If you have ever taken a transatlantic voyage by ship, you will know that there comes a point, about two days into the trip, when you tip over into the land of no return. For the first couple of days, the ship is close enough to land so that in the event of a medical emergency, a helicopter can reach the ship to transport an ill passenger to a hospital. But after passing the point of no return, all bets are off. For the passenger on the ship, moving past the point of no return is disconcerting, even frightening. Having stuck with the voyage this long, passengers are now in it for the long haul.
Tonight, we will tip over into the land of no return. Each year during Holy Week, we must come back to these sacred, saving rituals and relive the discomfort and the glory. We begin on Palm Sunday with excruciating moments of betrayal, where we are the crowds acclaiming Jesus as King in one moment and then yelling “crucify him!” in the next. Palm Sunday reminds us that words are cheap. And ever since Palm Sunday, through the first part of this Holy Week, we have been waiting, waiting uncomfortably with the knowledge that there is a palpable dissonance between what we say and how we live.
Our rather superficial culture has two approaches to words. Words are either taken so literally or seriously that one can never be offered forgiveness for an instance of ill-chosen words. Or on the other hand, words are bandied about flippantly with little meaning whatsoever. We profess our undying love for something but do little to put that love into action. We say how much God and the Church mean to us, but we are unwilling to live as if it is so. We say “Amen” to Christ’s presence in the Eucharist, and then we live on the other side of the church doors as if the gift we have received has no bearing on our lives, as if Christ isn’t present in the stranger and in the enemy.
But we are fast approaching the point of no return. We are fast approaching a highly uncomfortable moment in both the Gospel story and in our shared ritual life together. St. John tells us that on the night before Jesus’s passion and death, he gathers with his disciples, having stuck with them through their fickleness and inability to understand who he truly is. Jesus loves them to the end, completely, fully, perfectly. He loves them so even as Judas goes out to betray him. He loves them so even as Peter refuses his gift, knowing that Peter will also betray him. The disciples, to their credit have waited with Christ, up to this point of no return. But more importantly, Jesus has waited with them, not moving on to do his own thing but loving them past the point of no return.
Jesus will stoop to ground level and wash their feet. He, their Master, Teacher, and Lord, will do something that is incomprehensible. But in doing so, he will invite the disciples past the point of no return. Having washed their feet and bidden them to do the same to one another, even to their enemies, there will be no going back for the disciples. This is a dangerous place into which Christ has called them. No longer can they avoid suffering and death. No longer can they flee hastily from their enemies as God’s people did when leaving Egypt in the Exodus. Now, past the point of no return, words are cheap. Words say very little about love. Past the point of no return, the disciples must move from words to action.
And so must we. As our feet are washed this evening, we will all move past the point of no return. This footwashing is far more than an embarrassing moment of exposing our calloused and worn feet. It’s a moment that pulls us firmly into the land of no return. This is the land where words mean little and actions say everything. It’s the land where we can’t profess Christ as our Savior without following him in deed, too. It’s the land where we can’t refuse to forgive our enemies. We must love them, and we must wash their feet, too.
As Jesus invites us to let him wash our feet, he also invites us to step into the place where he has been. As he has loved us and washed our feet, we must do the same. There is no going back. And we know what following Jesus demands, because we know where he will go after he washes the disciples’ feet. And there, we must go as well, to the cross. We must wait with him in his suffering, just as he waits with us in ours. We must love and not demonize those who hate us and persecute us and treat us horribly, because Jesus himself loved those who nailed him to a cross and mocked him. Once we are past the point of no return, we must love like we’ve never loved before.
And yet, despite waiting this long, despite letting Jesus wash our feet and love us, we, like Peter, do not yet understand what he has done for us. We must continue to wait for that. We must wait through this night’s celebration of the Eucharist, when we will no longer be the same people who last celebrated the Eucharist together. Tonight, that celebration is marred by the knowledge of deceit, of our own easy betrayals of Jesus, and of our cheap and careless words. And yet, we are taking one step closer to be like Christ, to become Christ for the world. We are moving past the point of no return.
We can’t yet go where Jesus has gone because it is not yet our hour. One day later in this voyage that moment will come. Past the point of no return, we are not only in a dangerous place, we are in a hopeful place, because our Lord tells us that one day, we will go to the place where he has gone, the place he has eternally prepared for us.
But for now, we must simply wait. We must wait up to and past the point of no return. We must wait with our doubts, despair, suffering, and discomfort knowing that on the other side of the point of no return, words are cheap. And because words are cheap, we have no choice as we move forward. As Jesus has commanded us, now, this night and forward, we must love like we’ve never loved before.
Sermon by Father Kyle Babin
Maundy Thursday
April 2, 2026