How can we follow Jesus in His way of humility?

Yesterday, you read about lament, repentance and the way of humility that Jesus walked.

The passage in Philippians that I referred to ends with the statement that one day every knee will bow before Jesus.*

But I can choose to bow for Him already. By following Him and living a life of humility.

I imagine you thinking: how am I supposed to be humble and apply these stories of repentance in my own life?

When Jesus washed His disciples’ feet, He told us to follow His example.* In almost every story I heard in South Africa, repentance and lament went with the washing of feet. People literally followed Jesus’ example.

They bowed down before each other.

Humility is bowing down for Jesus

What if humbling ourselves for each other and bowing down means bowing down for Jesus?

I won’t say you have to ring your neighbour’s door and start washing their feet. Please don’t, you might scare them.

But we live in a divided society where a lot of division has unheard pain as its root.

So many people walk around looking for things to fill the gap that is caused by unhealed pain and trauma. Division is only becoming worse because we look for people who think and live like we do.

What if we as Christians are called to be different?

To create an alternative community?

Where we acknowledge our part in the pain someone is walking around with. Even if that’s not directly caused by us, but maybe by the people we represent.

What if we, though we are not the one to blame, take responsibility for it anyway?

To be a place where the other person can heal. And what if that requires us to humble ourselves and let go of what we think is right?

What if we become this place where humility is more important than recognition?

Where listening is more important than being heard and where someone else’s pain might hurt us too, because we care?

Doesn’t that sound familiar?

We will be blessed if we follow Jesus into the mess

To me, that sounds like the way of Jesus. Jesus who washed His disciples’ feet and told us we will be blessed if we do as He did.

Jesus stepped into our mess, and we are called to do the same.

Maybe that doesn’t mean washing someone’s feet or repenting for structural violence. Maybe it means looking into the eyes of that homeless person, the one you pass by every day. Maybe it means telling him ‘’I’m sorry, for all the people who don’t stop and say hello.’’

Maybe it means calling your brother who hurt you, listening to his story, even though your perspective is totally different. Or maybe it means listening to the story of that refugee living next door, even though the trauma she went through is not easy to hear.  

Why?

Because laying our lives down like Jesus did, having the same mindset as He did might answer His prayer in John 17.

Then the world will know that you have sent Me and have loved them as you have loved Me.

Until next time,

Remain blessed,

Thirza

Theophilus Newsletter

*Philippians 2:10

*John 13:5-17