“Broken Open”
Original sermon given on Sunday, May 18, 2025 written and delivered by Pastor Jeff Leininger at First Saint Paul’s Lutheran Church.
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“Broken Open”
John 13.31-35
John 13.31-35
In the name of the Living God and the risen Christ. Amen.
and political pundit David Brooks talks about two different reactions from two different types of people when undergoing great trial. When you’re really going through personal difficulties — when pressed down hard on every side, how do you react? Speaking somewhat autobiographically, Brooks describes contrasting reactions to those times of “walking through the valley.” “In those moments of suffering, you can either be broken or you can be broken open. People who are transformed decide ‘I’m going to be broken open.’”
Brook’s book, The Second Mountain, was written after his conversion to Christianity — although it isn’t exclusively a Christian book. Yet I would argue being “broken open” rather than simply being broken gets us to the heart of the Christian message and the heart of Jesus’ command to “love one another.”
We encounter our Lord Jesus in John 13, on the night which he was betrayed — at the Last Supper. You may be familiar with this gospel as it is also often read on Maundy Thursday. “Maundy Thursday” not “Monday Thursday” — the title of the day comes from the Latin “Mandate” for command, as in “A new command/ mandate I give to you, that you should love one another.”
Jesus is beginning his conquest of the world on this Passover evening, on Maundy Thursday. Only he’s conquering the world with a towel, not a sword; on his knees, not on a war horse; emptying a basin of washing water rather than filling a coffer full of treasure. He washes his disciples’ feet on that night, both as an example for what they should do in service to one another and in preparation for his service for them, and for all people, on the cross. There, our Lord would be not just “broken” but broken open. That is, the worst that this fallen and falling world could throw at him, the weight of all the injustice of humanity upon his shoulders, the punishment for every sin ever committed pressing down upon him, yet he responds in love. Not just any type of love, but the “agape” love of the gospels — a love that comes only from God, empties itself in sacrifice for others, and has its full extension all the way to eternity.
How different this world’s versions of “love”. Even the best “loves” we produce are so very different than what Christ both gives and commands. If Jesus’ “agape” love is from God, in sacrifice for others, and lasts onto eternity, then in contrast our this-worldly loves are produced only from ourselves, for our own self-satisfaction, and will all have their end when we die. These are the types of love that can ultimately only break you. They cannot break you open. When you’re hurt, you hurt back. When you can’t have something, you crave it more. When the world presses in on you, life pushes you down, you collapse further and further into yourself. Even when you obtain the best of this world’s love, the more you have of it, the more you crave it, the more it consumes you, and then it finally destroys you. Resentment. Revenge. Reprisals — these are the ultimate and inevitable fruits of this world’s love.
Consider this: when Jesus was at his very worst moment, he offers his greatest sacrifice, gives his greatest command and receives his greatest “glory.” Betrayed by a friend, unjustly accused, lied about, spat on, dressed-up in royal mockery, nailed to an instrument of shameful human torture — and yet, here is where God is glorified, and here is where love breaks open to all the world.
It breaks open for you and me today, too. No matter how much you’ve been hurt or abused by this world’s twisted loves. No matter how empty you feel about yourself, or anxious about your future. No matter how heavy the cross of your own sin and shame weigh upon you. The God-given, sacrificial, eternal love of Jesus is here to forgive, transform and send. It was the full glory of God shining forth from a cross, and a love so strong it broke open a tomb.
Jesus commands us to walk in this love: “Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.” It is the most amazing and challenging and convicting word in all of Holy Scripture: that the same agape love which our Lord has for us, and displayed on the cross, and is the shining glory of God, he commands us to have for one another. (How’s that working for you these days?)
How much we need his constant grace and forgiveness, for the constant ways we fall short of his love! How much we need his very presence, kneeling and washing us again in his word, and in his holy sacrament where he joins himself to us, offering himself to us again. Only those who allow Christ to fully serve them at the cross can truly serve others. Only those who allow Christ to fully love them can truly love others.
This has always been the way of the church — Christ’s body — even from the very beginning. About a century after St. John recorded these very words in this gospel, the North African Christian scholar Tertullian wrote a defense of Christianity addressed to the rulers of the Roman Empire. It was a time of great intellectual opposition to Christianity and great persecution. In his Apology, his defense, he recounted the principal thing which drew him first to the faith, and the one thing which even the great philosophers of his day could not discount. “See how they love one another!” the pagans remarked when they beheld the early church. Even under the most intense persecution imaginable, “How ready they are to die for one another!”[1], the pagans observed.
It was this love from God, given in the sacrifice of Christ, and extended unto eternity which marked the church from the beginning. May it be our mark now too, and may we be broken open again for the life of the world.
Come soon Lord Jesus. Amen.
[1] Apology, 39.7. Cited in F.F. Bruce, The Gospel of John, 294