The Savior Servant

The Highest to the Lowest

Throughout our current summer series, we have seen these experiences through the eyes of the disciples and Biblical writers being told to us through scripture of who Jesus is. These stories or biblical experiences were a part of the process where God showed the Jews and the world then and now...who Jesus is, was and will ever be.

They had witnessed Jesus in action, loving the unlovable, teaching the unteachable, providing for people in impossible ways. They had heard the prophesies and the seen the revelation of who He was with their own eyes. King of Jews, Lord of Lords....and they think they know everything about Him. Most of them had been with Him for 3 years… He is Messiah, the one God promised years before...the one Isaiah spoke and prophesied of. They vocally proclaimed Him to be “The Son of God,” but did they truly grasp what that meant. They had seen Him personally be Healer, Demon Destroyer, Teacher, Rabbi, Master of the wind and water, Lord over death and illness, and they had experiences Jesus as their Rabbi, their Friend!

But they still did not know Him fully. They understood He would be leaving, but what was to come was incomprehensible to them.

We think we know too....often even with this story...we think we know....we know Him. He is Jesus, good and kind...He loves His disciples and He is doing something for them that will express that love in a unique way. The disciples were about to find out more about who Jesus was...Let me share more about what He was doing....Let me bring you into the deeper meaning and symbolism of this story. Each scene, each piece is important.

Jesus is with the for the last meal. He arose from the table and takes off His outer garment leaving Him wearing a tunic. In those days, they wore tunics, simple seamless one piece garments that slipped over their heads that were made of linen or wool. The outer garment was rectangular pieces of fabric worn like a cloak or larger ones like a robe. The removal of the outer garment and the wrapping of a towel round the waist was the dress of menial service and would have been despised by both Jew and Greek alike.

Jesus is setting the scene. He is giving a message. His attire, His action, His demeanor is tell ing part of the story? What could this be telling the disciples. What could it be telling us as modern day disciples?

Alexander Maclaren wrote of this remarkable section, John 13-17: “Nowhere else is His speech at once so simple and so deep. Nowhere else have we the heart of God so unveiled to us… The immortal words which Christ spoke in that upper chamber are His highest self-revelation in speech, even as the Cross to which they led up is His most perfect self-revelation in act.”

If you cannot receive this small gift of love how will you then be able to receive the big gift I came to give you.

If you cannot understand that your feet are dirty and I want to wash them as an act of love and to prepare you for what is to come…. Will you understand the magnitude of my sacrifice blood body torture to wash your entire soul your entire being .

Simple but so profound!!!! A simple act

Alexander McLaren

How do we in turn be a servant to each other

Over this week time and time again Hod has shown me that no small act of Christian servant hood is insignificant. It is not just then service of our hands but our hearts and most of all if we

Are following Christ we are representing Him in each action we do.

We are Christ-ians! Athenians Texans Texasippians”

People it is time to stop being nice and take your robe of worry and inhabition off and with the Holy Spirit’s help wash someone’s feet!!!! What does that mean. It means making the call you don’t really want to. Inviting the person into your circle of friends when they may not fit in. It means stop being

Concerned about our church growing and be invite your neighbors and the strangers you meet in Walmart.

Jesus showed us Hod in radical ways- radical for a King to wash feet. He called His disciples and followers to a radical way of living and my dear friends if you consider yourself a disciple then that call is for you and me also!!!

I will be honest with you. Most think I am very outgoing and extroverted.

That is simply not who I am at

The core of me,

But God has stretched me like those Stretch Armstrong’s dolls. For Some

Reason this week has been a stretcher week and he has put before me some challenges requiring me to give of myself deeply emotionally and spiritually. My natural self

Resisted dreaded and wanted tomorrow not be me!!! Spiritually there was no denying I must attend to these. I did and at the end of my week I am overwhelmed at what God did when I let Him stretch me to be able to wash some feet and guess what as I washed theirs, He washed mine

And as I saw this unfold, I wondered how many times has He wanted to wash my feet and like Peter Inhave protested.

You see when we are humble enough to let Him wash our feet, our tiny sins and disobedience, our reluctance to serve Him radically when we say like Peter… then wash all of me… then we become more His and He becomes More to us.

And we enter into this beautiful partnership with Him, He gives to each o

Gifts abilities enables equips makes us Christ to the world and

When a King washes feet. When the Word made flesh takes on servant slave role

He did not lose his status but surrendered it it for His disciples

In this world of high tech cancer cures miraculous surgeries intrauterine high tech instant gratification I fear even the powers and epiphanies seem dim… but let me tell you nothing equals the God of all creation the alpha and the omega the one who co tells hail laying it all aside to wash our feet…. And wash our entire life in His very blood.

Receiving His gift and in turn share what He has done,

Go wash feet!!! Tell them the rest of them

Can be washed clean too!!

Having loved His own which were in the world, He loved them unto the end.