MONDAY 6th
John 13:1-20
In his gospel, John shows us that from the Monday through to the Thursday, Jesus spent much of the time teaching and instructing his disciples. He was about to leave them and wanted to leave them in good shape!
Following his arrival into Jerusalem, he entered the temple and drove out those who were selling, making this declaration, ‘My house shall be a house of prayer, but you have made it a den of robbers.’ (Luke 19:46) This is the second time Jesus has had to do this as he also did it at the commencement of his ministry. (John 2:13-17. I wonder how many times it takes for us to learn a lesson!
Luke continues to tell us that Jesus taught among other important matters about taxation and tithing – Luke 20:25 ‘Then render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s.’ As we know we are obliged to pay our income tax, so we should realise we are also obliged in our giving to God as well, which happens through our giving financial support to our local Church. (1 Corinthians 16:1-2 ‘Now concerning the collection for the saints: as I directed the churches of Galatia, so you also are to do. On the first day of every week, each of you is to put something aside and store it up, as he may prosper, so that there will be no collecting when I come.’ With this in our minds, the facility is available to give tithes and offering through on-line banking while we are not able to gather.
One of the first things we discover in John’s account is that Jesus teaches the disciples an extremely important lesson – the lesson of humility. John 13:1-20.
Humility is a lesson we have probably all needed to learn in our lives, for the disciples it seemed to be an issue they struggled with, for Jesus had already dealt with the subject before. Remember the time when they had asked who is the greatest in the Kingdom of Heaven? (Matthew 18:1-5) Then a couple of chapters later (Matthew 20:20-28) two of the disciples mother asked Jesus if her sons could sit, one at his right hand and the other at his left hand in his kingdom, to which Jesus replied, ‘But whoever would be great among you must be your servant, and whoever would be the first among you must be your slave.’ And here in our text John 13, Jesus is having to teach them the lesson of humility again. If you follow Luke’s chronology of events, you will discover that even after the foot washing incident (which only appears in John) they repeat an earlier question to Jesus; ‘Who among them is the greatest? (Luke 22:24-20) The penny still hadn’t dropped!
I remember many years ago saying that I would take any job available except to be a toilet cleaner! I wasn’t so much proud, but just didn’t think I’d be willing to go quite that low! It wasn’t long afterwards when I worked in an agricultural manufacturing facility with a group of about 20-25 men. And I soon discovered that the men were not very fussy about toilet hygiene and no one had the task of ever cleaning them. I will leave you to imagine what they used to get like! Well, I decided one day that I would take the task on and so I learned to do what I said I would never do! But that wasn’t the end, it was about ten years later I needed work and as a result I took on work as a school cleaner, cleaning a primary school in the mornings and a secondary school in the evenings, and guess what, school children had worse toilet habits than the men in the factory! And, yes, it was my job to clean the toilets! A lesson on humility was learned, and it’s a lesson we all need to learn, we should never put ourselves to be above doing anything.
Jesus was teaching the disciples the same thing by doing the lowliest of tasks himself. He took on the role of a servant, he wrapped a towel around his waist, poured water into a basin, and began to wash the disciple’s feet. There are those who follow this practise today, convinced that Jesus was giving us a literal example that we should follow, and if they want to do so then let them, I have no problem with that. But I think here that Jesus was teaching us a very important lesson that not one of us should think that we are above another. It doesn’t matter what our status may be regarding class, race, career, education, position, or calling, ‘In Christ’ we are all equal, we are all on a level playing field. The pastor is no better than the last person that may have come into the Church family and got saved. We are brought together not to Lord it over one another but to serve one another.
In Philippians 2:1-11 we are taught the same lesson, ‘Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others. Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, . . . he humbled himself . . .’
If there is something that the Coronavirus has taught us is that it is no respecter of persons, it has infected from every strata of society and from possibly nearly every nation of the world.
May we catch humility – each one of us and let it spread like wild-fire as we learn to seek to serve each other, bringing Jesus to our communities who need him more than they need anything else today.
Oh kneel me down again,
Here at Your feet
Show me how much You love humility
Oh Spirit be the star that leads me to
The humble heart of love I see in You
You are the God of the broken
The friend of the weak
You wash the feet of the weary
Embrace the ones in need
I want to be like You, Jesus
To have this heart in me
You are the God of the humble
You are the humble King
Brenton Brown CCLI 788682