“The greatest among you should be like the youngest, and the one who rules like the one who serves.” (Luke 22:26, NIV)
Like a Masters patron with his favorite spot, we’ve fixed ourselves in one place this week: the upper room.
Jesus had sent the Twelve ahead to secure this upstairs location, apart from the normal activity of the house or the street, to take in one of the Jews’ most beloved meals: the Passover. Jesus knew that this would be his last “normal” night with these closest followers of his. Tomorrow he would die.
The context, known far after the fact as we know it, with the advantage of the full gospel narratives at our disposal, almost makes you laugh at the supreme ignorance of the disciples. I write almost because it is so easy to find our own ignorance in the words and actions of these men. They blurted out what we are often thinking.
Somehow, in the confines of this room and the context of this night, when Jesus wants especially to lay out the sobriety of the hours ahead, the disciples get to jawing about who among them was the greatest. Jesus is sitting right there, and they are comparing themselves to each other. Yes, it is exactly like your foursome at the club arguing about who is the best golfer among you while Jack Nicklaus is lunching at your table.
Jesus had no time for this silly squabble. He cut them off. “Don’t you see it yet?” he asked them, in essence. “My kingdom is not like the kingdom of this world, where the better-than-yous and the I-told-you-sos and the what-have-you-done-for-me-latelys command the operations. My kingdom—and those who would be citizens of my kingdom—behave entirely differently.” And then he went on to speak the words we emphasize today: “My great ones don’t look the part. My rulers will serve.”
Of course, Jesus was on the verge of the greatest demonstration of service imaginable. He would bear the weight of the whole world’s sins—that burden we cannot carry even for our own lonesome selves—and die as the perfect blood covering for all this tragedy.
Yes, that’s exactly what our own thinking and living is: tragic. It not only repeatedly exposes our ignorance, but it compounds our troubles with one ill move after another. It’s easy to fool ourselves into thinking that the greatest tragedies are those endured by the ones in the accidents, or the bankruptcies, or the throes of ugly addition. No, the greatest tragedies are those who miss the part about Jesus and his kingdom, those who proudly contend they are doing just fine. Those tragedies include the visibly troubling, yes. But they also include the vast many of us whose appearances are kept up just fine as we contend to call ourselves “greatest.” Oh, dear! Please, Lord, give me a place to serve and release me from this false, self-loving notion of what is best for me!
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Jeff Hopper
April 5, 2012
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The Links Daily Devotional appears Monday through Friday and is archived by passage and topic at www.linksplayers.com.