Usually we do not think of God as humble. Maybe, if we have been around the church world long enough and have really considered the character of Christ enough, then we have a notion of Jesus’ humility. But the Father is the Source from which we draw all good character, the origin of humility. We know this, especially, because Jesus is our most perfect picture of the Father.
When the disciples ask Jesus about who will be greatest, He actually tells them the path to greatness – service. It is part of the divine character to consider others more important than one’s self. Paul emphasized this to the Philippian church, encouraging them to consider others more important than themselves. Some translations go as far to have Paul saying others are superior or even more significant than ourselves. For the self-centered human being, that is a hard pill to swallow. Ever since the fall of Adam, the epicenter of the human existence has been “self”. We have been insatiable quicksand when we have been made to be unstoppable geysers.
Digging into the original languages is not always beneficial, but sometimes it uncovers fascinating revelations. When I was doing youth ministry at Jack Deere’s church, Jack told a few of us in a small group that our problem was not that we didn’t know theology well enough, but rather that we were likely not living most of the theology that we knew. Jack always had a way of simplifying things. That all to say that the origin of the word that Jesus uses to describe Himself is interesting. He says that He is “the One who serves” – ‘diaconon’.
This Greek word is where we get the word “deacon” from. It designates those who would wait on tables and run errands for the one they are serving. This is exactly what Jesus does. He serves us the bread of His Body and the wine of His Blood. He also runs errands for us and for the Father. An errand is “short journey undertaken in order to deliver or collect something, often on someone else’s behalf.”
For the Father, the errand that Jesus did was to retrieve us. The Father loved the world so much that He sent Jesus. We are the object that He was commissioned to retrieve, but not just what Jesus was supposed to go to, He was to bring us back to the Father. This is what He did, and what Paul is referring to when He speaks of us as being seated in heavenly places. Not only did He come to us, He returned us to where we belong, where we were made to reside – next to and in Him.
On our behalf, the errand Jesus did was a delivery. After His resurrection, Jesus had to deliver His own Blood to Heaven, to sprinkle it and cleanse the heavenly places. Unlike His errand from the Lord, we never asked Jesus to do this errand. But that is the sign of true service, doing what someone needs before they know that they need it, before they ask for it, and without demanding recognition. Jesus also delivered something, rather Someone, to us – the Holy Spirit. Again, we had no idea we needed the Spirit, yet he met our need without waiting for us to ask. The only barrier to our benefiting from His service is our acceptance of the services that we have been given.
Through His service and sacrifice, Jesus showed us we are more important than Himself. In His heart, our life is more important than His own. He values our lives more than His own comfort. Like a good leader, the Lord practices what He preaches; and like a good servant, He enjoys serving and goes beyond what is asked or expected.
*Thank You for serving us when we act like an enemy, Jesus. We are very thankful.
