God the Servant
John 13.1-17
Maundy Thursday, March 20, 2008
In the Woody Allen film “Alice,” Alice is a sophisticated Manhattan woman married to an investment banker and living on the Upper East Side. She has two perfect kids, a beautiful apartment, lots of money. She has it all. But then she goes a little weird. Everybody thinks she’s flipped. Why? Because she starts asking the question Why? Why am I in school? You’re in school to get a good career. Why do I want a good career? You want a good career so you can become independent, to live the life you want to live, to do the things you want to do. Why do I want all that? What is it all for?
Alice is asking the question, what is it all for? It is a good question. As one person said, when you go more than six inches deep in thinking about the meaning of life, you’re into religion. What really matters in life? Why do we do all the things we do? What is the underlying purpose of life?
Tim Keller often says imagine you have a machine delivered to your house. It has lights and gears and pulleys and motors and looks very impressive. But you have no idea what it does. How do you find out? You have to look for the manual. You have to contact the manufacturer and ask why it was designed. You can see that it is a very impressive machine and it runs like a top, but unless you know what it is for it is useless.
Our lives are like this machine. We are doing a lot. Our lights are blinking and our gears are whirring. We see it as our mission to get our children’s lights blinking and gears whirring. But Alice’s question is all of our question. What is it all for?
In tonight’s story, Jesus says, “let me tell you. You want to know the central meaning of your life. I’m the manufacturer, I will tell you.”
This story takes place on Thursday night. Matthew Mark and Luke tell us about the Last Supper. Jesus shares the Passover with them, the commemoration of the miraculous deliverance of the Israelite nation from bondage in Egypt, and He says, “now I am the new Passover. This is the blood not of the old Passover lamb, but this is the blood of the New Covenant.”
John doesn’t tell us about the Last Supper because he assumes we already know it. Instead he takes another event from that evening, the footwashing, and describes that in detail. It is an acted out parable. The action and the teaching go together.
The teaching is this. God is our servant.
The meal was being served, and during the meal, Jesus rose from the place of prominence at the table, took off his outer garment, wrapped a towel around his waist, drew a basin of water, went and got some soap, then got down on his knees and washed their feet one by one. The disciples, especially Peter, had a great difficulty accepting this from him, but we’ll get back to that in a minute.
What Jesus was doing, was acting out in miniature, the entire picture of salvation. Here it was in snapshot, but Jesus had already done it large on the canvas of the Universe. Verse 3 says, “Jesus, knowing that the Father had put all things under His power, and that he had come from God…”
When He took off his clothes at the dinner table and put on a towel it was like when He laid aside His glory in heaven and put on human flesh. He already had all the power and authority and glory and dominion because He was one with the Father. But He took that all off and laid it aside, putting on human flesh. It is called the Incarnation. We sing it at Christmas – “veiled in flesh the godhead see, hail the incarnate deity.”
But that was only the half of it. Now he is telling them that he came not merely as a man, He came as a servant. He was doing the job only servants can do, a debased job, a humbling job, a job nobody else would do. And more than that, in less than 24 hours he would be disgraced, tortured, crushed and killed. Why? Because He would be atoning for our sins. Our God was showing us that He is a servant.
The substitutionary atonement is the central doctrine of the Christian faith. On Thursday in the footwashing it is prefigured. On Friday on the cross it is carried out in full.
When Jesus died, he died as the perfectly innocent Son of God in the place of guilty sinners. This is the heart of the Christian gospel - the good news. Here's the way the apostle Paul put it in 1 Corinthians 15:1-3: "I make known to you the gospel . . . that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that He was buried, and that He was raised on the third day." Or in another place he says, "While we were still helpless, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly" (Romans 5:6).
Here's the way the apostle John says it in 1 John 4:10: "[God] loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins." "Propitiation" means that the death of Christ takes away the anger of God - propitiates God's wrath - from those who trust Jesus.
Here's the way the apostle Peter says it in 1 Peter 3:18: "Christ also died for sins once for all, the just for the unjust, so that He might bring us to God." "[Christ] Himself bore our sins in His body on the cross" (1 Peter 2:24).
But how did Jesus himself view his own sovereign sacrifice? In Mark 10:45 he said, "The Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many." And at the Last Supper he said, "This is My blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for forgiveness of sins" (Matthew 26:28). Jesus saw his own death not as an accident or a model. He saw it as a ransom that would set sinners free from condemnation and obtain forgiveness for us from God.
But Peter does not see His need. Verse 6: “Lord are you going to wash my feet? And in verse 8: “You shall never wash my feet.” He thinks it is beneath the Son of God to serve him in this way. I can make it fine on my own. I would rather not have you do this for me. He thinks he can get along fine with dirty feet if he has to.
But Jesus says, “Unless you let me wash you, you have no part with me.”
If the idea of the substitutionary atonement offends you then you run the risk of excluding yourself from the love of God. Maybe you’re too proud. Maybe your pride is keeping you from the grace of Jesus Christ. That was the problem with Peter.
I read a story that a Pastor who said he always had trouble accepting extravagant gifts. Over the years his wife bought him presents that he would return because he thought he didn’t deserve them, or didn’t need them or they were too extravagant. Then one Christmas she got him a really nice tie. He loved it, but he thought it was too much. He asked her to return it, but before she could do so she mislaid it and lost it. Now it was a double whammy. He didn’t have the tie and they didn’t have the money it cost. Every Christmas he wishes he could have that tie, but it can have no part of him because he would not receive the gift.
Your life in Christ begins by you submitting yourself to His service for you on the cross. It is a submission of your pride, your will. It is an action of no action – of letting something be done for you. The identity of the church is not based on programs, worship services, social causes or even doctrines. What distinguishes the church from the world is that we have been cleansed from our sin by the blood of Jesus Christ.
Some people have difficulty finding the freedom for the forgiveness of sins. The Bible talks about a life of freedom and joy and ever flowing streams. But the experience of some people is more a sense of condemnation, of failure, of disappointing Jesus. They feel they are not worthy, there is some sin that is too big, some failure that is too constant. One person was describing their constant sense of never feeling worthy of Christ. “How do I find Jesus Christ?” was their question.
You find Jesus Christ by looking wherever you are the dirtiest. That’s where Peter found him, washing his dirty feet. Where are you the darkest? Of what are you most ashamed? Maybe you can’t even look in there. A marital infidelity? A story you spread that ruined someone’s life? A deal you did that was dirty? If you want to find Jesus Christ, you’re going to have to look right down into that hell hole. That’s where He is. At your dirtiest. He’s looking back up at you saying “Unless I wash you, you will have no part of me.”
Can you believe the atonement? Will you believe the atonement?
The last thought Jesus leaves with us is that once we experience the atonement, we live it. “I have set you an example that you should go out and do to others as I have done for you.” God has shown Himself to be our servant, so we can go out and do likewise.
The act of stooping to wash someone else’s feet, to humbly serve them, reverses the order of the world’s idea of greatness, of significance. It turns the world upside down, because the world’s authority comes from position, title, power and control. Can you imagine Donald Trump getting on his hands and knees and washing the apprentice’s feet, instead of telling them, “you’re fired?” Can you imagine Bill Gates making coffee for the secretaries? Can you imagine Tiger Woods cleaning the clubs of the rookies on the tour? This is not how the world operates, but it is how God operates.
Care for the homeless, adopt the orphan, visit the prisoner, help the immigrant, employ the unemployed, feed the hungry, educate the illiterate. Pour yourself into things like these and you will find you have boundless energy and ideas to do more, because it won’t be your strength doing it, it will be Christ in you. The more you give, the more joy will flood your soul.
And that, Alice, is what it’s all for.
At the heart of the Universe stands a Triune God. And wonder of wonders, His essential nature is service. He washes your feet and gives His life for you on the cross to forgive your deepest sins. Then He enters your life, or rather you enter His, and you love and serve the world.
