This is a Week of critical contrasts.
Jesus spent most of this Week teaching His Followers and the crowds that followed Him everywhere He went. Of course the powerbrokers and pretenders who were bent on discrediting and destroying Him were there too. Late in the Week He drew the line between Himself and them broader and deeper. A contemporary translation of what He said shows this dramatically.
“The religion scholars and Pharisees are competent teachers in God's Law. You won't go wrong in following their teachings on Moses. But be careful about following them. They talk a good line, but they don't live it. They don't take it into their hearts and live it out in their behavior. It's all spit-and-polish … veneer. Instead of giving you God's Law as food and drink … they package it in bundles of rules, loading you down like pack animals … Their lives are perpetual fashion shows, embroidered prayer shawls one day and flowery prayers the next. They love to sit at the head table at church dinners, basking in the most prominent positions, preening in the radiance of public flattery, receiving honorary degrees, and getting called 'Doctor' and 'Reverend.' Don't let people do that to you, put you on a pedestal like that. You all have a single Teacher, and you are all classmates. Don't set people up as experts over your life, letting them tell you what to do. Save that authority for God; let him tell you what to do. No one else should carry the title of ‘Father’; you have only one Father, and he's in heaven. And don't let people maneuver you into taking charge of them. There is only one Life-Leader for you and them—Christ. Do you want to stand out? Then step down. Be a servant. If you puff yourself up, you'll get the wind knocked out of you. But if you're content to simply be yourself, your life will count for plenty.”
Undoubtedly these were “fightin’ words” to the men He criticized. Not only did they draw deeper and broader lines between Himself and them. They deepened the hostility of these powerful men toward Him and ultimately sealed His destiny. What antagonized them even more was the glaring contrast facing them. Jesus did not simply “talk the talk.” He “walked the talk.” And that stung them. He indicted them by what He did even more than what He said. He lived what He taught. “God’s Law” was “food and drink” for Him. He lived a “what you see is what you get” life. When He said, “Do you want to stand out? Then step down. Be a servant,” He practiced what He preached.
Nowhere is this authenticity more evident than during His observance of the Seder, with His Followers, at the end of this Week. John, the Son of Thunder as Jesus nicknamed him, tells us about it.
“It was just before the Passover Feast. Jesus knew that the time had come for him to leave this world and go to the Father. Having loved his own who were in the world, he now showed them the full extent of his love. The evening meal was being served … Jesus knew that the Father had put all things under his power, and that he had come from God and was returning to God; so he got up from the meal, took off his outer clothing, and wrapped a towel around his waist. After that, he poured water into a basin and began to wash his disciples' feet, drying them with the towel that was wrapped around him.”
What a contrast!
To begin with John points out that Jesus really was the “Life-Leader.” At this momentous point in time, he writes, “Jesus knew that the Father had put all things under His Power.” Despite that knowledge He deliberately puts on the costume of a “slave,” and proceeds to do slave work. He washes feet. His Followers’ feet. He washes the feet of men who will betray Him, deny they ever knew Him. With one exception they would all abandon Him that very night.
This is our Lord and Master!
Furthermore, He is our “ROLE MODEL”! John tells us what Jesus said after He’d finished serving His Followers. “You call me ‘Teacher’ and ‘Lord,’” He said, “and rightly so, for that is what I am.
Now that I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also should wash one another's feet. I have set you an example that you should do as I have done for you. I tell you the truth, no servant is greater than his master, nor is a messenger greater than the one who sent him. Now that you know these things, you will be blessed if you do them.”
Later, so they and we who read them now would understand this is not optional, He declared,
“A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”
Only a few hours later He would raise the bar even higher. He would die in the most cruel and tragic way anyone could ever die. For those disappointing Followers; for you and me He would go through “Hell.”
Unlike the pretenders He, the one and only “LIFE-LEADER” would show us the way!
This Week the mandate would be written in blood, sweat, tears, and flesh. “If any of you aspire to be my Followers TAKE UP YOUR CROSS AND FOLLOW ME!”
THIS WEEK IS TRULY UNLIKE ALL OTHER WEEKS!
No comments:
Post a Comment