The God Who Kneels. Douglas D. Webster

not equal good exegesis or produce life application. Translating this text into transformative truth calls for prayer and a special kind of attentiveness.

      Think of the Spirit-inspired apostle as a poet painting a literary Rembrandt. Every square inch of the canvas deserves out scrutiny. Without a hint of embellishment, John paints with words. He nuances the truth and brings the message home. This rough-hewn Galilean fisherman turned prophet-pastor-poet wove story and dialogue together in a way that invites our deep reflection. The Hellenists looked for beauty in works of art detached from the observer, such as magnificent statues and impressive columns. The Hebrews looked for beauty in the integration of life and meaning, gray hair on an old man, a mother surrounded by her children. Beauty is not observed as an object over against oneself; beauty is beheld in the midst of life. This is the beauty we experience from the inside.

      We are on the inside. Upper room access changes the way we see and hear Jesus. We identify with John. We, too, are beloved disciples. John leads us away from the admiring crowd toward authentic discipleship. Like the poet-pastor himself, we qualify as “the disciple whom Jesus loved.” John never meant this as a boast but as a blessing. His endearing and self-effacing way of identifying himself offers no hint of one-upmanship. He is loved the way Jesus means to love all his disciples. We should not confuse intensity with exclusivity. When our children were younger, my wife and I used to say to each of them, “I love you best,” and they knew exactly what we meant.

      Jesus accused the religious leaders of his day of possessing the Scriptures but not hearing the voice of God:

      “You have never heard his voice nor seen his form nor does his word dwell in you, for you do not believe the one he sent. You study the Scriptures diligently because you think that in them you possess eternal life. These are the very Scriptures that testify about me, yet you refuse to come to me to have life.” John 5:37–40

      Jesus said this to so-called “churchmen” steeped in the Scriptures. These Bible scholars had memorized large portions of Scripture. They loved the books of Moses and held them in the highest esteem. But they still didn’t get it. Their small world of religious ritual and tradition was an end in itself. They were indifferent to God’s salvation-making, history-defining Living Word. They did not hear the voice of God. Instead of being transformed by the Word of God, they molded the Bible into their image. They never internalized the message for themselves or read the Bible along its prophetic trajectory. Instead of participating in the drama of salvation history, they stood apart from it, detached, disengaged, and ultimately against the Bible. Yet they thought they had it down pat.

      Meditation on the biblical text navigates between the twin dangers of overthinking and underthinking. By overthinking, I mean concentrating on some alleged problem of the text or delving into some intriguing linguistic feature of the text while ignoring the real message. I doubt if anyone could ever overmeditate on John 13, but someone could study the passage without ever embracing the humility of Jesus. In biblical scholarship and popular preaching we face these twin dangers. If we’re not careful we could be left on the outside. Meditation is our way in. Biblical and theological scholarship serve as our escorts. Prayer unlocks the door. The Holy Spirit opens our minds. Jesus welcomes us. John identifies himself as “the disciple whom Jesus loved.” By the grace of God this is our shared identity. Our value and significance comes from being loved by Jesus. The Father’s glory fills the room.

      Upper Room Reflection

      What draws you in or distances you from this biblical text?

      How do you identify with John, the beloved disciple?

      Why is John 13 more descriptive than prescriptive?

      What has to change in our lives in order to say we understand John 13?

      Day 5

      Seven Fault Lines

      “You do not realize now what I am doing, but later you will understand.” John 13:7

      The hands-on God of the Bible is on bended knee, handling dirty feet, and teaching the church how to live in the world, how to love one another. No one in Christ ever graduates from this profile. No one rises above Jesus’ Beatitudes. Herein lies the secret to salt and light impact and the true wisdom of seeking Christ’s kingdom and his righteousness first. No disciple escapes the Great Commandment or retires from the Great Commission. In Christ, we are all called to salvation, service, sacrifice, and simplicity. We belong to the order of the towel and basin. The whole of John 13 becomes a community distinctive, a mark of the body of Christ more important than any denominational distinctive; not the ritual of foot-washing that some groups practice literally, but the theological and ethical thrust of what Jesus said and did.

      We are tracking the descent of the Son of the Most High, who descends lower and lower. The act of foot-washing is Jesus’ final parable. On bended knee he explains the atonement through the metaphor of cleansing. He mentors discipleship through example and exposition. The wisdom of the household of faith cannot rise above the parable, proclamation, and passion of John 13. This chapter has much to teach us about following the Lord Jesus and what it means to be the church.

      On day five it is important that we lay out an overview of this seminal scene for Christian discipleship. On the surface it may look deceptively simple, but seven fault lines run below the surface of John 13. Meditation explores these tensions in the text and unearths the passion of the passage. Each one of these tensions will be explored in the days ahead.

      The first tension is between an overly familiar reading of the text and the Apostle John’s Spirit-inspired meaning of the text. Familiarity allows us to pass over this text without discerning the difference between admiration and discipleship. We may be tempted to read and preach this passage as a moralistic object lesson, but the Holy Spirit intends much more in Jesus’ act and interaction. Ironically, the text of choice for motivating church volunteers dulls our sensitivity to the meaning of the text. We need a fresh reading, one that opens up the meaning and intensity of John’s narrative.

      The second tension is between the doctrine of the atonement and the praxis of discipleship. There is an essential connection between the meaning of Christ’s sacrifice on the cross and the Jesus way of sacrificial service. The crucified Lord of all is preaching to us from his knees and he invites us to join him in the sacrificial life of discipleship: “to love one another as I have loved you.”

      The third tension is between Jesus’ Passion Narrative and our life narratives. We are sometimes slow to realize that Christ’s Passion Narrative has turned each of our lives into a passion narrative. We are not detached observers watching Jesus’ drama. We are seated at the table of broken bread and poured out wine. We are called to follow the crucified Lord.

      The fourth tension is between Jesus’ deliberate action and our obedience. We like the idea of free grace and no-load discipleship. Jesus didn’t wash our feet and go to the cross so that we could realize our potential and feel successful. The intensity of the upper room is not religion as usual.

      The fifth tension is between Jesus’ humility and our quest for honor. The meaning of the upper room ought to pervade every sanctuary, boardroom, lecture hall, living room, and kitchen. I may preach humility but I am tempted to practice hubris. Where do self-promotion, institutional pride, and expensive public relations fit in the ethos of the upper room? John 13 offers a fresh understanding of spiritual ambition. We ought to ask ourselves, how do we keep up with the God who kneels?

      The sixth tension is between Judas’s betrayal and Peter’s denial. We ignore the personalities seated at the Last Supper at our peril, because we are very much like this company of confused and conflicted individuals. The great Reformer Martin Luther was not as ready to write off Judas as a singular aberration of evil as we may be. He saw the likes of Judas and Peter in the church of his day. The tensions around that table are with us today. We are still coping with betrayal and denial around the Lord’s table and in the boardrooms of our churches. We are a mixed bag both within ourselves and within the congregation.

      The seventh tension is between divine humility and divine glory. Many of us have been trained to separate the theology of the cross from the theology of glory, but