Did Jesus know what would happen to Him?

He Loved them to the End – Six Sermons

Part 1: “A love that knows…”

(John 13:1, Preaching: Pastor Stephen Magee, August 23, 2009)

John 13:1 Now before the Feast of the Passover, when Jesus knew that his hour had come to depart out of this world to the Father, having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end.

Before the Feast of the Passover

Jesus Christ is our Passover Lamb. Jews have been celebrating Passover for centuries. It is a wonderful holiday that helped God's people to remember that He had rescued them from slavery in Egypt. One of the Psalms that was sung by the Hebrews in connection with the Passover was Psalm 116. It starts like this: "I love the Lord, because He hears my pleading. / He's heeded me; through life I'll call on Him." This is a very appropriate song for Passover.

The way that God answered the pleading of Israel included some suffering for their nation. The rescue was not immediate. He demonstrated His great power in mighty plagues against Egypt, and even hardened Pharaoh's heart so that this king of Egypt stubbornly refused to let the Israelites go. Their deliverance came in connection with the final plague against the Egyptians. God had earlier turned the waters of the Nile into blood. He sent frogs, gnats, and flies. He killed their livestock, gave them boils, and sent down hail upon them. He covered them with locusts and then with darkness, but the final plague was by far the worst. God struck down all the firstborn of Egypt.

The way of rescue for the Israelites from this act of divine judgment was through the blood of the Passover lamb. This blood was placed above their doors, and the firstborn in each of those dwellings was spared. Why were God's people rescued through blood? The lamb was a sacrificial animal in this ceremony. The death that the firstborn of the Israelites deserved was symbolically taken by another, in this case, an animal. The message that God was displaying here in this great rescue of Israel out of Egypt was this: Freedom will come to the people of God through the death of a substitute. Now, in John 13:1, as the true Lamb of God, the eternal firstborn of the Father, prepares to be the real Substitute for sinners, He wants us to see His coming Passover sacrifice as a gift of true love.

Jesus knew

True love means the most when it is not accidental. Jesus is about to take upon himself the humble role of the lowest slave in the house. With his basin and towel, he will wash the feet of his disciples. That means so much more when we consider that Jesus did this as one who knew. He knew that something would soon take place, something that the foot washing symbolized. He would soon carry a cross on which He would die the death that we deserved. He knew that He would be the Passover Lamb through His death for us on that Roman cross.

This knowledge of Christ that makes the cross such an intentional act of divine love was not something that came upon the Son of God in the last week of life. Jesus, as the great Son of God, knew what He would do for us long before He was born. You and I did not know anything before we were conceived, since we were not anything up until that time. Jesus has always been the Son of God. He had an agreement with the Father even before the creation of the world. The Bible calls that agreement "the eternal covenant." An eternal covenant is an agreement that lasts forever. This covenant was secured with blood, and that blood was human, the blood of Jesus. In the opening words of 1 Peter, the apostle writes that the people who believe are "elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, in the sanctification of the Spirit, for obedience to Jesus Christ and for sprinkling with his blood." To be elect is to be chosen by God. We are told in another place (Ephesians 1:4) that God did all this in eternity past, before the foundation of the world. God ordained the goal of the covenant, our salvation, and He ordained the way that this goal would be achieved, through the blood of the Lamb, Jesus Christ.

Jesus knew about this, and that is part of what makes His death for us such a powerful love. It was not accidental; it was not impulsive. Sometimes when we are trying to persuade other people that a decision we have made is not as last-minute or ill-considered as it may seem to them, we say something like this: "I've actually been thinking about this for a long time." Jesus actually had been thinking about his death for you for a long time, even from before the foundation of the world. His love was a settled commitment. He was not trapped into the cross. He knew.

Time to depart out of this world/ Time to go to the Father

This verse tells us about two specific things that Jesus knew as He was getting ready to wash the feet of His disciples. The first of these is that He knew that His hour had come to depart out of this world. There are many people as they are about to die who may have some kind of premonition that their time has come. This kind of hunch is pretty much just a guess. It may be a very good guess, but "man does not know his time" (Ecclesiastes 9:12). Jesus knew. His statement here was not a hunch. It was divine revelation. His death would take place in connection with this Passover only days away. He knew that He would suffer and die on a cross. He knew that His body would be buried, and that He would rise from the dead. He knew that He would be here on earth for a time in that resurrection body, but not for very long, since He knew that it was time for Him to depart out of this world.

The second thing that He knew was where He would be going when He departed out of this world. You may know, by faith, based on the promise God in His Word, where you will go when your time comes. I think that you can know that, and that God wants you to know that. Still, Jesus knew where He was going in a different way then you know where you are going. Recently I had an opportunity to return to the state where I was born. When I was considering going there, I was able to think about a place that I know. I grew up there. Jesus knew that when He left this world that He would be going to a place He knew very well, a place that is His home state. Jesus was going to the Father. The home state of the Father and the Son is in the present heaven. That is where Jesus lived as the Son of God for those millennia before He was born in Bethlehem. When He was born in a manger, He had left His home, and He had left the Father. He came here to do a job that only He could do. That required that He be set apart from the Father. The Father was home in heaven; Jesus came here. John 13:1 tells us that Jesus not only knew that the time had come for Him to depart the earth; He also knew that He would be going back home to the Father.

It is one of my joys that I have when I consider heaven that I expect to see my father there. I am not talking about God at the moment. I can only imagine what it would be like to see God, and to feel the embrace of Jesus Christ, but I know what it would be like to see the father I grew up with. I remember his bear hug, his physical embrace, his eyes, and his hands. Jesus knew what his home was like. He knew His Father's voice and His embrace. It would have to be with considerable joy that Jesus knew that it was time for Him to go back to the Father He loved.

He had loved His own

Maybe you have never adequately considered that the Father loved the Son, and the Son loved the Father. There may be a sense in which thinking about that kind of love within the Trinity is a revelation to you. I hope it is, yet it makes perfect sense that the glorious eternal Father and that the glorious eternal Son would love each other. What should be a far greater shock to all of us is that Jesus, the Son of God, loves people who are not yet glorious.

This verse tells us two things about the love of the Son of God for people. First we are told that Jesus had "loved his own who were in the world." Jesus loved His disciples. He sometimes had to tell them hard things, like when He said to Peter, "Get behind me, Satan." He was at times rightly frustrated with them and with the crowds that were following Him, as when He said, "O faithless and twisted generation, how long am I to be with you? How long am I to bear with you?" What does it mean that Jesus had loved His own who were in the world? It means that He had suffered for them as an expression of His great covenant commitment to bring about their eternal blessing.

If you say that you love someone, but you are unwilling to suffer for that person, what does your love really mean? Love is willing to suffer. Jesus gave Himself to His disciples in an exhausting and frustrating schedule of travelling, teaching, healing, praying, and just being with them. It is no wonder when they were in a boat on stormy seas that He was the one sleeping somewhere. It was a sign of His trust in His Father, but also a sign that He was tired. Jesus faced opposition from powerful people because He loved His disciples, and He taught them hard lessons about who He was and what He had come to do, things they found it difficult to believe. He did all this because of His commitment of love to these men, 11 of 12 of whom would be the founding leaders of the Christian church.

He loved them to the end

These were not people from His home state, heaven, but He loved them anyway. The final point of the verse is that He loved them to the end. There are all kinds of people who say they love someone, but they will not love them to the end. They will not make the sacrifice necessary to keep on loving when love becomes too costly. In the case of most of us, loving someone to the end may mean something as simple as not walking away from them, and not throwing them out, and even that may be very difficult. In the case of Jesus, loving His disciples and us to the end meant shedding His blood. This is what He came to do. This is what He knew His life was all about. In this final moment of preparation for the days ahead, he gets down on his hands and feet like the lowest slave and washes their dusty toes; and that is nothing compared to what He will do for them soon when He is lifted up to die.

What can we say? “Thank You, Jesus! Thank You for knowing that the end was near, and loving us to the end!” If He had quit, He would not have been our Passover Lamb. If He had run away from the cross, we would still be stuck in the slavery of sin. He did not run away. He loved us to the end. The firstborn of God died that we might live.

Questions for meditation and discussion:

1. What do we know about the Passover and how is this important for our understanding of divine love.

2. What did Jesus know about the events that were about to transpire on earth and in heaven?

3. How had Jesus displayed His love for His own up to this point?

4. What would it mean for Jesus to love us to the end?