Amen, amen, I say to you, no slave is greater than his master
nor any messenger greater than the one who sent him.
There would always be the temptation for people in leadership positions to put the mission second and themselves first. The joy they were meant to feel as messengers of Jesus and servants of his will could easily be misconstrued as indicators of their own greatness. It could quickly become the case that positions of leadership began to self-perpetuate and exist for their own sakes rather than for that of the Body. This was how things naturally went in the secular world. People in such systems sought primarily to increase their own power, following the examples of those at the top of such systems who had already done so. But in Christianity everything was reversed, or meant to be. The higher up one was the more he ought to be entirely committed to selfless service. The point of power was not for its own sake, but rather for the sake of washing the feet of the world, meaning humbly regarding the needs of the world as the priority, and the dignity of those within it as greater than one's own.
Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves (see Philippians 2:3).
A cynic might wonder if there was any need for power if one was only going to use it for service. First, why would a leadership role even be particularly helpful? Could not one perform the role of a slave while remaining a slave? Second, would not such an attitude make those who held it prone to abuse, to being used for the ends of others who did not hold such an altruistic view? But we saw the greatness of the power of humility in the mission of Jesus himself, and we continue to see it at work in his Body. Without using violence to impose his will Jesus drew others to obedience by the power of the attractiveness of his own presence and way of life. Thus the influence of one was able to be multiplied, enabling the one at the top to transmit the light within him that made him so appealing down to those who became his followers. The result of this authority without enforcement was an exponential increase of influence, and of the reach of the mission. Other religions might later chose to pursue violence as a means to spread what they perceived to be truth. But they were locking themselves into a struggle that Christianity was always meant to transcend.
From now on I am telling you before it happens,
so that when it happens you may believe that I AM.
The world had one plan for the life of Jesus, which was ultimately to silence him and put him to death. But the Father had a greater plan. It did not negate what the world would do, but took it up into the greater plan, and brought good even from the greatest darkness. Thus, the cross did not take Jesus by surprise. It wasn't something that he chose as a good in itself. But it was exactly the means by which he chose to reshape the human image wounded by sin, and the means by which he would even destroy death itself. The way Jesus was able to use what the world intended for harm and make it work for good was proof of his omniscience and divinity. It demonstrated that he himself was Truth and Goodness in the flesh. No human would have ever thought to bring about salvation in this way. All of us probably would have sought straightforward victory without defeat. But God had better plans in store, a salvation that was not just merely forced on a fallen world like a straitjacket, but that was instead a genuine transformation.
Amen, amen, I say to you, whoever receives the one I send
receives me, and whoever receives me receives the one who sent me.
Missionaries of Jesus did not bring merely a teaching or tradition or way of life. They brought a person, and offered an encounter. Just as Jesus himself was a revelation of the Father, and as those who had seen him had seen the Father, so too was it meant to be that those who saw his disciples saw him living in them. This was to be true in particular of those in leadership positions in the Church, such that rejecting them also meant rejecting Jesus. But we are all meant to be living images that reveal the Son to the world. If we are not, well, perhaps we can reflect on the degree to which we have internalized his program of leadership, and the priority in that program of the washing of feet. We must neither be too humble to engage in mission nor too proud to do what mission demands. We ourselves need to come to an ever deeper belief that Jesus is the great "I AM", so that we in turn can help to convince the world.
Phillips, Craig, and Dean - Great I Am
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