The Fall Before Humility
I’ll never forget the occasion when, as a teenager, I walked into church for the first time in my life. The little country congregation was in the middle of a special service. At the front of the worship area small goblets of dark grape juice and several plates holding pieces of unleavened bread were arranged in an orderly way on a beautifully carved wooden table. But before these emblems were distributed to those present, the minister invited his congregation into an adjacent room where small bowls of warm water were neatly placed on the floor in front of a circle of chairs, each draped with a small towel.
An old man, perhaps about 80 years of age, approached me and said, “Son, can I serve you by washing your feet?”
I was dumbfounded. Nobody had ever washed my feet—except for my mother, when I got them dirty as a youngster. Hesitantly, I sat on a chair and took off my shoes and socks. As the elderly man tenderly washed my feet and dried them with the towel, he looked up into my eyes and said, “Young man, I pray that these feet of yours will walk clear through into the kingdom of God when Jesus comes back.”
I’ve never forgotten his words. It was a very emotional period for me, and they became an anchor deep down inside my inner being through many difficult times.
Most Christian faiths celebrate the Lord’s Supper in their unique ways, but only a few observe the preliminary ordinance of foot washing or “humility,” as it’s come to be called.
And yet, just as Jesus said of the Communion meal, “Do this in remembrance of me” (Luke 22:19), so He also said of this service of humility, “Now that I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also should wash one another’s feet. I have set you an example that you should do as I have done for you. I tell you the truth, no servant is greater than his master, nor is a messenger greater than the one who sent him. Now that you know these things, you will be blessed if you do them” (John 13:14-17).
A most confronting aspect of Jesus’ statement is the realisation that He, who here rightly calls Himself the Lord of the universe and our lives (see John 1:1-3) and our great Teacher in all aspects of life, took off His outer garments and began to wash the feet of His followers, a group of men embroiled in a power struggle and full of negative feelings toward each other. The mother of James and John had requested of Jesus that her sons be appointed as leaders in what they anticipated was an emerging political kingdom, and this had made the other 10 disciples indignant (Matthew 20:20-28). And all this just hours before Jesus knew He was to about to die.
As Jesus gathered His disciples together on this last solemn occasion before He went to the cross, it seemed that everything conspired against His hopes and plans for a new spiritual community. The ugly face of human pride and ambition had surfaced in the hearts of men He was training to administer His coming kingdom.
It was customary for a servant to wash the feet of guests when they arrived from a hot, dusty journey, but for one of the disciples to do this now would, in their eyes, make them unfit for leadership.
Jesus struck at the heart of human pride by modelling a spirit of humility and service to men who demonstrate even the unloveliest aspects of humanity. He took the servant’s role and did what a servant normally does. The Creator washed His creatures’ feet!
Peter’s reaction to this is typical of the proud human heart. “You shall never wash my feet,” echoes the reaction of most people when unsavoury parts of their inner being are exposed before the discerning eye. We fight tooth and nail to appear respectable when it is plain to see we are not.
It is hard for us to be humble. In fact, in our natural human state, it is impossible. The unconverted heart does not have the capacity to transcend its self-centredness. Our constant preoccupation with our image before others strikes a mortal blow at humility before we even begin the journey in its pursuit. It’s safe to say only people who are unaware of their humility are truly humble.
And yet Jesus said “learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart” (Matthew 11:29). From a human point of view this sounds an enormously arrogant statement, but when we stack it up against the reality of the humility He manifested in His life, death and ministry for our salvation, there can be no doubt of its truthfulness. He was simply stating a self-evident truth.
To “learn” humility from Jesus is not just striving to imitate Him as He models this grace. His servant heart needs to somehow become our heart. We need to look at other human beings through His compassionate eyes. We need to have the simple attitude of a child who, in the days of Jesus, was only slightly “higher” than a servant in the ancient Hebrew household.
The first step toward this is, like Peter, to receive a revelation of our lack of humility. Jesus gently but firmly leads us to face every negative aspect of our unconverted human nature and to acknowledge them before Him as things for which we need forgiveness. There is no pathway to humility without being broken inwardly in some tangible way.
The next step is to accept by faith that Christ Jesus “has become for us wisdom from God—that is, our righteousness, holiness and redemption.” (1 Corinthians 1:30). Everything we lack is part of an inheritance we can claim from Him as our rightful possession (Ephesians 1:17-23).
Then as the days, months and years pass we will, largely without being aware of it, find ourselves with a servant heart. Our attitudes to our family members, our workmates and the disadvantaged in society will all have changed. The inverse laws of Jesus’ life will have become ours. The “poor” will become “rich,” the “weak” will become “strong,” and the proud humble.
| This is an extract from April 2004
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