Jesus said, "If anyone would be first, he must be last...."
Now wait a minute! Isn't it all about winning? About being the best?
What is this nonsense?
From childhood on, I have been puzzled by competition. I, you see, am one of the few people on the face of the Earth who has no interest in sports. There is a simple reason - for someone to win, someone else has to lose. Humans, as a whole, seem to be bent on determining who is fastest and brightest, the most clever and the best. My little granddaughter, who is only six, is already indoctrinated. We have to have contests whenever we do art or crafts or play school. Someone has to be first. Someone has to win, because if we don't win -
What are we?
So then, what do we do with this man Jesus who had the audacity to say more than once, "If anyone would be first, he must be last of all and servant of all." Mark 9:35 ESV
SERVANT?
Wow. Not many of us aspire to be a servant. One of the online dictionaries defines a servant as 1) a person working in the service of another (especially in the household) 2) one who expresses submission, recognizance, or debt to another. Traditionally servants, as stated in definition one, occupied the lowest 'rung' of the ladder of society. Emptying chamber pots and mucking out barns, spinning and weaving and dyeing cloth, bleaching linen and beating rugs - all of these were labor-intensive chores that left the ones performing them exhausted and often wasted. Servants didn't generally have the life expectency say, of a bank president or king. And as for definition two, well people in the 21st century have 'an issue'(as some like to put it) with submission of any kind.
And yet, Jesus - the King of Glory - did not.
One of the most touching moments recorded in the Holy Scriptures is that of Jesus washing the disciples' feet. Who can forget Peter (who seemed to have a penchant for placing his ten digits in his mouth) telling his master that it was wrong for him to do so? Or Jesus' reply in John 13:8, "Unless I wash you, you have no part with me." Jesus also said in verse 7, "You do not realize now what I am doing, but later you will understand."
From childhood on, I have been puzzled by competition. I, you see, am one of the few people on the face of the Earth who has no interest in sports. There is a simple reason - for someone to win, someone else has to lose. Humans, as a whole, seem to be bent on determining who is fastest and brightest, the most clever and the best. My little granddaughter, who is only six, is already indoctrinated. We have to have contests whenever we do art or crafts or play school. Someone has to be first. Someone has to win, because if we don't win -
What are we?
So then, what do we do with this man Jesus who had the audacity to say more than once, "If anyone would be first, he must be last of all and servant of all." Mark 9:35 ESV
SERVANT?
Wow. Not many of us aspire to be a servant. One of the online dictionaries defines a servant as 1) a person working in the service of another (especially in the household) 2) one who expresses submission, recognizance, or debt to another. Traditionally servants, as stated in definition one, occupied the lowest 'rung' of the ladder of society. Emptying chamber pots and mucking out barns, spinning and weaving and dyeing cloth, bleaching linen and beating rugs - all of these were labor-intensive chores that left the ones performing them exhausted and often wasted. Servants didn't generally have the life expectency say, of a bank president or king. And as for definition two, well people in the 21st century have 'an issue'(as some like to put it) with submission of any kind.
And yet, Jesus - the King of Glory - did not.
One of the most touching moments recorded in the Holy Scriptures is that of Jesus washing the disciples' feet. Who can forget Peter (who seemed to have a penchant for placing his ten digits in his mouth) telling his master that it was wrong for him to do so? Or Jesus' reply in John 13:8, "Unless I wash you, you have no part with me." Jesus also said in verse 7, "You do not realize now what I am doing, but later you will understand."
I wonder, do we?
Jesus was, of course, modeling his own words, showing that the greatest among them must become the least. The first, must be last. It boggles the mind to realize that God himself, incarnated in the form of Jesus, did this - that he knelt on the floor and wiped the dust and dirt from simple mens' feet in order to illustrate the overwhelming love and compassion of the Father.
The culmination of this servanthood, of course, was Jesus' death upon the cross, which was a form of execution reserved for criminals and one depised by the Jewish community.
Jesus was, of course, modeling his own words, showing that the greatest among them must become the least. The first, must be last. It boggles the mind to realize that God himself, incarnated in the form of Jesus, did this - that he knelt on the floor and wiped the dust and dirt from simple mens' feet in order to illustrate the overwhelming love and compassion of the Father.
The culmination of this servanthood, of course, was Jesus' death upon the cross, which was a form of execution reserved for criminals and one depised by the Jewish community.
Talk about the bottom rung of the ladder.
Those of us who desire to be like Christ, who live in this 'me' generation, in a century that rewards only the brightest and the best, must come to grips with the meaning of Jesus' actions. Their meaning, plain and simple, is that we are to be servants to everyone around us, regardless of what we think of them, and that - in direct opposition to that 'All American Spirit' of being first - we must choose to be last. We must humble ourselves and wash the dirty, stinky feet of people we don't like, of people who persecute us; of people who, as the Bible puts it, will find their only reward here on Earth.
Our reward lies elsewhere, with the King who chose to be a servant and showed us the way.
The painting Jesus Washing Peter's Feet is by Pre-Raphealite Artist Ford Madox Brown
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