'It's like this'

John 13 demonstrates the absolute necessity of the New Covenant ministry for the disciples. Verses 6-10 reads, [6] Then cometh he to Simon Peter: and Peter saith unto him, Lord, dost thou wash my feet?
[7] Jesus answered and said unto him, What I do thou knowest not now; but thou shalt know hereafter.
[8] Peter saith unto him, Thou shalt never wash my feet. Jesus answered him, If I wash thee not, thou hast no part with me.
[9] Simon Peter saith unto him, Lord, not my feet only, but also my hands and my head.
[10] Jesus saith to him, He that is washed needeth not save to wash his feet, but is clean every whit: and ye are clean, but not all.”

Jordan explains, “When Christ says, ‘If I wash you,’ He’s not saying, ‘You got to go do it yourself, Pete.’ He’s saying Jesus is going to provide; they can’t do it for themselves, but if they’re going to have a part and participate with Him and be used by Him to accomplish His will, be who He chose them to be, then He has to be the one who provides for them and He will and He does.

“Now Pete may have been dull of mind but he had a warm heart. He did have that ability to be of two extremes. You know when I read that verse, I just thank God He knows how to deal with Pete because I tend to be like Peter every now and then and I tend to deal with people like Pete.

“By the way, when Pete says ‘not only my feet but my head and my hands also,’ and then Jesus says, ‘If you’ve been washed all over you don’t need anything but your feet washed,’ in the Old Testament the priest, when he was ordained of the ministry, was washed all over. In Exodus 29 he’s cleansed all over. Then in Exodus 30 then they washed his ears, hands and feet.

“Then later on, the priest on a daily basis, when he goes into the tabernacle, there’s that laver out front and with that he washes his hands and feet. His walk and his work had to be cleaned and cleansed every day under the old covenant. You say, ‘Why did Jesus leave Peter’s hands out?’ Well in the New Covenant the Spirit of God is going to come in and cause them to walk in His statutes, and if He causes their walk to be righteous, then what’s the work going to be? It’s going to be right too.

“All of this is an object lesson demonstrating the need and the necessity for the New Testament ministry of the Holy Spirit in their lives and Christ’s love for them to humble Himself to provide that.”

*****

Jordan says, “This is an example of the wonderful uniqueness of your Savior. You don’t have God giving you a bunch of commandments and God telling you to do a bunch of stuff and you can’t figure out how to do it. I mean all He’s got to do is give you commandments and you’re never going to figure out how to do it.

"When I think about that I always think of Aaron’s two sons Nadab and Abihu. He had four boys. Moses said, ‘All right, Aaron, you’re going to be the chief priest and your boys are gonna be the priests and run the tabernacle. The top guys.

" ‘Now here’s the rules. You go to do this, this, this and this and one thing you can’t do--the fire that’s going to be on the altar has to be fire that’s lit by God Himself. You can’t do it.’

“So they go out there on the very first day and Leviticus says ‘they brought strange fire.’ They said, ‘Well we need a fire here. Let’s get out the Bic lighter and put the little coal burner and get their fire lit and you know what God did? He killed them right on the spot. Deader than door nails. I don’t know about you, but if I’d have been there, I would have been a little reluctant to send my next two boys into the fray: ‘Only got four. Two of them are gone.’

“Have you ever read that stuff back there in Leviticus; I mean really read it? One time I asked Bill Cash, a master carpenter with 50 years of work, to take the passages in the Book of Exodus where Moses talks about building a tabernacle and then draw what those things would look like. God said, ‘Here make it like it like this and do it exactly like this.’

“Bill came back to me several months later and said, ‘You know I can’t do this. I said, ‘Why not?’ He said, ‘Well, it says do this and do that and I’m not sure what this is. I‘m not sure what it looks like. I’m not sure what it’s supposed to be.’ And I said, ‘Let’s go look up some of these words,’ and you know what? You couldn’t figure it out from the Scriptures. And I’m thinking, ‘Now, wait a minute. I got do this and I got to do it exactly right or God’s going to kill my kids or me and I can’t even figure out exactly what it is!’

“Now, how confident would you be doing that? Well I’m thinking I’d be looking for a little less prominent job in the tabernacle myself. I look at that and I see the possibility of perfection is that issue back there and you say, ‘How would God live in human flesh?’ Well He would do it perfectly, but if you want to see it, the place you look is at Jesus Christ. That’s the wonderful thing about Him.”

(Editor’s note: Will write again Friday—heading home after work tomorrow to see my mom, brother and our family’s Chocolate Lab Murray—I’m his sister)