Message: Pastor Jung Myeong Seok
Scriptures: John 13:1-20 (Key scriptures: 13:12-20)
When he had finished washing their feet, he put on his clothes and returned to his place. “Do you understand what I have done for you?” he asked them. “You call me ‘Teacher’ and ‘Lord,’ and rightly so, for that is what I am. Now that I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also should wash one another’s feet. I have set you an example that you should do as I have done for you. Very truly I tell you, no servant is greater than his master, nor is a messenger greater than the one who sent him. Now that you know these things, you will be blessed if you do them.
“I am not referring to all of you; I know those I have chosen. But this is to fulfil this passage of Scripture: ‘He who shared my bread has turned against me.’
“I am telling you now before it happens, so that when it does happen you will believe that I am who I am. Very truly I tell you, whoever accepts anyone I send accepts me; and whoever accepts me accepts the one who sent me.”
Hallelujah! May you all be filled with the love of the Holy Father God and the peace of the Holy Son.
Jesus was the ‘Messiah’ whom God, the Holy Spirit, and the Holy Son had sent to fulfil the New Testament history. He came to save the nation of Israel and the entire world. However, due to the disbelief of those who had believed in God while waiting for the Messiah, Jesus knew the time had come for him to atone for the sins of all mankind through his ‘death’ and return to his Father.
Before being crucified and dying on the cross, Jesus did ‘two major things’. One of these was the ‘last supper he had with the disciples’.
The day before Jesus was arrested by the religious people and the politicians of the old time period, who distrusted and slandered him, Jesus gave out ‘bread and wine’ while saying, “This bread is my body given for you. This cup is the new covenant in my blood which is poured out for you. Do this in remembrance of me.” (Luke 22:19-20)
He did one more thing before he was arrested. It was the ‘work of washing the disciples’ feet’. This is what occurred in the main scriptures. Jesus poured water into a basin and began to wash his disciples’ feet. As Jesus washed the feet of the disciples as the ‘Lord’ and ‘Teacher’, he said “I have shown you an example so that you will do as I have done. Therefore, you also should wash one another’s feet.”.
Telling them to wash others’ feet had many meanings. Jesus showed them an example as the ‘Lord’ and as the ‘Teacher’ so that they would be harmonious and be loving toward each other, cover over and pray for the faults of their brothers, forgive their brothers for their wrongs, wash the brothers who caused them to be angry and enraged just like washing their feet, and treat all lives that way.
Then Jesus also told them, “Not everyone who follows the Lord is a ‘chosen person’. Even if people follow saying, ‘Lord! Lord!’ in that same place there is one who will lift up his heel and betray me.”
Here, the ‘one who had lifted up his heel against Jesus’ was ‘Judas Iscariot’. As a result of Judas’ betrayal, Jesus’ heel ended up being lifted from the ground. That is, he ended up dying on the cross.
One one hand, Jesus walked the path of glory that saved mankind; on the other hand, he walked the path of crucifixion, the path of sacrifice.
A savior does not bear the cross becaue of ‘his own sins’. He bears the cross because of the ‘sins of the world’. Jesus, becoming the ‘Lord of glory’ by having the people of the time period believe in him as the Messiah and follow him and him fulfilling the Will of salvation was the Will that had been originally intended. However, the people of that time period did not turn back and the more time passed, the more they slandered and blocked Jesus and treated him like a heretic.
The the time period had already tilted toward the ‘evil side’. If things had been left as they were, the salvation history could not have been made properly. For that reason, in order to, as the Messiah, bear the sins of the sinners on behalf of them and open the ‘path of salvation’ for all people, Jesus entered Jerusalem where the cross was, and he walked the ‘path of sarifice, the path of the cross’.
Jesus preached during his lifetime, telling people to care for, serve, love, and sacrifice for their brothers and followers, and to live as the ‘Lord’s bodies’, just like how the Messiah had washed the feet of his disciples. That same mentality and Word has been preached throughout the 2000 years of the New Testament history.
I urge everyone to remember today’s message and take action with this ‘gospel’ and with ‘peace and love’ to the end of the age.
