Fully Committed, Part 1: “I Am” & “I Am Not”

BY DR. KENNY CAMACHO / SERMON DELIVERED 25 FEBRUARY 2024 FOR REVOLUTION CHURCH

This Sunday, we are continuing in our series on the Gospel of John. Over the last two weeks, we’ve been reading the Last Supper Discourse, which stretches from chapter 14 to chapter 17, and ends with Jesus getting up from the table and inviting his disciples to come with him to pray in a place called the Garden of Gethsemane. Jesus knows that this decision is the “point of no return” for him: by coming back to Jerusalem, he was inviting his own arrest… and now it is upon him. That arrest will lead to his interrogation, his torture, and his execution–and it is also part of the plan God has set in motion not to bring about defeat, but to bring about victory. Over the next three weeks, we are going to be exploring that victory plan through the lens of three fully-embodied commitments Jesus makes. Today’s part of the story will be Jesus’s capture… but before we get there, I want to tell a silly story.

This past week in our small group, we discussed our past experiences with Christian traditions during the seasons of Lent and Easter. As someone who grew up Southern Baptist, I told our group that we didn’t really observe Lent: I had never participated in an Ash Wednesday service until I moved to Annapolis. I had never heard of Pancake Suppers on Fat Tuesday… and I didn’t know that “Fat Tuesday” in French is “Mardi Gras.” My church didn’t observe Palm Sunday or Good Friday. But what we did do during this season was put on a surprisingly expensive and involved Easter play. That’s actually the wrong term: Easter musical. It was wild: our choir director wrote it and directed it, and almost everybody in the church was involved. There were big sets, lights, fog machines… and auditions. And when I was 15, I earned my first role. I got to play Malchus. 

Do you guys know Malchus? No?? I’m insulted! Malchus is the servant of the high priest who, when the Romans come to arrest Jesus in the garden, gets his ear sliced off by Jesus’s disciple, Peter. He doesn’t have any lines… but there is a fun prop!

And that’s really where my silly story begins. When I got cast as Malchus that first year, my parents jumped all the way in for the Easter play. My dad, who loves weapons of all sorts, became the armorer on set: he made costumes for the soldiers, and built replica Roman swords out of scrap metal in his shed. And my mom, who loves both makeup and horror movies, took on all the special effects. I remember she somehow molded a fake latex ear with a kind of pocket inside of it, and then she would fill that pocket with fake blood and glue it over my ear… the idea was that when the actor playing Peter swung his sword, I would reach up, smash the fake ear so the blood spurted out, then kind of rip it and flick it away… I also had a blood sponge taped in my palm, so I could press it and more blood would come out. Then, when Jesus “heals” me, I could just use the side of my hand to wipe the blood away, and my actual ear would be there: a miracle!

So anyway, the day of the first performance comes, I’ve spent forever in my mom’s make-up chair, and then it’s time for the scene. I go to grab Jesus to arrest him. Peter comes over… and then the actor does the absolute weakest and silliest swing in the world. As he does it, he kind of pirouettes around me, and as he gets to the other side, I’m howling and spurting blood all over the place, giving the performance of my 15 year old life! It was outrageous. The fake ear ended up in the seats. Mayhem. 

Anyway, here’s where I’m headed: my parents were committed–Peter’s sword was a handmade, historically accurate fisherman’s knife. The ear was perfect, and the blood was plentiful. And I was committed–I flailed around and hollered. But Peter… wasn’t feeling it. And the result was just comedy. Commitment, as it turns out, matters… but it’s got to be all the way. And it’s also got to be to the right thing. 

The actual Bible story this week isn’t funny, unfortunately. But the commitment issues–and what it looks like when the actors in the scene aren’t all ready to buy in–are the same. Here’s John’s account:

[Jesus] went out with his disciples […] to a place where there was a garden. Now Judas, who betrayed him, also knew the place because Jesus often met there with his disciples. So Judas brought a detachment of soldiers, together with police from the chief priests and the Pharisees, and they came there with lanterns and torches and weapons. Then Jesus, knowing all that was to happen to him, came forward and asked them, “Whom are you looking for?” They answered, “Jesus of Nazareth.” Jesus replied, “I AM he.” Judas, who betrayed him, was standing with them. When Jesus said to them, “I AM he,” they stepped back and fell to the ground. Again he asked them, “Whom are you looking for?” And they said, “Jesus of Nazareth.” Jesus answered, “I told you that I AM he. So if you are looking for me, let these people go.” This was to fulfill the word that he had spoken, “I did not lose a single one of those whom you gave me.” Then Simon Peter, who had a sword, drew it, struck the high priest’s slave, and cut off his right ear. The slave’s name was Malchus. Jesus said to Peter, “Put your sword back into its sheath. Am I not to drink the cup that the Father has given me?”

John 18:1-11

There are a few quick notes to make here, and then one absolutely huge one. The quick notes: Jesus goes to a public place that he had visited often. This tells us that even though Jesus knows he will be betrayed, he’s not hiding. Next, Judas brings all the powers of Jerusalem to the garden to confront him: the soldiers are Roman, the police are local authorities, the Jewish Temple leaders are there, and so are the Pharisees. It’s everybody: not just Rome, and not just the religious elites. Third, they bring lanterns and weapons: they are expecting Jesus to hide and possibly resist. But Jesus does not. And lastly, the guards insult Jesus by the name they give him: he is not addressed as a rabbi, which is what he is. He is not called “Jesus ben Joseph,” which would have been the most common and appropriate name. He’s called “Jesus of Nazareth,” because Nazareth is both a backwater, low-class town and because it is not the place the Messiah is supposed to come from: Bethlehem is. Those are the quick notes, and they add up to a story where Jesus is being treated like a villain, but faces that treatment with calm assurance. 

But what about the big note? Let’s go back to that slide: do you see the odd formatting around Jesus’s words when he says “I am he?” It’s there because that’s not actually what Jesus says! Jesus doesn’t say “I am he”–the “he” is an addition in translation. In Greek, Jesus simply says ego eimi, which means only “I am.” What’s the big deal? The big deal is twofold: first, it connects how Jesus identifies himself here to a literary theme in John’s gospel. This is the seventh time John has had Jesus say ego eimi, and in each previous case, the words that follow tie Jesus to the Way to God:

6:48 – I am the bread of life

8:12 – I am the light of the world

10:9 –  I am the gate

10:11 – I am the good shepherd

11:25 – I am the resurrection and the life

14:6 – I am the true vine

Jesus connects those who trust in him to God’s life, hope, and Kingdom. That’s the first part of the wonder here. The second part is that these words in chapter 18–where Jesus says “I AM” but does not attach that to anything else–are the same phraseology we find way back in Exodus. The prophet Moses has been called to a burning bush, and in that bush, his God has revealed himself and tasked Moses with returning to Egypt to rescue his people. 

But Moses said to God, “If I come to the Israelites and say to them, ‘The God of your ancestors has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ what shall I say to them?” God said to Moses, “I AM who I AM.” He said further, “Thus you shall say to the Israelites, ‘I AM has sent me to you.’” 

Exodus 3:13-14

Ego eimi is how the name of God was translated from Hebrew to Greek. Ego eimi is how God identifies himself to the people he intends to deliver. The combined authorities of Jerusalem ask, “Are you Jesus of Nazareth?” And Jesus says–in one breath– “I am Jesus… and I am God, come to rescue you.” 

This is full commitment to the scene. All that Jesus has been saying and teaching and enticing his disciples to believe is revealed. There is no secret left about his identity, or about his purpose. Moses once submitted himself to death in order to see God’s people rescued from slavery, and now that story is revealed as a testimony to the bigger story God has always been writing… so that those who know the connections and hear Jesus’s words might, finally, trust and believe. I am he.

In a revealing twist, the meaning and power of this moment is understood not by Jesus’s disciples, but by Jesus’s accusers:

When Jesus said to them, “I AM he,” they stepped back and fell to the ground.

John 18:6

Jesus uses the Divine name, and it is honored… if only for a moment. And then it is Peter–always Peter–who interrupts the scene. The guards are already rendered powerless by Jesus’s words and identity, but Peter attacks them anyway. Malchus’s ear goes into the crowd. There’s blood everywhere. The tension breaks, and Jesus is taken to prison. 

I started today by saying that over the next three weeks, we would be discussing three fully-embodied commitments made by Jesus. The first commitment is to his Name. We’ve seen Jesus finally take on the whole identity that belongs to him: he is, in flesh and blood, God. He is, as Moses once was, a rescuer of God’s people. He is also, as the guards taunt him, Jesus of Nazareth, a friend to those he has promised to protect, even in this moment when he steps forward to make sure none of them are hurt or arrested. But the thing about Jesus, as we learned last week, is that his purpose, his rescue plan, his intimacy plan, is always about fostering our commitment to our identity, too. We are God’s children, and God’s desire is for us to accept his Name as our own and welcome his Spirit into our very hearts. That’s how the rescue actually takes place! Jesus is so fully committed so we can find the same courage. 

And if that’s true, there is both great tragedy and great hope in the story that comes next. We’ll continue in verse 12:

So the band of soldiers and their captain and the officers of the Jews arrested Jesus and bound him. First they led him to Annas, the father-in-law of Caiaphas, who was high priest that year. It was Caiaphas who had advised the Jews that it would be expedient that one man should die for the people.

Simon Peter followed Jesus, and so did another disciple. Since that disciple was known to the high priest, he entered with Jesus into the courtyard, but Peter stood outside at the door. So the other disciple, who was known to the high priest, went out and spoke to the servant girl who kept watch at the door, and brought Peter in. The servant girl at the door said to Peter, “You also are not one of this man’s disciples, are you?” He said, “I am not.” 

John 18:12-17

Jesus has been taken into the city to face the high priest. An unnamed disciple–it is church tradition to believe this is John–is already known to be one of Jesus’s friends, and so he is allowed into the courtyard to wait. Peter can’t get in, but the other disciple talks to the servant, and she opens the door… and then, in this moment when the gig is actually already up, she asks Peter a plain question: “you aren’t a disciple, are you?” 

You know the right answer, even in Greek: Ego eimi. Peter can do exactly what we’ve been saying John’s Gospel is training us to do, which is to find the courage to accept the identity Jesus is offering to us. Through Jesus, by trusting Jesus, we can once again find full rest in who God says we are! So yes, Peter: Ego eimi!

But this isn’t what Peter says. Instead, he utters two brief words: “ouk eimi.” “I am not.” The servant girl lets this go, and later, Peter is warming himself by a fire in the courtyard. Others are there, and they say to him,

“You also are not one of his disciples, are you?” [Again] He denied it and said, “I am not.” 

John 18:25

A second chance, and Peter fails. And then, finally:

One of the servants of the high priest, a relative of the man whose ear Peter had cut off, asked, “Did I not see you in the garden with him?” Peter again denied it, and at once a rooster crowed.

John 18:26-27

Malchus returns! Or, at least his cousin does. But Peter sticks with “I am not.” Even with all of Jesus’s promises, all of Jesus’s words of comfort at the Last Supper, all of the miracles Peter had seen Jesus perform including healing the ear he had severed, Peter still wasn’t ready to be fully committed to the name Jesus was offering him. He still had doubts. Why? 

Here’s the thing about commitment: it’s not something we ever really have “more” of. Consider what it’s like to sit in a chair. The full weight of your body is always somewhere! Before you sit down, it’s on your feet. When you sit all the way down, it’s on the legs of the chair. The ratio of how much you’re relying on yourself versus how much you’re relying on those spokes of metal can shift, but it’s always the same amount of weight–the same amount of commitment. It’s just about where you put it… and the trick is that anything less than 100% on your seat is really still 100% on you. Peter’s struggle has always been about learning to stop relying on himself. That’s why he denies his friend. That’s why he cut off a man’s ear. Jesus is asking for him to allow the ratio to shift–to “take a load off” for once, and allow God to give him rest–but he’s just too frightened to really do it. So he ends up hovering there over his seat, taking on the appearance of someone who is trusting their chair, but really straining every muscle in his legs to keep holding up his own weight.

Friends, the Gospel of Jesus is this long, patient story of God waiting for us. Of encouraging us, explaining things to us, even taking a seat for us, so we can see what it’s like. And what I hope we can see today is that, first, Jesus knows who he is… and, second, Jesus will wait for us to figure out who we are. 

A fun postscript to my Easter story: When I was 16, my dad took over the role of Malchus, and I got to be Peter. You can bet the ear-cutting went gangbusters that year! Full commitment. But, because I was Peter, I also got to be in a few more scenes. I got to do the denial here, by the fire. And then I also got to do another scene, around another fire, that happened right at the end. You might know it, and we’ll actually talk about it again in a few weeks. But here’s the teaser: Jesus has died, and Jesus has risen from the dead, and Jesus offers Peter three more chances to say who he is. He asks, “Do you love me?” And this time, Peter says “yes.” 

There’s more to that story, but we can close with this: if you’re not ready to trust who Jesus says he is, that’s okay. But don’t forget that you’re standing on your own two feet. Your weight is always somewhere. You’re always 100% committed. The question is are you committed to the best thing? 

Once upon a time, an actor playing Peter was more committed to “being normal” than he was to his part. My parents and I were perhaps overly committed to making a simple scene into a spectacle. But behind those performances was a story about a God who is so fully committed to who He is that he might–he just might–be worth letting go of ourselves and trusting. It won’t happen all at once–sometimes, we all shift in our chairs–but his love has led him to be patient with us. And maybe that’s the most persuasive part of all: God waits. He puts himself in harm’s way so we can have a little more time. It’s who he is. 

It’s who I want to be. I’ll pray for us.

The Last Supper Discourse, Part 1: The Master Who Serves

BY DR. KENNY CAMACHO / SERMON DELIVERED 11 FEBRUARY 2024 FOR REVOLUTION CHURCH

I want to start today with a question: do you remember the movie Memento? If you do, I have some bad news: that movie is 24 years old! So, if you don’t remember it, let me say, first, that I congratulate you on being young… and, second, that it’s probably worth your time. Memento was a bit of a sensation in the year 2000 because it did something interesting with its structure: it was a story about a man with short-term memory loss on a quest for revenge, and in order to communicate the main character’s experience of constantly waking up with no memory of what had just happened to him, the movie played out backwards. The first scene you see is the ending… but you don’t know how we got there or why. And then the second scene starts a few minutes before the first scene, and catches us up. And then the next scene does the same thing, and catches us up to the second scene. It’s a trip! But underneath this gimmick is an idea that’s actually pretty interesting to consider more broadly: can we ever really understand the path we’re on before we know where it ultimately leads? 

I bring this up today because we’re beginning a series on the Gospel of John, which will be our focal book for this year. By the time we get to December, we will have spent some 11 Sundays reading through this account of Jesus’s life! But instead of beginning, well, at the beginning, we’re going to take a Memento approach and start towards the end. Our hope is that this strategy brings deeper resonance to what we’re learning, and we also hope it honors something unique about John’s gospel, which is that more than any other account of Jesus’s life, John’s story wants us to see Jesus as the key to understanding his Father. God is the goal here, God is the “ending,” and not just in the sense that John wants us to learn more about him… but in the sense that John believes, deeply and profoundly, that illuminating the way to God is what Jesus is here for. 

So, how do we begin? 

Like the movie Memento, we’re not literally going to read the book backwards. Instead, we have picked a point that separates the last act of the narrative from what came before, and we’re going to start our study there. In this case, that division point can be found in chapter 13, when Jesus sits down for his last meal with his closest friends, who we refer to as his disciples. After this dinner, Jesus will be arrested. After he is arrested, Jesus will be executed. And three days after he is executed, Jesus will rise from the dead. But the opening of this final chapter happens at dinner. Here’s what John says:

Now before the festival of the Passover, Jesus knew that his hour had come to depart from this world and go to the Father. Having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end. The devil had already decided that Judas son of Simon Iscariot would betray Jesus. And during supper Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands and that he had come from God and was going to God, got up from supper, took off his outer robe, and tied a towel around himself. Then he poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples’ feet and to wipe them with the towel that was tied around him. 

John 13:1-5

In an email this week, Paul McGrew, who is on our Preaching Team, called these verses “immensely beautiful”… and they are. Let’s take a closer look.

The key to understanding this scene is in that first verse: “Jesus knew that his hour had come.” At this point in John’s gospel, Jesus has spent three full years traveling through Israel teaching, healing, and modeling the character of God for people. But in all that time, it has been difficult–if not impossible–for people to see him as anything more than a great prophet. In the people’s imagination, God has always been, well, God: he is a great Force, a great Advocate, who preserves the life of Israel and also enforces heavenly Justice. He has laid out instructions in the Law, and he is unwavering in his execution of it. Yes, the people have seen God’s patience throughout Israel’s story, as well as his forgiveness. But his nearness has always been complicated for them: God is not touchable and visible; his presence is dangerous and sealed away from them in the smoke and fire of Exodus, in the hidden recesses of the Tabernacle, in the Holy of Holies in the Jerusalem Temple. He sees all and can affect all, but woe to those who are unclean when they face him.

I want you to hold onto that last part: woe to those who are unclean when they face him. If the Israelites know nothing else about God, they know this! Sin is abominable in God’s sight, and he cannot and will not abide it. To flout your wickedness under the sun is to invite your own destruction. Think of that joke people sometimes make when they hear a friend say something boastful or blasphemous: “you better watch for lightning!” The “lightning strike God” is the God Israel knows… and they fear him.

But Jesus’s purpose is greater than the purpose of a prophet who comes to remind people to be rightly afraid–he’s here to reveal something about God that the old systems of reverence overlook. The trouble, however, is that the only way to do this is to walk a path that will, unavoidably, make his friends afraid. So, with the hour approaching when he knows he will have to leave them–when he will have to die–he does something pointedly and intentionally to change the dynamic that scares them. Woe to those who are unclean when they face God! And so, what does Jesus do? 

during supper Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands and that he had come from God and was going to God, got up from supper, took off his outer robe, and tied a towel around himself. Then he poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples’ feet 

John 13:3-5

The disciples are, literally, unclean. They are facing the one into whom God has poured all of himself. But instead of punishing them, he gets up from the table, ties a towel around his waist, and makes them clean. They don’t understand… because the hour that is near has not yet come. They don’t understand… because their focus is still on trying to impress God enough to be worthy of his blessing. They don’t understand… because Jesus is their master and not their servant. 

But we can understand, because we’ve already seen the ending: the God Jesus reveals loves first. Cleanliness is a gift he bestows to those who submit to being served by him… not a performance we enact so we can earn a “gold star.” 

Of course, “gold stars” are still all the disciples can imagine! And so, when Jesus comes to his friend Peter, Peter says to him:

“Lord, are you going to wash my feet?”  Jesus answered, “You do not know now what I am doing, but later you will understand.” Peter said to him, “You will never wash my feet.” Jesus answered, “Unless I wash you, you have no share with me.” [So] Simon Peter said to him, “Lord, not my feet only but also my hands and my head!” 

John 13:6-9

As always in the gospels, it’s easy to laugh at Peter: he so desperately wants to be good. But there’s something beautiful under the surface here, too. At first, he fears this is a test and does his best to pass it: my master shouldn’t be treated as my servant! But when Jesus lays out the stakes–being served by God is a necessary thing to accept if you want to be with God–look at what Peter inadvertently asks for: it’s a description of baptism! He wants his whole body, his whole self, to be made clean. 

For many Christians, baptism is a choice we make at the beginning of our faith journey that we frame as a matter of repentance: we acknowledge that we are sinners, and we submit the rest of our lives–imperfectly, inconsistently, but hopefully–to the leadership of Jesus. That’s all true! But this scene adds another piece to that puzzle, because being baptized is also about allowing Jesus to serve us. It’s an acknowledgement and acceptance of this upside-down God we worship who desires our obedience not because we fear his power but because we trust his love. He wants to do for us what we cannot do for ourselves. He wants to serve us so we can learn, from experience, how beautiful it is to be a servant. 

This leads, then, to the last discovery we can make in this beautiful passage: we don’t need to be afraid, we’re submitting to love over judgment, and it’s a blessing to serve others. Let’s read the rest:

After he had washed their feet, had put on his robe, and had reclined again, he said to them, “Do you know what I have done to you? You call me Teacher and Lord, and you are right, for that is what I am. So if I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet. For I have set you an example, that you also should do as I have done to you. Very truly, I tell you, slaves are not greater than their master, nor are messengers greater than the one who sent them. If you know these things, you are blessed if you do them.”

John 13:12-17

This is the only commandment Jesus gives in the gospel of John: “you also ought to wash one another’s feet.” And, just like the commandments in the Old Testament once passed down through Moses, it comes with a promise: “you are blessed if you do.” I think that most of us do pretty well with the first part of this! We understand instructions, and if you’re showing up at a church on a Sunday morning, you’ve already made at least some amount of peace with the idea that, if there is a God, he might have some expectations for you. You’re likely here, on some level, because you’re curious what those expectations might be… and if you really want to try and meet them. So, it’s no surprise, 20 minutes into a sermon, for the pastor to say, “here’s what God wants you to do.”

No, we get commandments. What we struggle with is seeing a commandment as a blessing. 

Let me tell you the end of a story and then go back to its beginning. If you stick around for a few minutes after service ends this morning, you’ll see something pretty amazing: in about 30 minutes, everything we have done to try and make this space feel like a church home will be undone. The band will disappear, the seats will disappear, these rugs will disappear. In the gym on the other side of that wall, TVs and rugs and toys and rainbow-colored room dividers will be put away. The tables in the hallway are probably already gone! The dishes we use for Communion will be cleaned and stored. And all of this will happen not because I do it (although I’m the only full-time paid employee of this church), or because a few leaders who were on the schedule today do it, but because dozens of people will do at least a little something to make it all happen. The same thing was true this morning before you got here: Robb pulled a trailer up at 8 and then 5 or 6 of us unloaded it. By 8:30 the musicians were here. By 9, kids volunteers were showing up. Coffee was being brewed by 9:30. Roy set up flags. What I’m getting at is this: Sunday services aren’t “the church,” people are… and the people who call Revolution home chip in together to serve not just you, if you’re a visitor, but each other, so that the load can be shared. And you know what? Most of the time, we all do this pretty joyfully. 

But that’s the end of the story. Here’s the chapter that came just before this one: in 2020, a pandemic descended on the entire world and church services like this one stopped happening. Before the pandemic, Revolution existed, and we did our best to keep a tight schedule. Volunteers had shifts and roles. We had responsibilities. But when the world seemed to stop spinning, a few of us began to realize that along with all the hardship there was also an opportunity: what if, when this all ends, we don’t rush back? What if, instead of reminding everyone of what they used to do, of their obligations, we stripped things so far down that just a few of us could manage the work? And then we invited folks to come back not when they had a job to do, but when they were ready? What if we waited on each other to step back in because of love… instead of guilt? 

This didn’t go perfectly, and we were never saints about it. But, when I look around twenty minutes from now and see folks chipping in, here’s what I think I’m starting to see: serving can be love as well as work. It can even be a blessing.

If we step back and look at this moment in John’s gospel as a whole, what do we see? We see Jesus, at crunch time, making sure that his disciples experience the definition and illustration of God’s love that he’s here for. They don’t need to be afraid of their unclean-ness: God will wash them. They don’t need to be afraid to submit to him: it’s a way to freedom, not restriction. And they don’t need to be burdened when they serve: it’s a path to blessing. Predictably, this is far too much for them to understand, all at once. It’s too much for us to understand! But the trick of John’s gospel is that the end helps us make sense of the beginning. Discovering that God washes those he loves, serves those who submit to him, and blesses those who follow his example is made possible when we see just how far Jesus is willing to go for the people he loves. Grounding the bigger story of God in the intimate story of Jesus’s relationship with his friends makes the whole thing tangible… and believable! He’s not just a good man who sets a good example. He’s not living out an “ideal” for us to admire and tiptoe our way towards. He enacts God’s character in the world so that we might see and believe (John 20:30-31). What felt distant has come near. What seems upside-down is actually rightside-up. What you long for is already here. 

And, by living it out, he encourages us–in the deepest sense of that word, by giving us courage–to take a chance on following God with our hearts first. Clean the wounds of those who are hurting. Wash the feet of those who are dirty. Serve those who are used to being servants. And, like Jesus, bring tangibility, touch-ability, humanity to the immeasurability of God’s love. This doesn’t have to be an obligation! It can be a joyful echo of what you’ve experienced.

What I want to do right now is send us all out with a mission: “go and do.” But what if, instead, we go backwards? What has already been done for you? It’s hard to echo something you can’t remember! So, we’re going to close today not with a commandment to follow but a reminder to receive a blessing that has long been offered: God has found you. God has loved you. God has already filled the basin and soaked a towel, and he is waiting to serve you. If you’ve never allowed him to do this for you before, perhaps today is the day you say, “yes.” You might be someone who wants to skip to the ending: longing to be kind, eager to love, happy to be a helper. But you can’t fully share something you haven’t fully received. So what might happen if you let the God of the Universe wash your feet? How deep might the rewiring, the remaking go? What could it awake?

And if you’re someone who has trusted God in this way before, do you still remember? Do you see that there is blessing behind the commandments, not just one time, but every day? It’s good to be disciplined, but never at the expense of love. What if you took this moment to re–experience what it means to be served? To be so perfectly loved? I think that, all too often, those of us who are Christians choose to starve ourselves of an affection that is endlessly offered to us. God loves us, and the key to living out our faith isn’t fearful obedience, it’s incarnation: we become what we received, and we share what we remember. 

So today, may we first allow ourselves to be served. And then tomorrow, may we serve others with joy because our memory is fresh and our hearts are full.