Day Thirty-Eight | April 6 THIRTY-EIGHT

Saved by Grace (Maundy Thursday)

“… nevertheless …”

It was scandalous. The job reserved for the lowest slave in the house. Jesus took o His robe, tied a towel around Himself … and stooped. Washing the mud clods and animal droppings o His disciples’ feet, He stooped. Here, the very God who created us from the dust of the earth, now washed that very dust o of us. It was grace. It was love – love unmerited, unearned, undeserved. Love in action. Love doing something. Love not in theory, not in pretty, frilly words … but love with dirty hands, love exemplified by selfless, humble service. Jesus stooped and served them – they who would soon desert Him; He stooped even at Judas, who had already betrayed Him. It was love without limits; love without excuses; love without exception, expectation, or border.

Those were the bricks from which Jesus would fashion His rebellion; that was the foundation of this new Kingdom. It was love – a love that wouldn’t, couldn’t, and didn’t quit.

And afterward, they shared a meal. Simple bread. Bitter herbs. Poured out wine. But it all meant something. It all pointed to something: the humble, stooping of the Savior to redeem the lost –the lengths that the Almighty would go to (and still goes to) to love us and heal us and save us. And when they were through, He prayed.

Amidst the gnarled olive grove of Gethsemane, He prayed. And like those snarling, twisting branches, He was knotted and conflicted, too: His humanity fighting against His divinity. “Let this cup pass from me,” He prayed. “I don’t want to do this,” He prayed.

“Nevertheless,” He prayed.

“Nevertheless, but not my will, but Yours be done.” For on that night, when Jesus would be betrayed by a traitor’s kiss, on that night when our Savior would willingly give Himself up for us, He showed us what it is to bring about the Kingdom on earth. He showed us how to live out our sacred call – with one foot on holy ground and the other in the world’s common mud.

And He calls us to do the same: to go out of our way to serve … and to stoop. It means that we stop paying it lip service and actually inconvenience ourselves. It means we put our lives on hold for others – especially for those who have no way of paying us back. It means that we bear the uncomfortable silences when there are no words. It means that we sit together and laugh together and cry together. We fall together and we rise together. United not by shared aspirations but by a common love … a Love that displayed itself by giving itself to die on a cross for us. It was grace: free but never cheap. It is grace: free but costing everything. It was grace: this act of selfless obedience, this moment of pure surrender. And in it, Jesus showed us that it is in the stooping selflessness of the believer that God’s glory dwells. It is there that His will for us is accomplished. It is there – where master becomes servant and enemy becomes friend – that Jesus becomes Lord.