Love’s Austere Offices-John 13 Addendum

by G.S. Augustine

Robert Hayden’s poem, “Those Winter Sundays” is a big favorite of mine. It describes what I longed to be as a father. Hayden’s perspective is one of son finally understanding the sacrifice that love requires. But more, the poem suggests he realies that he is obligated to follow the same example. I have quoted the poem below in full. First, to provide my reader with a deep moving experience of the poem. But I will also use it as background to understand the foot washing scene in John 13 and Jesus’ command that we love each other as he loved us.

See also Knowing What Jesus Knew-John 13

	                  Those Winter Sundays
			    by Robert Hayden

		Sundays too my father got up early
		and put his clothes on in the blueback cold,
		then with cracked hands that ached 
		from labor in the weekday weather made
		banked fires blaze. No one ever thanked him.

		I’d wake and hear the cold splintering, breaking.
		When the rooms were warm, he’d call
		and slowly I would rise and dress,
		fearing the chronic angers of that house.

		Speaking indifferently to him,
		who had driven out the cold
		and polished my good shoes as well.
		What did I know, what did I know
		of love’s austere and lonely offices?

No Better Description

When I think of what a father should be like, I cannot think of a better description than Hayden’s poem. It’s even more powerful to know that Robert Hayden is a black man who was seven years old in 1920. He grew up in a poor Detroit neighborhood where most black families struggled to carve out opportunities for their children. But instead of giving up as others might have, Robert’s father continued in “love’s austere and lonely offices.”

At first, the path this father takes seems completely ignored and unappreciated: “No one ever thanked him.” And there were certainly other reasons to let love slide:. “… cracked hands that ached from labor in the weekday weather ….” What’s worse, those who most benefited from that love were indifferent. He provided them comfort in a house whose “chronic angers” inspired fear. But no matter, he went on to polish their “good shoes as well.

Why Love’s Lonely Offices Are Worth it

But Robert provides the ultimate perspective on why “love’s austere and lonely offices” are worth it. As a boy, he did not realize what his father was doing for him. It was just how things were. He expected it like one expects gravity to help you out of bed in the morning. And yet, at some point Robert becomes aware of the awesome gifts his father had given him. And yet he is still able to give himself grace since it wasn’t really possible for him to understand it then. “What did I know, what did I know of love’s austere and lonely offices.” The poem itself is a tribute to the respect Robert’s father would be awarded by his son. Though it would come many years in the future, it was awarded none the less.

It Takes a Long Range View

The perspective of the upper room discourse in John 14-17 is this same long range view. Jesus is faced with a terrifying present with no hope of rescue. He also knows that his followers will sooner or later face the same hopeless present. And yet he teaches the disciples that both he and they must meet it with “love’s austere and lonely offices.”

Jesus is going to the cross for his friends but they won’t see it at first. In fact they don’t see how what Jesus is speaking about can be of any benefit. Yet Jesus is focused on doing it anyway. The Father commanded something of Jesus that no other son would do simply because they wouldn’t see it as love. 

So Jesus washes their feet. It is the lowliest act a servant can perform and so shocking that Peter refuses to allow it at first. But it is an act of service no one can deny. And that Jesus would do it for them was love in the extreme as John himself says:

“Having loved his own in the world, he now showed them the full extent of his love.”

John 13:1b

Foot Washing and Cross Going

But the scene was symbolic of much more than a lowly act of service. It was a picture of the cleansing Jesus would bring to his disciples by way of the cross. That would be the epitome of lay-down-life love. 

Then comes the “rub that makes calamity of so long life” so to speak. Jesus tells them that since he would wash their feet, they too must be willing to wash each other’s feet. As distasteful as that would be to them, the implications are even worse. They would soon realize that Jesus meant that they should be willing to go to the cross for each other as well.

Abiding in Love

In order for them to be able to do that, they will need to gain a fresh view of reality. Love may be austere, but for them, at least, it will not be entirely lonely.   

Jesus tells his disciples he has kept his Father’s commands and therefore abides in the Father’s love. It is what every Father hopes, just as Robert Hayden’s father might have said. But there is that early stage where no son understands, doesn’t see the benefit and doesn’t thank him. But Jesus gives his friends a heads up so that although they can’t see it now, they will be able to appreciate it later.  

“You do not know now what I’m doing, but you will know later.”

“I tell you this before it happens so that when it does you will believe that I am who I am.”

John 13:7, 19 

Because Trouble Is Coming

The hope is that his disciples will be able to do what he does. He called them to new type of humanity of which Jesus is the example. But it was not really new. God intended from the beginning that lay-down-life love would be the engine of life. It’s in living this way the human race would abide in God’s love.

Jesus explains how this is done. They are to keep his commands and thus abide in his love. He says this will be essential in preventing fear from dominating their hearts. In fact, it’s how he himself has done it. He kept his Father commands and so abides in his Father’s love. Jesus makes several promises of divine help designed to make them feel safe in light of the coming trouble. He tells them of that trouble in advance so that when it comes, they will also believe the promises.

“All this I’ve told you so that you will not fall away. They will put you out of the synagogue, in fact, the time is coming when anyone who kills you will think they are doing a service to God. They will do these things because they have not known the Father or me. I have told you this, so that when their time comes you will remember that I warned you.”

John 16:1-4

Loved Ones May Not Immediately See It As Love

Jesus is in a tough spot. In order to protect and save his friends, he must do what his friends do not want or understand. It looks like he is abandoning them. After they have given up nearly four years of their lives for him, it’s a hard pill to swallow. But love demands it of Jesus, and it will prove to be a lonely office:

“A time is coming and in fact has come when you will be scattered, each to your own home. You will leave me alone”

John 16:32ab

But Jesus points out that in this lonely office, we are not an entirely alone. There is a solace that never abandons:

“Yet I am not alone. My Father is with me.”

John 16:32c

God’s Original Intent

The central focus of Jesus last words is lay-down-life love. It is Jesus command to his disciples then and to disciples throughout all generations (See John 17:20-21). This type of love is not just a good Christian thing to do, it was God’s original intent in creation. 

God created the human race in his image. This entails many things. We are sentient with a creative will. We have emotional appreciation for beauty and wonder. We have the capacity for gratefulness and sacrifice. We have imagination and vision and the faith and hope needed to make that imagination become reality. But most of all we were made to reflect the lay-down-life love of the Trinity.  

The Father puts all things under the Son’s feet. The Son says, “not my will but thine be done.” The Holy Spirit doesn’t speak on his own but only what the Father and the Son tell him:

“But when he, the Spirit of Truth comes, he will guide you into all truth. He will not speak on his own; he will speak only what he hears, and he will tell you what is to come. He will glorify me because it is from me that he will receive what he will make known to you.”

John 16:13-15

And the Father and the Son do all that they do through the Holy Spirit (e.g. Genesis 1:2, Matthew 4:1, Mark 1:12; Luke 4:1, 14 et al)

Not Possible Apart From Faith That Sees

However, in a fallen world, lay-down-life love is a lonely office. It is not recognized or thanked most of the time. The world and even many Christians ridicule it as the tactic of a “sucker.” There are even times when lay-down-life love actually requires laying down your life.

Fallen people such as we are, this kind of loving is possible only by faith. Faith that it is worth it, and particularly faith that I am not alone; that my Father is with me and maybe more importantly, for me.  

The objective of Jesus last teaching in the upper room with his disciples is two pronged. The need to know something of the reality of God’s rule in their present circumstances and act accordingly. That is, they need to love each other as Jesus has loved them. But secondly they need to know that they are not alone.

“In the world, you will have trouble” i.e. “you will live it out in lonely offices” but “be encouraged. I have overcome the world”

John 16:33

You Are Not Alone

Jesus spends much of the discourse trying to calm the apprehension his disciples feel. He assures them that although it may look like everything is against them, they are not alone. And although not stated directly, it is implied that the One who is with them is greater than he that is in the world.

“I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you.”

John 14:18

“Anyone who loves me will obey my teaching. My Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them.”

John 14:23

“But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit whom the Father will send in my name will teach you all things and remind you of everything I have said to you.”

John 14:26

When the Advocate comes, whom I will send to you from the Father—the Spirit of Truth who goes out from the Father—he will testify about me. And you must testify about me, for you have been with me from the beginning.

John 15:26-27

“… it is for your good that I go away. Unless I go away, the Advocate will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you. “

John 16:7

“I have much more to say to you, more than you can now bear. But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all the truth.”

John 16:12-13

“All that belongs to the Father is mine. That is why I said the Spirit will receive from me what he will make known to you.”

John 16:15

And these do not count the times Jesus talks about mutual abiding, the Father’s pruning (i.e. “cleaning”), or when he prays that our oneness will include the Father and Jesus in us. The point of all this is to give us the strength to enter “love’s austere and lonely offices.” I am not alone. In keeping that truth ever before my eyes, I will have the strength to lay down my life.