended with hanging himself, prefiguring the sad outcome of the betrayal of the "great David" - Jesus - by Judas (cf. 2 Sam 16:20-22 ; 17:23). Jesus' reference to the Scriptures indicates that what is about to happen is situated within the Lord's plan of salvation and that his divinity is also revealed in the humiliation of the cross. "I am who I am" (v. 19) in fact it is a reference to the name with which God reveals himself (Ex 3:14).
Jesus' prophecy aims to increase the disciples' faith in his divinity, sovereignty, and omniscience once it is fulfilled (v. 19). This being confirmed in the faith will come about not through simple human effort, but through the Comforter, the Spirit that Jesus will send after his ascension, to guide his disciples towards the whole truth (Jn 16:13). The authority of the apostles resides in the one who sent and confirmed them; consequently, whoever receives those whom Christ sent receives Christ himself.
With the words that accompany the gesture of the washing of the feet, Jesus invites us to free ourselves from the logic of the world, which leads man to consider his neighbor as a simple tool to achieve his own goals. The result of selfishness is sterile happiness, which impoverishes above all those who pursue it. Only by living a spirituality of communion will we be able to discover ourselves as a gift for others and to discover in our neighbor a gift for us, to which we can make room. A big heart is capable of giving so much, but it receives in the proportion in which it gives itself.
Prayer
Purify us in the washing of your mercy, o Lord, and open our hearts so that we can welcome every man and woman as a brother and sister to serve, in the spirit of the Beatitudes you proclaimed. Amen.
- Rev. Dr. Luca Vona
