Today I was really struck by another example of God's timing. I am on a reading plan to finish the Bible in a year. Often, I will read a passage, and get to work and find its a passage the Pastor is using in the week's sermon. Or I will hear a sermon and it will echo a new song I just heard. Or my daily reading will be directly connected to our band devotion on the same day (this has happened several times).
Or, as was the case this morning, my Bible reading plan had me in the book of John reading about Jesus washing the feet of his disciples.
(A quick aside. I love this story, and I never hear it without remembering a time when all my friends helped me move into a garage apartment. Never in my life had I experienced such an outpouring of love and service. My friends, they painted. They cleaned. They moved. They bought me stuff. They unpacked. And I felt completely undeserving. It was all I could do to keep my sunglasses on and try not to talk. And then I have this moment in the yard with my pastor. He asks if I'm ok, and I say something about how I really don't deserve all they were doing for me...and he starts with, "so there's this story in the Bible..." And he talks about Jesus washing the feet of his disciples. And how as Christians, sometimes we wash each others feet. Sometimes we do the washing. Sometimes we have to let others wash us. That was four years ago. I felt like I hardly knew those people then, but now they are my greatest friends. My family, even. I learned what it looks like to love others in Jesus' name, and I have definitely had my feet washed many times since.)
Back to this morning. I finished my daily reading and picked up another book I'm working through, Scribbling in the Sand by Michael Card. I begin, and yep. You guessed it. Servanthood, and Jesus washing the disciples feet. Mental checkmark. I'm listening. You want me to hear something about servanthood. Got it.
There was a beautiful dramatization of Jesus with the basin and the towel. I read through it, then went back and read it again out loud (I was being artsy and dramatic, but it helped me connect with the story).
As I continued reading in the book, Card goes on discussing the many ways Jesus served his disciples, and concludes with John 21, and a section titled "The Lord of All Serves Breakfast."
Post resurrection, Peter, Thomas and others are out fishing...they caught nothing...ummhmm, reading...throw your nets over...ummhmm...reading, reading...lots of fish this time..."Now come and have some breakfast!"
Wait. What? I always thought of this story as Jesus appearing to the disciples, performing another miracle with the fish...and that whole, "feed my sheep" thing with Peter there at the end. I had to pull the Bible back out and read through the passage. I have completely missed Peter literally clamoring out of the boat and splashing to the shore when he realizes Jesus is there. And that when he gets there, Jesus has prepared them breakfast. John 21:9 When they got there, they found breakfast waiting for them - fish cooking over a charcoal fire, and some bread. Verse 13 - Then Jesus served them the bread and the fish.
The disciples are tired and hungry. Discouraged. Brokenhearted. And Jesus is there, making them breakfast. You know that feeling you get when something good is coming true? Relief and wonder and bliss and joy? I understand Peter stumbling, crashing through the water to get to Jesus. He must have been overwhelmed with those emotions.
"Though Jesus is the risen Lord of Glory, though he stands there with scars in his hands and feet and sides, he is there to fix breakfast. He knows that they've been out all night, they haven't caught anything and they are hungry. And so he is there, their Servant Savior. He feeds them when they are hungry. He washes their dirty feet when they are tired. It is the shape of his life."What a beautiful, servant-hearted Jesus.
