Model of Service
“I have given you a model to follow,
so that as I have done for you, you should also do.”John 13:15
In the final hours before Our Lord suffers His passion, He chooses to eat the Passover with His disciples. On one hand, showing His faithfulness to the Jewish customs in remembering God’s saving work in the lives of the ancestors and on the other hand, bringing it to fulfillment. The Passover meal foreshadows the Last Supper, the Institution of the Eucharist. Just as the blood of a year-old unblemished lamb on their doorposts signaled the Angel of the Death to pass over their door and spare the first born of those within the house, so too, in the fullness of time, the blood of the True Lamb, the Lamb of God shed on the wood of the Cross saved and continues to save the people from their sin and from death.
During dinner, Jesus, the Lamb of God did something that was unheard of. He, the Teacher and Master put a towel around His waist, bent down, and washed His disciples feet. By doing so, Jesus tells Peter that He will have inheritance with Him, the inheritance of the Father, the truth of being a beloved son of the Father. However, this inheritance is not one of silver or gold, but rather of mission and service. A mission to raise up the lowly and to share with them the gift of salvation. A mission that extends beyond of the walls of Jerusalem and the land of Israel. This inheritance is to go and live knowing that one has been loved from all eternity, and loved so much that God entered into human history, becoming man, suffering, and dying so that we might live. And if one truly embraces this, there is one thing one must do: share this with others. This is the model Our Lord left to His disciples then and leaves to us today: to serve as Christ served, to forgive as Christ forgave, to love as Christ loved, to sacrifice as Christ sacrificed, and to lay down one’s life as Christ laid down His life.
The Lord gives unto us today this model of service, how will we respond? He asks us to love and serve, will we? He implores us to stay close to Him by lowering ourselves to be with the lowly, are we willing? He teaches us to forgive as He forgave the one who betrayed Him, can we forgive those who hurt us? We are called to be Christ to all peoples, will we rise to the occasion?
