Models
“Do you realize what I have done for you? You call me ‘teacher’ and ‘master,’ and rightly so for indeed I am. If I, therefore, the master and teacher, have washed your feet, you ought to wash one another’s feet. I have given you a model to follow, so that as I have done for you, you should do also do’” – John 13:12-15
From the Last Supper, to the denial of the denials to come, to betrayal, to washing of feet, to the Garden of Gethsemane, awaiting for the suffering to begin, Jesus models the way for us.
Who wants to take that journey? To take up crosses, none like the Cross, but burdens the same. To wash feet of others. To love amidst hate and fear. A journey to run from, avoid, look for a short cut. There’s got to be another way. And yet, this is the only way. We do not go alone. He has gone before and carries our crosses for us if we allow right in this very moment, in the past and in the future.
When all of the other paths and models we follow lead to dead ends, again and again, return to this place to rest in love. That’s the story of the Cross. Love that transcends and transforms.