Our Lord Jesus walked through this week of passion with purpose and power.  Now on what is known as Maundy Thursday or Holy Thursday Jesus institutes a lasting image of the servant king by washing the feet of His disciples. The scene is familiar to most of us.  The Lord is spending his last hours before He will be arrested with His disciples.  How amazing thelove of Jesus to spend time here with people that in a matters of hours will all deny even knowing Him.  Judas has already agreed to betray Jesus and yet these are the people that the Lord chooses to spend these precious moments with. 

In my own life it is very easy to forget that to be a disciple of Jesus means to die to self and to my own desire to be understood.  No one has ever demonstrated a love like Jesus He is our model of humility and never wavering love even when people that we show love to do not reciprocate in the way we thing they should. Jesus, on Thursday night of Passion Week shows the full extent of His love by taking the place of a servant and washing the feet of His disciples.  There are some beautiful depictions of these moments in sculpture known as "The Divine Servant" What an incredible thought that the creator of the universe now humbles Himself to take the place of the lowest servant the one who was only good enough to wash feet.  John chapter 13 says that Jesus knowing that time had come for Him to offer Himself now showed them, "the full extent of His love."

Having loved his own who were in the world, he now showed them the full extent of his love. Washing the feet of those who are faithful and stand by you would be one thing, but washing the feet of those who will soon walk and in some cases run away from you is another.  Our Lord's love has no limit; He loves even when we do not deserve it.  He loves when we are anything but loveable, and He loves us in order for us to love others in the same way.

13 "You call me ‘Teacher' and ‘Lord,' and rightly so, for that is what I am.
14 Now that I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also should wash one another's feet.
15 I have set you an example that you should do as I have done for you.
16 I tell you the truth, no servant is greater than his master, nor is a messenger greater than the one who sent him.
17 Now that you know these things, you will be blessed if you do them.  

Jesus said on that Thursday evening. "I have set an example that you should do as I have done.  In some cases it will mean becoming a servant when most of us want to be charge.  In some cases it will mean not defending ourselves.  In many cases it will mean for us to love people in way that Jesus modeled for us.  What an incredible Lord who just hours away from the most cruel rejection in the history of the world, would want to teach His followers then and now that to be great in the Kingdom of God we must be like our master who just keep loving. Now that you know these things, you will be blessed if you do them.   When we look at Jesus we see unconditional love.  But now Jesus says since I have shown you how, then love.