I Am...A Servant!

For who is greater, one who reclines at the table, or the one who serves?  Is it not the one who reclines at the table?  But I am among you as one who serves.

Luke 22:27

Really?  A servant is the greater one?  All of Scripture nods its head in affirmation.  Vividly.  Maybe, yes, even excitedly.  Jesus spoke a jaw-dropping paradigm when he said, “The first shall be last, and the last shall be first (when it comes to the Kingdom-way).”  Then, to show the full extent of his love, to model his methods, he grabbed a basin of water, and began washing the feet of his disciples (John 13:1). 

Really?  In this group were men, he knew, who were about to betray him, turn their backs on him, reject him, break their promises to him, speak out against him, and, even instigate setting the wheels in motion to kill him.  Again, I see heaven nodding, even applauding. 

Really?  Doesn’t this fly in the face of anything “boundary” related?  Our world is so big on boundaries…setting up protective space (keeping the bad out).  Yet, as I look heavenward through the lens of Scripture, Jesus actions show me the TRUTH.  Serving = Loving.  Loving always has the best interest of the other at heart.  Sometimes that “best interest” means placing ourselves in the most vulnerable of positions (what’s more vulnerable than bent over someone’s feet?).  To the extent I serve you, reveals the extent I love you.  Nothing speaks a louder message than example. 

This doesn’t eliminate the words of tough love.  When he came to Peter, Jesus reminded him that just because he washed their feet, didn’t mean they were entirely “clean.”  Yet, wash their feet he did, speaking truth gently (but firmly).  Oh, how he loved!  Oh, how he loves, even still!

But, me, Lord?  Serve, like this?  And, he says, “You call me, Teacher and Lord; and you are right…If I then, the Lord and Teacher, washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet (vv.13-14).”  Paul learned that lesson well, “Have this mind in you that was in Christ Jesus (Phil.2:5).”  We can’t muster up the same kind of love…but we can make up our minds, intentionally, to imitate our Lord and Teacher; and, when we do, somehow the Spirit of Jesus in us, takes over, and matches our muster-up to the action of kneeling-low.  How can I even get that mindset, Lord?  Ah…Paul explains.  “Who being in the very nature God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself…”  I let go of me, my rights, my wants, my desires, my position.  I die.  Daily.  Completely.  To everything.  Dead woman walking.  Dead woman serving.  Dead woman loving.

I read further.  There’s a promise attached to dying-loving-serving:  “Now that you know these things, you are blessed if you do them (John 13:16).”  Grab a basin; you are in for a heap of blessin’!