"Washed by the Fountain" (John 13: 1-35)

In this passage from John 13, Jesus demonstrates and describes the kind of love that is at the center of the universe. Agape love, the kind of love that spends itself in pursuit of another person’s good, shows up at the beginning and end of John 13. The passage starts by describing Jesus’s love for his people, and ends up with Jesus commanding his people to follow his example of love in such a way that outsiders and not-yet believers would see it and become drawn into faith and enjoyment of the God who loved the world into existence. In this passage, Jesus shows us that we will only have the power to love others as he commands if we first understand and experience the love God has shown to us through the life, death and resurrection of his Son, Jesus the Christ. QUOTES “The vulnerability that leads to flourishing requires risk, which is the possibility of loss—the chance that when we act, we will lose something we value.”—Andy Crouch “What will show the presence of heaven itself among God’s people? What will show that God is alive and well and right here? It’s our love for one another. This isn’t an afterthought, as though what really mattered were other things and our love for one another was the icing on the cake. No, the quality of our relational life is to be an apologetic to the world around us. As Francis Schaeffer once wrote, “Jesus is giving the world permission to judge whether we are true Christian disciples on the basis of whether we love one another.”- Sam Allberry “What makes the Fourth Gospel's account so extraordinary is that there is no parallel in extant ancient literature for a person of superior status voluntarily washing the feet of someone of inferior status. Jesus' act therefore represents an assault on the usual notions of social hierarchy, a subversion of the normal categories of honour and shame... It is not just an honoured teacher who is performing a shameful act but a divine figure with sovereignty over the cosmos who has taken on the role of a slave.”- A.T. Lincoln  "There, in heaven, this infinite fountain of love — this eternal Three in One — is set open without any obstacle to hinder access to it, as it flows forever. There this glorious God is manifested and shines forth in full glory, in beams of love. And there this glorious fountain forever flows forth in streams, yea, in rivers of love and delight, and these rivers swell, as it were, to an ocean of love, in which the souls of the ransomed may bathe with the sweetest enjoyment, and their hearts, as it were, be deluged with love!" - Jonathan Edwards