Love To The Extreme

I wonder if the disciples knew what was about to happen.

The description of the last few hours Jesus spends with disciples before His arrest as captured in John’s gospel account is fascinating. All the gospel accounts record incidents in which Jesus clearly informs His disciples that He will be killed and then return in three days. They react in various ways from disbelief to grief.  It still impacts them when it happens both in terms of the arrest and the eventual resurrection.

Yet the prelude to all this is the meal. It is here that Jesus puts an exclamation mark on what is about to happen by first of all doing the extraordinary act of washing the feed of His disciples.  Knowing what was about to happen to Him and as an expression of the love that He has for them, He submits Himself to do one of the lowliest acts for those He loved.

Everything He says afterwards is sourced in this demonstration. this demonstration of the Master submitting to the needs of His followers.  This picture of the incarnation where the God of glory takes on human flesh. Living among us, becoming one of us so that we could become one with Him and knowing that the only way to do that was express love to the extreme.

I’m aware of some churches who carry on the foot-washing practice and I’ve no doubt it’s done with sincerity of heart.  A good question to ask, however, would be ‘is this love to the extreme’? In today’s age where your feet are probably well washed anyway and are unlikely to be as callused as those of the 12 men who walked with Jesus, is this love to the extreme?

As a hint of what was to come on the cross, how now in 21st Century life can we display the self-sacrificial, servant-hearted, submissive love that considers others more than ourselves?

For His Name’s Sake

Shalom

C. L. J. Dryden