Jesus predicts his death again, and not only his death, but that one of the 12 would betray him. I imagine that at least one of the disciples was thinking something like this, "He has really got to stop this death ideation, thinking all the time he is going to die. You know what they say about self fulfilled prophecy; he is going to bring this on himself." Or another might have thought, "What kind of political leader – King is this? Some Messiah he turns out to be. What a defeatist." One disciple does act on his internal "thinking." Judas sells Jesus out for a bag of money.
So, here's what I find so remarkable about this story. In the middle of one the most wrenching experiences we face as human beings, being betrayed by a friend, Jesus knelt in complete and utter vulnerability, and served everyone, including his betrayer by washing their feet. Amazing! Everything cries out in my flesh, "Lord, you've got to be kidding, that is going to far!" Jesus' act of vulnerable servant hood in the face of betrayal completely "slays" me. He models and instructs us who follow him, to die to self in a similar fashion. I know that God has much work to do in me because what Jesus did is the last thing I would ever think of doing when I am in the middle of being betrayed by a friend.
Lord, thank You for washing my feet when I have betrayed you by thought or action. Teach me, change me, and grow me to the place where living vulnerable servant hood like you becomes the first thing I think or do, and not the last. Ann
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