28 March 2013 - feet of humility

28 March 2013 - feet of humility

“Master, are you going to wash my feet?”

Surrendering to Jesus means accepting the humility and intimacy which he shows us.  We don't have a problem surrendering to a mighty king as much as we do to a loving servent.  Why is that?  Surrendering to a mighty king allows us to imagine that we are still mighty.  Surrendering to humility and love means laying down such illusions.  

We are called to surrender to a humility which knows no bounds.

I received from the Lord what I also handed on to you, 

that the Lord Jesus, on the night he was handed over, 

took bread, and, after he had given thanks,

broke it and said, “This is my body that is for you.

Do this in remembrance of me.”

What love is this?  He becomes food, apparently inert, to be chewed, dissolved by saliva and stomach acid, and digested.  There has never been and will never be humility so great as this.  This ultimate humility of Jesus is what allows for his supernatural availability.  It allows him to be taken up as the source of life by each individual throughout the world. 

For on this same night I will go through Egypt, 

striking down every firstborn of the land, both man and beast,

and executing judgment on all the gods of Egypt—I, the LORD!

In his giving of the Eucharist and his washing our feet the LORD executes judgment on the false god of pride.  Our acceptance of these gifts marks the doorposts of our souls.  Just as the bood of the sheep represented a sacrifice of self that the Israelites were unable to make, so to does accepting these gifts open the door to a humility we could not have any other way.  He draws us to accept his humility as our own by the very love he shows us.

He loved his own in the world and he loved them to the end.

So, during supper, 

fully aware that the Father had put everything into his power 

and that he had come from God and was returning to God, 

he rose from supper and took off his outer garments.

There is no humility so great as for God to not insist on his own glory and honor.  Any human act pails by comparison.  For him to remove the outer garments of divine prerogatives is an inimitable act.  Yet it is by the love he shows us in this act itself that he calls us to appropriate his own humility and thereby to follow him.

The world is flipped now.  Power and honor don't mean what the world tells us they mean.  But the path is being opened.  The way that we must follow is being made clear.  The love and the grace that enable us to walk it are being poured out.

You call me ‘teacher’ and ‘master,’ and rightly so, for indeed I am.

If I, therefore, the master and teacher, have washed your feet, 

you ought to wash one another’s feet.

And in response to all this love we have nothing of our own to give.  We can only offer back the gifts he gives us.

How shall I make a return to the LORD

for all the good he has done for me?

The cup of salvation I will take up,

and I will call upon the name of the LORD.