The Son of Man did not come to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many. –Antiphon for the Canticle of Zechariah
This antiphon is what stood out to me today from Morning Prayer. Of course the whole prayer is good and meaningful but something specific doesn't always shine off the page at you. That's OK, by the way, but today it did, at least a bit.
That passage about Jesus coming to serve and not to be served always sounds backwards to us I think. It does to me. And we act accordingly. "He must not have meant that exactly how it sounds, so..." I don't know. What does it mean to allow Him to serve us? Good question to ponder. Think about this: He doesn't need to be served. It's not as if He, or the whole Godhead, is in need of anything really. God has no lack. There is nothing HE is without. Our service to Him should perhaps take more the form of opening ourselves up to receive whatever He has come to give us without trying to give Him something in return for it. There is nothing we can give Him for what He has given us. We are too small to give Him anything.
Love and gratitude, that is all - and those are things that come originally from Him anyway. We need to practice laying down. Lay yourself down. Let Him wash your feet. Let Him be the Shepherd to your sheep. And yes, as much as we grunt against it, it is hard. In Him, though, it is easy. And yes, it is hard to swallow or believe.
"Then, if we cannot as yet think alike in all things, at least we may love alike. Herein we cannot possibly do amiss." John Wesley
"Keep your eyes on the crucifix, for Jesus without the cross
is a man without a mission, and the cross without Jesus
is a burden without a reliever." Fulton J. Sheen
"...I am deeply convinced that the Christian leader of the future is called to be
completely irrelevant and to stand in this world with nothing to offer but his or her own vulnerable self." Henri Nouwen
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