OzThoughts –Thursday 30th July 2009.

OzThoughts –Thursday 30th July 2009.

[Admin Notice: There will be no OzThoughts on Friday, Saturday or Sunday as I will be away from the computer attending a seminar in Melbourne ].

So he got up from the supper table, set aside his robe, and put on an apron. 5Then he poured water into a basin and began to wash the feet of the disciples, drying them with his apron. (John 13: 4-5 The Message)

There is something special about this story of Jesus washing his Disciples’ feet. I wonder what would happen today or this weekend if we were out at a special meal or with family, and we decided to do something like this. I guess some of us may get up to get a cool drink or a cup of coffee for our guests. Some might see it as their task to serve the meal if it is an at home meal.

I recently was the guest in a home for a meal. The son of the family was home from overseas and spending a relaxing time with his parents. From the moment, I entered the door, I enjoyed his very attentive hospitality. It was a cold night and I was greeted with a hot mug of coffee made just as I like it. During the meal his duties as waiter were carried out as professionally as one would desire. Later, he explained that when he comes home, his gift to his parents is that he acts as butler for them. It was his holiday but he wanted his parents to enjoy his presence. So his gift to them was his hospitality.

The Disciples had dodged this menial task. Although they dodged washing each others feet, Jesus was happy to do it. Peter at one stage is recorded as refusing to allow Jesus to wash his feet, but Peter does not offer to take the bowl and towel. In fact it seems that the Disciples were more interested in being the greatest or knowing who was the greatest among them.

Matthew 18:1, Mark 9:34, and Luke 9:46 all tell of the Disciples asking or arguing about who was the greatest. In fact Luke records it as happening twice as Luke 22:24
also records a dispute as to who would be the greatest.

I have told the story before but some years ago I was travelling home from work on the train with a work colleague who attended a different church. Two Salvation Army Soldiers were sitting with their back to us and it was very easy to hear their conversation. These Divisional Headquarters employees for some reason began discussing by rank and name the various Officers who worked at Headquarters and whether they washed their own coffee cups. It was an enlightening conversation because I knew all the Officers they mentioned.

My work mate was killing herself laughing and continually elbowing me. She particularly enjoyed one comment that a certain Major always left his cup to be washed by others as if they were his servants. It was pleasing to hear of a Colonel (the Divisional Commander – a Bishop equivalent) who regularly washed the cups of other staff.

On one occasion Jesus reacted to the discussion about the greatest by taking a little child and saying as Luke records: “Jesus, knowing their thoughts, took a little child and had him stand beside him. 48Then he said to them, "Whoever welcomes this little child in my name welcomes me; and whoever welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me. For he who is least among you all--he is the greatest” (Luke 9: 47,48).

On this occasion, Jesus took not a child but he took a bowl and a towel. On his way to the cross as he met with his Disciples together for a final time, Jesus took a bowl and towel. As Isaiah said about the Messiah he had nothing special about him except he was willing to become not only the servant God but the servant man and suffer at the hands of men.

PRAYER: (Using our Song Book as our prayer book):

O that in me the mind of Christ
A fixed abiding-place may find,
That I may know the will of God,
And live in him for lost mankind.

Chorus
Doing the will of God,
Doing the will of God,
The best thing I know in this world below
Is doing the will of God.

2.
The suffering servant he became,
Yea more; in loneliness and loss
He bore for me in grief and shame,
A crown of thorns. a heavy cross.

3.
O that in me this mind might be,
The will of God be all my joy,
Prepared with him to go or stay,
My chief delight his sweet employ.

4.
More than all else I would become
The servant of my servant-Lord;
My highest glory his reproach,
To do his will my best reward.
Author: Edward Henry Joy (1871-1949)
The Salvation Army Song Book: Song Number: 451

MEDITATION:

Isaiah 53 (The Message – selected).

1Who believes what we've heard and seen?
Who would have thought GOD's saving power would look like this?
2The servant grew up before God--a scrawny seedling,
a scrubby plant in a parched field.
There was nothing attractive about him,
nothing to cause us to take a second look.
3He was looked down on and passed over,
a man who suffered, who knew pain firsthand.
One look at him and people turned away.
We looked down on him, thought he was scum.
4But the fact is, it was our pains he carried--
our disfigurements, all the things wrong with us.
We thought he brought it on himself,
that God was punishing him for his own failures.
5But it was our sins that did that to him,
that ripped and tore and crushed him--our sins!
He took the punishment, and that made us whole.
Through his bruises we get healed.
6We're all like sheep who've wandered off and gotten lost.
We've all done our own thing, gone our own way.
And GOD has piled all our sins, everything we've done wrong,
on him, on him.
7He was beaten, he was tortured,
but he didn't say a word.
Like a lamb taken to be slaughtered
and like a sheep being sheared,
he took it all in silence.
8Justice miscarried, and he was led off--
and did anyone really know what was happening?
He died without a thought for his own welfare,
beaten bloody for the sins of my people.
9They buried him with the wicked,
threw him in a grave with a rich man,
Even though he'd never hurt a soul
or said one word that wasn't true.
10Still, it's what GOD had in mind all along,
to crush him with pain.
The plan was that he give himself as an offering for sin
so that he'd see life come from it--life, life, and more life.
And GOD's plan will deeply prosper through him.
11Out of that terrible travail of soul,
he'll see that it's worth it and be glad he did it.
Through what he experienced, my righteous one, my servant,
will make many "righteous ones,"
as he himself carries the burden of their sins.
12Therefore I'll reward him extravagantly--
the best of everything, the highest honours--
Because he looked death in the face and didn't flinch,
because he embraced the company of the lowest.
He took on his own shoulders the sin of the many,
he took up the cause of all the black sheep.

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