"He loved them to the end."

John 13:1–6 "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. During supper, when the devil had already put it into the heart of Judas Iscariot, Simon's son, to betray Him, Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into His hands, and that He had come from God and was going back to God, rose from supper. He laid aside His outer garments, and taking a towel, tied it around His waist. Then He poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples' feet and to wipe them with the towel that was wrapped around Him."

 

“He loved them to the end.”

He knew who He had chosen;
He knew the zeal of Peter,
the rolls of thunder in the sons of Zebedee,
the doubt in the mind of Thomas.
He knew the schemes that had made Matthew rich,
and how the sun glinted off the dagger of Simon.
He knew the eyes that slept while He prayed,
the feet that would scatter in the days ahead,
the lives that would be lost while living out His commission.

And He knew the one who would kiss His face
as He was bound amid the green of Gethsemane.

It was with knowledge of the soft and of the hard,
with the certainty of His enduring, pursuing love,
that Jesus used His final hours
to descend yet again
placing Himself beneath the feet of those who followed Him.

The hands into which the Father had given all things
tied a towel around His waist
and cradled the dirty feet of those He knew and loved;
desiring they would be clean
more than the deity of His own hands.

The One with the right to cast down
bent down
for the sake of love.

He loved them to the end;
the ones with their hearts given over to Him
and the one who opposed Him to death.
His love was not deterred by the hatred of man;
instead, it made provision for the devoted to live
and for the hateful to turn.

Rising from the floor on which He knelt,
His voice flowed into the room made quiet by what had been received.
It rolled across the hearts of those made clean
filling their senses with His holy, holy, holy call,
“Love as I have loved you.”