February 1, 2009

Washing Feet

Some excerpts from The Daily Spurgeon of a few days ago tie in with a recent lecture at seminary:

If there be any deed of kindness or love that we can do for the very
meanest and most obscure of God’s people, we ought to be willing to do
it - to be servants to God’s servants — to feel like Abigail did, when
she said to David, “Let thine handmaid be a servant to wash the feet of
the servants of my Lord.” Abigail became David’s wife, that is the true
position of every Christian; but yet she felt she was not worthy even
to wash his servants’ feet. That must be our spirit.

Especially let those who are highest among us seek to do the lowest offices.
“Whosoever will be chief among you, let him be your servant.”
Recollect that Christ’s way of rising is to go down...Try to
carry out every one of you to your utmost the teaching of your Lord,
that ye should wash one another’s feet.

From a sermon entitled "Jesus Washing His Disciples' Feet," delivered January 29, 1865.

My seminary professor called this attitude "taking up the towel". Being willing to be a servant, to assume a lowly position, the lowest in the room, in order to serve as Christ was willing to serve.

This is not an attitude or position I assume all that willingly. But to serve in a less than joyful manner is not to serve as Jesus would want us to.

I need to do better. Are you willingly and joyfully taking up the towel?

2 comments:

John said...

I know that you are talking about this in a more general theme, but I have thought about litterally "taking up my towel" and washing the feet of a couple of my closest friends. Unfortunatly I have not had the guts to actually show up with a pail of water and towel in hand to do this, but I do think about what if this practice was to be done much more regularly. The attitude of humility that is required to complete a task such as this would be amazing. Something we could always use more of.

Ancoti said...

You are right, in our culture that would take a lot of guts. But the towel of servanthood is big enough for us to approach it in ways that would not raise so many eyebrows.