Today's Devotion

Wednesday, June 10, 2026 - John 13:1-20

In the name of + Jesus. Amen.

“Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever receives the one I send receives Me, and whoever receives Me receives the one who sent Me,” says our Lord. He had just inaugurated the Holy Supper with His closest disciples. And on the other side of the cross and resurrection, these eleven disciples will be sent. This is why they will be called “apostles,” (“sent ones”). When Jesus fulfilled and transformed the Passover meal into the Lord’s Supper, He also washed the disciples’ feet. And just as Jesus told the future disciples to “do this in memory of Me” (Luke 22:19), our Lord also called these same men to a life of lowly service.

For Jesus embodies the great paradox that in service, the worldly organizational chart is turned on its head. The kingdom is not symbolized by a pyramid of ruling lords, but rather by the cross: a symbol of love for those whom one is called to serve. To receive one whom Jesus has sent is to receive Jesus. To receive Jesus is to receive the Father. The Father serves the world by sending the Son to redeem it, and the Son sends the apostles to wash the feet of the world with the saving Word and Sacraments. It is a delegation not of power, but of love; not of rule but of service.

We even use the word “service” to describe when the church gathers to hear the Word preached and the Sacraments administered – that is, when the ones who were sent by Jesus through the apostles and their successors “do this” (Luke 22:19) and “make disciples” (Matt 28:19), when they use their delegated authority to forgive sins under the authority of the Father, given by the Son, and empowered by the Holy Spirit (John 20:21-23).

And this sending by Jesus did not end with the death of the last apostle. For this delegation of sending and service continues, as the apostles themselves ordained other men into the service of Word and Sacrament. Paul ordained Timothy and Titus, among others. Pastors and bishops were called and sent by the apostles to serve churches around the empire and beyond. And those pastors and bishops likewise carried out this great commission to send, to baptize, to preach, to teach, and to resonate the words of Jesus over bread and wine, and to continue to “make disciples of all nations (Matt 28:19).

And even the fallen Judas, though he was neither sent nor “chosen,” served the kingdom, even though that was not his intent. For through him, “the Scripture [was] fulfilled, ‘He who ate My bread has lifted his heel against Me’” (Ps 41:9), so that the apostles, seeing the word of both Psalmist and Savior fulfilled, even by this betrayal, “may believe that [Jesus] is He.”

For Jesus is He whom “the Father had given all things into His hands,” the one who “loved His own who were in the world,” for “He loved them to the end.” The Son was sent by the Father, because the Father “loved the world” by sending His Son (John 3:16). The Son loved the world by sending the world those who wash feet and preach good news “to the whole creation” (Mark 16:15).

Amen.

In the name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.