“Everybody wants to save the Earth, but nobody wants to help mom do the dishes.” This quip from P. J. O’Rourke captures well how many of us with big visions don’t like to do the menial things thinking that they are beneath us and/or they don’t contribute to the grand vision that we have for ourselves. We are going to do big things. Big things, I tell you! We can’t waste our time piddling with trifles such as doing the dishes or taking out the trash. We will build and rule an empire, whether by slaying all the giants in social media discussions or conquering the business world. Whatever domain we plan to establish, the menial tasks don’t fit into our strategy.
There is nothing wrong with having big visions for our future. Jesus himself had a big vision, we might say, for ruling the entire created order. In John 17, he prays that the Father would fulfill his hope for this rule when he prays that his Father would glorify him. When riding into Jerusalem days before his death to the acclamations of the crowd that he was the King of Israel, Jesus accepted this title in the present and as his destiny. The king of Israel, the son of David, is a new Adam, the one to whom dominion of the created order is given. He will not be a regional king over a little plot of land and the ethnic boundaries of the Jews. Jesus shall reign where ‘ere the sun does his successive journeys run.
Big visions of rule are God’s promise for his Son, so they are not only wholly appropriate, but it would also be a lack of faith not to have them. God is maturing his Son in wisdom as a man for this purpose.
Growth in wisdom is a process of death and resurrection. Before the fall, this death had no sting of sin. Consequently, when God glorified his son, Adam, through the creation of the woman, he went into a death-sleep and shortly thereafter awoke. Since the fall, the sting of sin has made death more of an experience of suffering. Through this suffering, we are made mature in wisdom. Same principle. Different intensity.
This principle established in the beginning is epitomized in Jesus himself. Hebrews 2.10, speaking of Jesus, says, “For it was fitting for him, for whom are all things and by whom are all things, in bringing many sons to glory, to make the author of their salvation mature/perfect through sufferings.” Not long after experiencing all the excitement and adulations at his entrance into Jerusalem, Jesus made sure his disciples understood that expanding his rule as king would involve suffering and death. Some Greek God-fearers in Jerusalem for the festivities sought Jesus out. This inquiry was a token of Jesus’ universal rule to come; he would rule all nations as the Father promised. Jesus recognizes this token and tells his disciples that this is the beginning of his glorification when the Father will exalt him. This glorification, Jesus explains at the end of chapter 12, will mean the world’s salvation (Jn 12.44-50).
The road that he must travel to glorification will be difficult. Just as a grain of wheat must fall into the ground and die to bear much fruit, so Jesus must go through death to be glorified (Jn 12.20-26). This death will take the form of being “lifted up” on the cross (Jn 12.27-36). This glorification through death-and-resurrection is not only for Jesus but also for his disciples. Anyone who holds on to his life, unwilling to give up, will lose his life. Those who lose their lives for Jesus’ sake will keep it unto eternal life.
Jesus is not only preparing to go to the cross but also preparing his disciples to take up their crosses and follow him. They, like Jesus, are looking forward to ruling the world (something evident throughout the Gospel records). There is nothing wrong with that. But they must follow their king if they will rule with him.
After his declaration that he came to save the world, Jesus took up the role of a household slave and washed the feet of his disciples. This is an act that tells them how he will save the world. Since the fall, dirt has executed God’s curse on the man. “Cursed is the ground for your sake,” God declares in Genesis 3. The ground fights man’s dominion mission and eventually overcomes man. Man will labor arduously all his life until he returns to the ground from which he was taken. “For dust you are, and to dust, you shall return” (Gen 3.19). Dirt on the feet in the presence of God used to cry out to God that man was a sinner and deserved to return to the dust. Jesus is removing the curse through his service.
Jesus’ washing of the disciples’ feet is an act of love. To bring to pass the removal of the curse that this symbolizes will cost Jesus his life. This is Wisdom’s mission. This is what Wisdom must do to put the world and those in it in the right relationship with God and one another.
Love is the embodiment of Wisdom’s reign, for genuine love means being in the right relationship, putting us in beautiful harmony with God and one another. Where Wisdom is king, love reigns.
As Jesus loves them, so they must love one another. As Jesus serves them, so they must serve one another. This love will mark them out as Jesus’ disciples, and this love will be a part of the process that moves them to the place of wisdom so they can rule with Jesus.
Love such as this is Wisdom’s big vision for the world. This big vision must begin by being worked out among Jesus’ disciples. Everybody wants to love the world, but nobody wants to love the guy in the next pew. It is easy to love nameless, faceless people who will never irritate us or require our time. We can feel sorry for the guy in Indonesia or even in the next county (or parish, if you are from Louisiana), but it is with the ones closest to us where genuine love is tested.
Part of our suffering is being patient with others. One way this patience presents itself is being longsuffering. As the old King James beautifully translates 1Corinthians 13.4, “Charity (love) suffereth long.” Love endures the faults, aggravations, and weaknesses of others and always seeks to do what is best for them. Jesus demonstrates this love. Part of Jesus’ suffering was being betrayed, denied, and forsaken by his own disciples. He knew all of it would happen, yet he washed the feet of every one of them on the very night they would forsake him. They handed him over and left him alone to die, yet he endured all of it for their sake.
To grow in wisdom and accomplish wisdom’s great vision, we must follow Jesus in his suffering love. Our mission is peace, a proper relationship between God and us and with one another. We can only do this as we suffer with and for one another. This will mean absorbing wrongs without bitterness or malice but happily forgiving one another. It means enduring one another’s weaknesses as they mature or don’t have the strengths you would like them to have. I should have higher expectations of myself than I do for others, not unrealistically demanding that others be what I want them to be. Sometimes it will be simply letting things go, not having to confront every little thing by being easily provoked, or overly sensitive. Love will express itself by not believing the worst motivation possible in what someone else said or did but believing the best.
Jesus has called us into his mission to save the world. We don’t have the same responsibility he does. His responsibility is unique. But he has called us to join him in his mission. Through the church, the nations will be discipled, and the world will be saved. Saving the world begins right here, not with big visions of going elsewhere or taking over the government. Saving the world begins with us loving one another in your local church.
Saints, love one another.
