Glorious Lord, Humble Servant

Some of you may not know this about me, but I actually studied political science in college. The joke my senior year of high school was that I wanted to be president. But I wasn’t really joking. So I went off to school near D.C., and was able to land an internship in a congressional office.

And THAT is what made me decide to not go into government.

It wasn’t that it was such a terrible experience. The joke about internships is that you’re just there to fetch the important people coffee.

What I didn’t know was that the coffee -getting was going to be the exciting stuff.

See that semester the Catholic churches across America had done a pro-life writing campaign. Many catholic churches hosted events where they encouraged their parishoners to fill out a pre-written card that asked congressmen and senators to support pro-life bills in the upcoming term.

We got over 50,000 of these cards. They all said the same thing. Please support pro-life causes. What us interns had to do was enter the people’s addresses into our system and make sure they got a “thanks for contacting us on this issue.” letter from us.

So I spent 80% of my time at the internship responding to a campaign asking her to vote pro-life, when she was already the most pro-life she could possibly be.

So when I say the coffee getting was the most exciting part. I’m not really kidding.

The most exciting things I got to do all semester were the things I got to do directly for the congresswoman. I got her a latte 2-3 times. I grabbed her a chicken-caesar salad from the congressional cafeteria once or twice. And twice, I got to serve as her personal chauffeur, driving her around D.C.

Getting coffee, lunch, and driving are all every-day activities. But when it came to my internship, I was excited to do them!

Why? Because I was doing them for an important person. Stuff I might consider boring or insulting… “Jensen, go be my personal slave. Get me coffee” was exciting when it was for the congresswoman herself.

I literally would have done any crappy task I was given, if she asked me directly. If one of the staffers asked me walk across DC to hand deliver a birthday invitation for their kid’s birhtday party, I’d have been offended.

If she’d asked me to take her RedBox blu-ray back for her. I’d be stoked.

Why?

She’s important. She was one of the good guys, fighting for righteous causes and trying to help people. People knew her name. She got to be on Tv. I was stoked to just have her notice the 20 year-old intern enough to give him a stupid, menial task.

She was important!

There’s nothing we hate more than being treated like we’re unimportant. But there are people we see as important, and we really do judge them by a different standard. We treat them different.

Imagine if I was carrying some heavy boxes back to my car at the end of the day, really more than I could carry, and happened to be leaving at the same time as the Congresswoman. Now she was an empathetic lady, and not at all full of herself. So if she saw me struggling under that load, she probably would have offered to help me carry a box.

Do you think I would ever in a million years accept her help? NO WAY!

She’s the congresswoman. I’m here in DC, working for FREE, to make sure she doesn’t have to waste time doing the unimportant stuff.

I would lie to her face, telling her I didn’t need help. She’s important!

I don’t want her to have to bother!

See, whether we know it or not, we have a pretty strong sense of importance, and the hierarchy in the world. There are people we count as important, and we’d do anything for them. And then there is our own importance. And we’re super offended if anyone asks us to do something we think is below us.

But that’s not necessarily how it’s supposed to be.

Tonight we’re looking at , The beginning of Jesus’s final meal with His disciples.

He has finished his public ministry. He’s in his final week before going to the cross, and has turned his attention to preparing his closest friends and disciples for life and ministry after He dies, rises again, and ascends back to Heaven.

Let’s read starting in

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. 2 During supper, when the devil had already put it into the heart of Judas Iscariot, Simon’s son, to betray him, 3 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, 4 rose from supper. He laid aside his outer garments, and taking a towel, tied it around his waist. 5 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. 6 He came to Simon Peter, who said to him, “Lord, do you wash my feet?” 7 Jesus answered him, “What I am doing you do not understand now, but afterward you will understand.” 8 Peter said to him, “You shall never wash my feet.” Jesus answered him, “If I do not wash you, you have no share with me.” 9 Simon Peter said to him, “Lord, not my feet only but also my hands and my head!” 10 Jesus said to him, “The one who has bathed does not need to wash, except for his feet, but is completely clean. And you are clean, but not every one of you.” 11 For he knew who was to betray him; that was why he said, “Not all of you are clean.”

12 When he had washed their feet and put on his outer garments and resumed his place, he said to them, “Do you understand what I have done to you? 13 You call me Teacher and Lord, and you are right, for so I am. 14 If I then, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet. 15 For I have given you an example, that you also should do just as I have done to you. 16 Truly, truly, I say to you, a servant is not greater than his master, nor is a messenger greater than the one who sent him. 17 If you know these things, blessed are you if you do them. 18 I am not speaking of all of you; I know whom I have chosen. But the Scripture will be fulfilled, ‘He who ate my bread has lifted his heel against me.’ 19 I am telling you this now, before it takes place, that when it does take place you may believe that I am he. 20 Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever receives the one I send receives me, and whoever receives me receives the one who sent me.”

I love the way John sets up this story. Because He begins by showing us Jesus’s state of mind and prorities:

John says “Jesus knew the time had come, and having loved them all along, He loved them to the end.”

Jesus had lived in loving relationship with this rag-tag group of nobodies, and now that the hours were ticking down before he was going to be cruelly tortured and brutally murdered, He doesn’t slip into focusing on Himself, pulling away from them for some “me time”. He focuses on them, continuing to love them sacrificially right up to the last moment.

John then emphasizes Jesus’s importance and place in the universe, verse 3

“Knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands, and that He had come from and was going back to God…”

John doesn’t want us to lose sight of the glory and grandeur of who Jesus is.

What Jesus is about to do was done while Jesus was recognizing the authority and importance and Glory the Father had given him, and that He was from heaven and was about to go back there.

Jesus takes off his outer garments, wraps a towel around his waste, prepares a basin of water, and begins to wash the disciples dirt-roads-and-camel-poop dirty feet.

Now, fortunately for us, at least Peter knew what was up. See in first-century Israel, foot-washing was aboooout the dirtiest job you could do. Normally a host would simply provide water for guests to wash their own feet, or in a wealthier setting, the host might have their slave do the washing.

Jesus. The God of the Universe. The King of Kings, and Lord of Lords. Is washing their dirty feet.

So when Jesus gets to Peter, Peter tries to set him straight. “Lord, you can’t wash my nasty feet! I won’t let you!

You tell him Peter! You can’t let the king pick up the dog poop! You don’t make the principle scrape the gum off the bottom of the desk! You don’t make Steph Curry sweep the court after the basketball game.

If you had a day to spend hanging out with Jesus, You wouldn’t let Him spend it helping you lay fertilizer in your parent’s flower beds.

Peter stops him. “Jesus you’ll never wash my feet.”

And Jesus says “”If I do not wash you, you have no share with me.”

So Peter swings the other directions. “Ok Jesus, If I need you to get clean, wash my hands and my face as well!”

Again Jesus corrects Him, taking things on a spiritual level, saying “if you’ve already bathed, you just need to have your feet cleaned. And all of you (except Judas) are already clean.”

Neither we or the disciples really know what’s going on here, so Jesus explains in verse 12. “Don’t you understand what I have done for you? You call me Teacher and Lord, and you are right, for so I am. If I then, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet.”

So here’s what’s so amazing about the scripture here, is that there are two levels of truth at play here, a physical reality and a spiritual reality, but they work together to form an amazing picture of the gospel, and our subsequent life in Christ. And we get to see these realities and how they interact, thanks to everyone’s favorite “audience participant” and the humanest-human we know: Peter. And as usual, Peter helps us figure out how we fit into all of this picture.

Jesus is phyically cleaning the disciple’s nasty feet, but as He interacts with Peter, he alludes to the most basic spiritual reality about us:

We are broken, messed up people. Our natural fallen state, and the sin we choose so freely and frequently have made us dirty, and incapable of relating to God who is completely holy and completely pure.

As we’ve been studying through John, we’ve continually been asking “who is Jesus?” and here in verse 8 we see another aspect of who He is:

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Jesus is the one who came to make us clean.

This is where we have to start. Before we can understand who we are more fully, or how the world works, we have to accept the most basic spiritual truth. And this is truth number 1L

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We need Jesus to make us clean.

And Peter shows us the first wrongheaded way to respond to Jesus. “Don’t trouble yourself Jesus, we’re all good here.”

It is hard for us to accept the bad news about us. Even though our human frailty smacks us in the face every day, it’s hard to embrace the reality of how broken we are. And we see the King of the universe, stepping off of His throne. Setting His glory aside to come pay for our sins and make us clean. And we say “Oh no! We’re good Jesus, don’t worry about us!”

And so many people say that to Jesus every day. You try to tell them about Jesus and who He is, and His gift of life to us. And they tell you, “Nah, I’m good. I’m a good enough person on my own. I think If I die and have to go stand before God, he’ll see that my good deeds outweighed my bad deeds.

But this isn’t just a struggle for atheists. There are so many people who know that God exists, who are way more moral and well behaved than you or I will ever be, who get up every day to try to be good enough to work their way to God, to be good enough to earn His favor.

But we can never be good enough.

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As puts it,

“We have all become like one who is unclean,

and all our righteous deeds are like a polluted garment.”

We can never work our way to God. But Jesus came to pave that way for us, through His righteous life and sacrificial death. We need Jesus to make us clean.

And even if you have accepted Jesus as your savior, You may struggle with this. And Jesus understands this! After Peter decides it’s ok for Jesus to wash his feet, He says heck, if you’re the only one who can make me clean, better clean these hands and my face while you’re at it!

And this is so cool here, because Peter’s misguided enthusiasm gives Jesus the chance to speak a powerful truth into our lives.

See some of us have accepted Jesus, that we are broken and need a savior, and accept the forgiveness and cleansing that Jesus offers.

And then, we’ve blown it. We’ve blown it big time.

I don’t know about you, but for me, all of my biggest failures have come since fully dedicating my life to Jesus. Dealing with addiction issues in high school, hurting people in relationships, cheating as a student in college. All the things I regret most happened after I gave my life fully to Jesus.

So we struggle. We know Jesus forgave us when we put our trust in Him, but we’re not sure He’ll take us back this time.

We feel unworthy. We feel like we blew the one chance we had at redemption.

And that’s where truth #2 comes in here in :

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2. Once Jesus cleanses you, you’re clean.

Again, another thing I love about the Bible. It’s realistic!

Is our life really different after we give it to Jesus? Yeah. It is. We’re forgiven. We have the Holy Spirit to help us.

But we still mess up.

We still mess up big time!

And Jesus gives us the perfect analogy to help us understand that, telling Peter and the other disciples, “if you’ve already bathed, you’re already clean. You just need your feet touched up.”

We’re still messy people, walking around living life in a messy world. Even after we give our lives to Jesus, there’s still a certain amount of uncleanness we’re going to deal with.

But messing up as we walk through our lives with Jesus doesn’t mean we have to go back to step 1. We don’t need to ask him to be Lord of our life again, we don’t need to be re-baptized. He’s already made us clean. Do I need to ask him for forgiveness for the ways I messed up today? Yeah. And he’s provided for that. He’s here to walk with us, to “clean our feet” as we get messy walking through this life.

Once Jesus cleanses you, you’re clean!

Once we understand the spiritual realities Jesus is pointing to here, now we’re ready to step into what he was showing us by his physical actions here at the last supper.

Because Jesus was symbolizing to them the cleansing that he came to bring into our lives. But He was also showing us what our lives would look like after the cleansing.

In verse 13 He explains what He was doing, saying “You call me Teacher and Lord, and you’re right to do so. So if someone is important as me is willing to do the dirty work--To get on my hands and knees and help people get the crap and mud off their feet--are you too important to serve like this?

Which leads us to truth #3

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3. He served, so we serve.

See the disciples were like us. Throughout the gospels, we get to see this. One thing that comes up multiple times? They argued about who was the most important among the disciples. The fought over getting the place of honor at Jesus’s right hand. James and John even sent their Mom to ask Jesus to promote them to being His top disciples.

Even after we have been humble enough to accept Jesus’s sacrifice for us, we still struggle with pride. We think we’re too important for those people, for this task, for that job, for this season God has called us to.

And we’re called to lay aside that pride like Jesus laid aside his outer layers, get off our high horse and onto our hands and knees. And serve.

It’s funny because religion says that “these are the things you have to do to get God to like you.”

The gospel says “there’s nothing you could have done to bridge this gap. We can’t be good enough. That’s why jesus came to sacrifice and serve us, to bring us back into relationship with God.”

See a lot of the things religions tell people to do are good, worthwhile things, that we should be doing them.

But we don’t do them because

And it’s not fun. We’ll be called to serve in our home, with our parents, with our brothers and sisters, with our future spouse, with our kids.

Why? Because our glorious Lord is also the humble servant.

We’ll be called to serve at our job. With a boss we don’t like. With the tasks that nobody else will volunteer for.

Why? Because our glorious Lord is also the humble servant.

We’ll be called to serve at our school and in our relationships. With the teacher we don’t like, with the friend who won’t let us speak the truth into their lives, with the people that other people won’t take the time to love.

Why? Because our glorious Lord is also the humble servant.

Living out the gospel isn’t easy, and it isn’t comfortable.

We’ve gotta have the humility to accept that we are broken and we need Jesus in our life every day.

We’ve gotta hold on to the reality that if we’ve accepted him as our Lord, He’s made us clean. And no Lie the enemy tells us of our unworthiness. No matter how bad we blow it. He’s made us clean, and he’s here to clean off our feet when we get messy.

And we’ve gotta be willing to imitate Jesus. To love sacrificially, to serve humbly. To be willing to get dirty and messy to love and serve the people around us.

It’s funny because religion says that “these are the things you have to do to get God to like you.”

The gospel says “there’s nothing you could have done to bridge this gap. We can’t be good enough. That’s why jesus came to sacrifice and serve us, to bring us back into relationship with God.”

And when we come to Him, He says, “ now that you know me, and have seen how I’m willing to love and serve, I want you to show who I am to other people, by how You love and serve.”

See a lot of the things religions tell people to do are good, worthwhile things, that we should be doing.

But we don’t do them to get God to like us. To earn our place with Him.

We do those things because He loved us enough to sacrifice for us.

We serve,

Because our glorious Lord is also the humble servant.

let’s pray.