TO SERVE: TO ACCEPT HELP

The whole logic of the Passover – first for Jews gathered for Seder and tonight for Christians at the Eucharist – the whole drama only makes sense for people who want to be helped.  It is God’s gracious reaching out to the whole human race, that he has arrived to serve them and to show them, to show us, the pathway through the darkened way out of our predicament. 

He stands – or rather, he kneels before us in order to ask, “Aren’t you tired of being alone and lost?  Aren’t you worn out by the disappointments of the journey, feeling overwhelmed by the evils and wickedness that seem to be in full control of your destiny and of the whole world’s future?  Aren’t you sick of having to take it on all by yourself?  Wouldn’t you welcome a heavenly savior to come to your side and to join you in your struggle against suffering and grieving?  Wouldn’t you wish to be shown the way?”

And Peter’s response to Jesus is, in effect, “No thanks.  I’d prefer to stick with my own best efforts – the ones that have already demonstrably failed me or painted me into a corner where I can only expect nothing but more of the same.  Thanks for the offer, but I’ll stick with what I know or at least can plan for.”

The Last Supper is absolutely meaningless and powerless over the ones with that disposition.  The ones who have been so beaten down by the cold winter winds and gloomy skies ahead that they’ve quit hoping for anything else.  Like Peter’s response to Jesus, sure it can have a certain bravado about it, that response, or a certain pious veneer, but in the end, it’s nothing more than cynicism. 

“And you will never wash my feet, Lord!  Surely, that can’t do any good, and it seems too simple, too strange.  No, I don’t want to be helped.”

So it was only when Jesus issued a not-very-subtle threat that Peter’s heart was changed.

“I am here as one who serves and who shows you how to do likewise.  I am here to rescue you.  But make no mistake; if you say no to my example, there is no ‘plan B’ coming down the pipe to make you free.”

In Christ, we encounter the singular means to the Father and his Kingdom.  But it begins with an act of handing over our complete control of the future and partnering with the Lord.  And that, in turn, begins with a radical act of humility, like “Lord you may wash me as thoroughly as you see fit,” which is just another way of saying, “I can’t do this alone, and I want to be helped.”  Few of us here this evening would prefer to have our bare feet, to have a stranger wash them or even touch them.  But that’s the whole point of Jesus’ instruction.  To serve in ways that are unfamiliar and uncomfortable, and just as much, to welcome the servant who has arrived to help us. “Lord, not only my feet, but however you choose to find me.”