Humility

The Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ

Part I: The Upper Room

Dearly beloved, there in the upper room, a dispute arose among the disciples, as to which of them was to be regarded as the greatest. We can relate to that. For deep down, we all have that deep-seated desire to be number one, to be served by others, to exert our will for everyone else to follow. Marriages are strained, families are torn apart, friendships are ruined, and congregations are embattled … all because everyone wants to be regarded as the greatest.

No wonder Jesus tells His disciples in the upper room: “Let the greatest among you become as the youngest, and the leader as one who serves. For who is the greater, one who reclines at table or one who serves? Is it not the one who reclines at table? But I am among you as the one who serves.”

And once our Lord Jesus spoke those words, He put them into practice. He did what any one of us would do, knowing that we had only hours left to live. He laid aside His outer garments, tied a towel around His waist, poured water into a basin, and began washing the disciples’ feet. Oh, wait. That isn’t at all what we’d do. For you and I are too selfish, too full of ourselves for such menial tasks. If anything, we’d expect our friends to serve us on the final day of our life.

It’s difficult for us 21st century Americans to appreciate exactly what Jesus did for His disciples. In Biblical times, most people traveled by foot on roads and paths that were rocky, dusty, and dirty. If someone came to visit you in your home, you gave him a basin of water to wash his own feet. But no homeowner would ever do this demeaning task himself. Not even hired servants were expected to do this.

Yet, Jesus bends down and washes the disciples’ feet anyway. He, the greatest in the room, serves those who are the least. For that is His way. To love others. To serve others. To wash people clean. “The Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give His life as a ransom for many” (Matthew 20:28).

But Peter objects. Not once, but twice. First, via a question: “Lord, do You wash my feet?” Then, via a rebuke: “You shall never wash my feet.” So Jesus answers Peter: “If I do not wash you, you have no share with Me.” Then Jesus continues scrubbing until He has washed every foot around that table—24 feet in all. Finally, He puts on His outer garments, resumes His place at the table, and asks them: “Do you understand what I have done to you? … You call Me Teacher and Lord, and you are right, for so I am. If I then, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet. For I have given you an example, that you also should do just as I have done to you.”

What did the disciples take away from Jesus’ words that night in the upper room? Did they go around and begin washing each other’s feet? Actually, no. They didn’t. They knew Jesus was talking about greater service than washing one another’s feet.

The same is true of you, brothers and sisters. If you truly want to serve others, as Christ calls you to do, then here is how you can wash feet:

• be a faithful husband or wife to your spouse, putting the needs of your loved one ahead of your own;
• be a responsible parent to your children, bringing them up in the training and admonition of the Lord;
• be an honest worker, doing your job to the best of your ability;
• be a good and upright neighbor to all those whom God places in your path; and
• as opportunity allows, feed the hungry, clothe the naked, welcome the stranger, visit the sick and imprisoned, and care for those in need.

These are the ways in which the love of Christ flows through you to those around you.

And yet, the events in the Upper Room on the night when our Lord was betrayed are not primarily about your service to others. They are chiefly about Christ’s service to you. Despite your sinfulness, He serves you just as you are. “God shows His love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8).

That’s love. Unconditional love. Selfless love. Giving love. It is a love ever directed outward … to you … to the very end. On the cross, Jesus holds nothing back. He gives it all. All unwashed sinners—even you—are there washed, cleansed, forgiven, redeemed. Just as Jesus laid aside His outer garments to wash His disciples’ feet, so also He laid aside His life to wash you clean of all your sins. There on the cross, the Master became a servant. The Good Shepherd died as a lamb. The most exalted One of all “humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross” (Philippians 2:8).

You see, dear friends, tonight is all about Jesus. All about the washing, not of feet, but of hearts. Remember what Jesus told Peter? “If I do not wash you, you have no share with Me.” Those words reveal something rather profound about Jesus’ service. For what does God the Father require of you to have a share with Jesus in His kingdom? Is it clean feet? No! It’s a clean heart.

Thus, when Jesus states that He needs to wash Peter that Peter might have a share with Him, He is pointing Peter to “the washing of water with the Word” (Ephesians 5:26), “the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit” (Titus 3:5), that comes in Holy Baptism.

The same is true of you. Jesus’ love on the cross comes to you personally in that water connected with His Word, for in Holy Baptism our Lord Jesus kneels down before you and washes away the dirt of your sin, creates in you a clean heart, and renews in you a right Spirit. All so that you might have a share with Him in His kingdom.

Therefore, stop clamoring to be regarded as the greatest. Instead, love and serve one another. Look anew to the Lamb of God who goes uncomplaining forth to love you to the end. And remember how your Savior still serves you. In Scripture and sermon, in Absolution and Supper, He bends down to wash you clean. To join you in your lowliness, that He might exalt you to the very heights of heaven.

Friends, look daily to Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world, even your sin, and humility won’t just be a concept, but will more and more become an attitude and a way of life for you. For He who daily bends down to serve you, to wash you clean, to forgive you, has filled you with Himself.

Thanks be to God!

In the name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Return to the LORD

Ash Wednesday

Joel 2:12-13

Dearly beloved, no matter how careful your pastor was, or how still you stood, the ashes on your forehead are smudged, smeared, filthy. Some of it usually ends up in your bangs or on your nose. And it feels uncomfortable. Good! For smudged crosses, untidy ashes, and discomfort remind you that sin is a messy business.

Remember that “you are dust, and to dust you shall return” (Genesis 3:19).

Those words were originally spoken by God Himself on the very same day our first parents fell into sin. Sin has consequences. Sin means death. But even in the midst of sin and death, God did not leave our first parents without hope, but gave them a promise: The woman’s Offspring would someday crush the serpent’s head.

While ashes are an outward reminder of your sinfulness, ultimately this Lenten season is not about ashes, but about an inward change of the heart, and the Savior who works that change in you. Listen again to the prophet Joel:

“Yet even now,” declares the LORD, “return to Me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning; and rend your hearts and not your garments.” Return to the LORD, your God, for He is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love; and He relents over disaster.

When the LORD calls you to return to Him, it means that you have first left Him. The sin that separates you from God is part and parcel of your fallen nature and manifests itself in your thoughts, words, and deeds:

• the idols to which you cling;
• the foul language and gossip that come forth from your mouth;
• your failure to hold God’s Word sacred and gladly hear and learn it;
• the grudges you hold;
• the lies you tell;
• the greed and pride that fill your heart; and
• the lust and covetousness in which you delight.

Do your sins disgust you? Or do you simply shake them off, ignore them, or downplay them? Do you sweep them under the rug and reason: “Well, my sins are not as bad as so-and-so’s sins”? Know this: “The wages of sin is death” (Romans 6:23). Your sins are so serious that God sent His only-begotten Son to suffer and die for them. No wonder our gracious Lord says to you: “Return to Me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning.”

Wrapped up in those three words “return to Me” is God’s call to repentance. At its root, to “repent” means to be of a different mindset, to turn around, to have a new orientation in life.

Once you thought this way, now repent and think the opposite way.

Once you were going this way, now repent and go the opposite way.

Once you were turned inward, self-oriented, self-centered, now repent and be oriented toward Christ and your neighbor.

That’s why God calls out to you: “Return to Me.” He is calling you to turn away from yourself. To turn toward Him in faith and toward your neighbor in love.

And how is it that you turn toward God? “With all your heart, with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning.” True repentance always stems from the heart, for it is “with the heart one believes and is justified” (Romans 10:10).

God wants you to return to Him “with all your heart” because, by nature, your heart is turned inward. By nature, your heart produces “evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false witness, slander” (Matthew 15:19). By nature, your heart lays up for itself treasures on earth. Because such things are not compatible with faith in Christ, He calls you to deny yourself, take up your cross, and follow Him (Matthew 16:24).

Use this Lenten season to examine yourself in light of the Ten Commandments, and then “rend your heart.” Come clean. Confess what is true of you. That you are a sinner. That you have not kept God’s Law. That you deserve nothing but God’s wrath and punishment.

But then, in the same breath, confess what is true of the LORD your God. That “He is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love; and He relents over disaster.” That is what this Lenten season is all about. That “in Christ God was reconciling the world to Himself, not counting their trespasses against them” (2 Corinthians 5:19).

The beauty of the Gospel is this: God does not turn away from you, but comes to you, even in your weakness, in your sin, in your guilt and shame. He comes to you not with the pointy finger of “I told you so,” but with the precious blood of the Lamb without spot or blemish, with the baptismal flood of forgiveness that washes you clean and pure, with the true righteousness of Christ that covers up the filthy rags of your own self-righteousness.

Friends, God’s forgiveness is greater than your sin. His love is superior to your disobedience. His faithfulness is bigger and better than your unfaithfulness. Jesus Christ is proof of that. “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through Him” (John 3:16-17).

As is evident, your Lenten journey to the cross is not ultimately about ashes. Nor is it ultimately about charitable deeds, prayer, or fasting, as worthwhile as those practices can be. This Lenten season is about Jesus Christ—“the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world” (John 1:29). Even your sin. The ashes on your forehead in the shape of a cross point you to Christ. He alone is your salvation. He alone gives you the power to deny yourself, take up your cross, and follow Him. He alone turns your heart away from yourself to Himself. And He alone lays up for you treasures in heaven as you hear and believe His precious Gospel and faithfully eat and drink His life-giving Body and Blood.

From dust you came and to dust you shall return.

That is the curse you bear because of sin. But remember, Jesus Christ is stronger than your sin. And His Easter victory is a mere 46 days away. First the cross, then the glory. First confession, then absolution. First death, then life. All so that you can faithfully exclaim: “I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me” (Galatians 2:20).

God grant you a blessed Lent!

In the name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

These Forty Days

O Lord, throughout these forty days

You prayed and kept the fast;

Inspire repentance for our sin,

And free us from our past.

You strove with Satan and You won;

Your faithfulness endured;

Lend us Your nerve, Your skill and trust

In God’s eternal Word.

Though parched and hungry, yet You prayed

And fixed Your mind above;

So teach us to deny ourselves,

Since we have known God’s love.

Be with us through this season, Lord,

And all our earthly days,

That when the final Easter dawns,

We join in heaven’s praise.

Source: LSB 418