Washing Away Pride

This sermon was preached by Pastor Ted Carnahan for Maundy Thursday, April 2, 2026.

Grace, mercy, and peace be with all of you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.

Lord, are you going to wash my feet? You will never wash my feet!

Poor St. Peter. So convinced that with his bravado, with his intransigent willingness to say, "No, Lord, I will not let you serve me, I will only serve you." He was so convinced that he was going to give Jesus nobility. "I am going to treat you as great, and I'm going to humble myself, and I will never let you serve me."

The truth is, Peter didn't want to see Jesus serving him because he wants to imagine that he is going to be Jesus' servant instead and Jesus rebukes him and says, "If I do not wash you, you have no share with me."

And of course, then Peter overcorrects: "Oh, Lord, then not my feet only, but also my hands and my head! Wash all of me, Lord!"

But this is cut from the same cloth. Peter's so focused on trying to do things right because he wants to be seen doing the right thing. But he can't confront the truth. His heart is in rebellion against God. He does not see clearly what God is doing in the world.

St. Peter's spirit indeed is willing, but his flesh is weak.

The Sin of Pride

We want to pretend that by our own efforts that we can glorify God, that if we just do the right thing, say the right prayers, and serve the right people, that somehow that will make us right with God and set all things on a noble path.

We want to pretend that by our own efforts we can please God and somehow make ourselves worthy of that salvation which Christ extends to us on the cross.

The sin which infects us in these moments is pride. Pride which says, I really want to have no need of Jesus Christ.

Now, I know that some of you are thinking, Now, hang on, Pastor, I would never say that. I know that I need Jesus. And I believe that you do. I believe that you know that. And I believe that you would never say that.

But I also know that your heart is hard and cold in ways that you can't even recognize. And your heart will remain that way unless the Lord first serves you.

The Antidote to Pride

You see, the antidote to pride is its opposite, humility. And when Jesus comes to wash his disciples' feet, they are, believe it or not, humbled. Jesus is not exalting them by making himself a servant, but rather he is convicting them of their unwillingness to let Jesus Christ be God.

I don't know about you, but sometimes I make a mess at home. My wife will confirm this. And when I make a mess at home, and I'm lazy about it, and I don't get around to cleaning it up after a while, to get me up and moving and cleaning up that mess, is when she walks into the room and starts doing it for me in front of me.

As soon as she starts doing that, I am not filled with pride. Ah, here, finally, my wife is in her proper position, doing for me all that I do not choose to do. Look at me, I am so royal and regal.

No. I am not calloused by pride to watch someone doing the work of things like picking things up and putting them away, and to sit there and say, good, serve me, that's right, that's what I want.

No, instead, I am convicted by this! I immediately see her going to all the trouble to do what I myself should have been doing, and I recognize my fault, and I immediately jump off the couch and begin to help — actually, to insist, no, please, don't do anymore, I'll take care of it right now.

Jesus as Servant and Example

Yes, it is Jesus who is taking the role of a servant, actually, the role of a slave, doing the dirty work in our story tonight, washing the disciples' feet, but the disciples are the ones who are being humbled, because Jesus is setting them an example of how they ought to have been living already.

And now they've seen their Lord and Master down on His knees, serving them in one of the most humiliating ways possible, literally, taking the role of the lowest servant in the household, a towel wrapped around His waist, and washing feet. They have to be changed!

That's why Jesus asks, "Do you know what I have done to you?" Did you notice how He put that? Not done for you, done to you.

You see, I've shown you what it is to be served, so that you will choose instead to be servants.

Power in God's Kingdom

Here tonight in the story of the Last Supper, we see what it means to be powerful in God's kingdom.

In the kingdom of this world, we prioritize those with wealth, prestige, power, authority, popularity, all these things which the world counts as success.

Here, Jesus tells us that there's something else totally different, even its opposite, at work in God's kingdom. God's kingdom says that to be great in His kingdom, we must love one another, be servants to one another. That is what it means to live in the kingdom of God.

Here, we see what it is to truly be powerful as God conceives of power.

Here, the Son of God, the Word through whom creation was spoken into existence, made flesh in Jesus of Nazareth, born in a humiliating stable, because there was no room for Him at the end, having taken on the humility of human flesh, taking up the humanity into God, now humbles Himself further and further and further.

He takes off His robe, He gets down on His knees, and He washes their feet. And if that's not enough, then in that meal, as He gives us Holy Communion, He gives Himself as true food and true drink as He institutes the sacrament. And He prays for and forgives His enemies, even as they murder Him on a cross.

Can your heart remain hard and cold long when your Lord and Master does these things?

He tells you: "If you know these things, you are blessed if you do them." But my spirit rebels at the thought! To humble myself so far is beyond the capacity of my sinful flesh. But I also know that I don't do it! Who will rescue me from this body of death? Where can we find the strength to live in this sacrificial way?

Strength from Holy Communion

We find it in only the power of Holy Communion. The same Lord who just knelt with the towel and the basin now takes bread and wine and says, "This is my body, this is my blood. It is given and shed for you."

He does not merely show us how to serve. He becomes the service. He becomes the food which makes service possible.

Not only so that our sins are forgiven, but also so that the bread of heaven might give us heavenly strength. That we might crucify our own sinful flesh. And humble ourselves. And love and serve one another. For this is what He called us to do.

So we whose hearts are hard and cold — yes, my heart sometimes is hard and cold as well — we must rely solely upon the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ as He teaches us to love one another as He has loved us.

But He doesn't just command it. He also makes it possible. Because in dying for us and rising for us, He gives us strength beyond our own strength. He gives us power that is not counted as great by the standards of this world, but in the standards of the kingdom of God is truly great.

Walking Through the Triduum

Remember this as we walk through these great three days — this Triduum — as we walk through Maundy Thursday and Good Friday and the Vigil of Easter on Holy Saturday.

That you do so in the strength of the One who gave His strength for you. So that you are not alone. So that you are loved and healed and forgiven.

In Jesus' name. Amen.