On Being Served
John Fischer

We’ve reflected a lot in these devotions about serving as one of the five great purposes that embrace why God made us. We’ve looked at parking attendants and shoeshine men (and there are women, too) as modern day equivalents to Jesus’ washing of the disciples’ feet. But there is another side of serving that sometimes gets overlooked and yet is just as important, and often harder to do. I’m speaking about what happens when one is being served.

When Jesus got down on his hands and knees in front of his disciples with a washbasin and a towel, the loudest objection came from Simon Peter (appropriately, the loudest disciple). “No,” Peter protested, “you will never ever wash my feet” (John 13:8)! (Here’s an important aside: Don’t ever say “never ever” to Jesus!)

Why do you suppose he was so opposed to this?

It may be humiliating to take on a servant’s role, but it can be even more humiliating to be served. This rubbed against the grain of everything Peter stood for. He was a simple fisherman aware of his own shortcomings and this was the Son of God on His knees coming into direct contact with his dirty, smelly feet. If anything, Peter should have been washing Jesus’ feet. He might have even been kicking himself for not having thought of it first. It was a custom usually performed by the host’s servants, to wash the dirt of the road from the feet of the dinner guests. In this instance, however, they were in a borrowed room and there was no host present. Either no one thought to do it, or no one was humble enough to do it, so they all sat there in their prideful dirty feet, until Jesus took it upon Himself to be the servant.

In many ways it’s harder to be on the receiving end of serving than on the serving end. You can be more obscure as a servant. You can mask your own weaknesses and failures behind a flurry of activity. You can get the focus off you and onto someone else. Not that this isn’t the right thing to do in most cases — it’s just that it can also be a place to hide. In being served by Jesus, Peter couldn’t duck the attention, and the attention was on how dirty his feet were and how prideful he was, along with the others, to resist being the servant himself. That’s why he protested so.

To which Jesus replied, “Unless I wash you, you won’t belong to me.”

Hearing this, Peter completely reversed his direction. “Then wash my hands and my head as well, Lord, not just my feet” (John 13:8,9)!

Don’t you love Peter? He’s either entirely wrong or entirely right, and sometimes in the same sentence!

Let’s give some thought today to why it’s so hard to let others serve us. Is there someone you may be resisting who wants to serve you? Peter had to become vulnerable to let Jesus serve Him. Are we willing to do the same?

PDL