Saturday 30 June 2012
- Bible Book:
- Luke
"I am among you as one who serves." (v. 27)
Background
The Jesus we meet in this passage is a Jesus who is stillfocussed on his mission, and those he has called to share it withhim. Rather than his own suffering and death, his words aredirected towards building up the fragile faith of thedisciples.
The Gospels contain several passages where the disciples argueabout their pecking order in Jesus' kingdom - one of severaloccasions when the evangelists refuse to edit out material thatcould be embarrassing for their reputations. But only Luke's Gospelincludes such a story within the setting of the Passover meal.Because this is the last piece of teaching before Jesus isarrested, it has the special significance of a final testimony -what needs to be remembered most. And what Jesus does is to suggestto the disciples something of how they are to cope with the testingtimes ahead - both those associated with his own passion and death,and those that will await them as they continue his ministry intothe future.
Yes, they will have positions of power and authority, but this canonly come about through service. They are to take Jesus as anexample and not imagine that they are in any way like those wholord it over others in the world.
But they are also to expect and deal with failure. Peter, who weread about in
Finally, the disciples are urged to go forward, following the samepath as Jesus himself, along a way that will involve danger andsuffering, where they will need to keep all their wits about them.Even at this stage they don't understand what Jesus is saying andtake his remark about swords (verse 38) too literally. As Jesus iscounted among the lawless, so may they.
To Ponder
What might being "one who serves" mean foryou?
What are the main challenges to Christiandiscipleship that you face at the moment?
What failures do you still carry with you as aburden instead of asking God to remove them? You could use thistime to ask God to remove them now.