God Descends

God Descends
John 13:1-15
Todd Buegler
January 19, 2006
Christ Chapel – Gustavus Adolphus College


Grace and peace to you from God our Creator, and from Jesus, the Son of God, the Rabbi who serves! Amen.

It is an honor to be here with you today. This campus and this chapel were places that were instrumental in my faith and identity formation. Much of who I am today, I can trace to this campus, and this chapel in particular. My parents were both Gusties. My Grandfather was the salutatorian when he graduated from the then 2-year Gustavus Adolphus College in 1921. I spent countless hours sitting up in that sound booth, running the sound system for worship services and events. I often served as the crucifer here in chapel. I was a part of a campus fellowship group that met every other Tuesday night, here in the chapel. As a senior religion major, my first sermon happened from this pulpit. This chapel holds a special place in my heart, and I can trace the roots of who I am now to this place. God uses places and relationships to form identity. It is good to be back.

If the book of John were a movie, our Gospel today would, I believe, use a kind of “slowed down motion” to capture the texture of the last hours of the life of Jesus. You know the kind I mean: In recent years, altering the speed of a scene has become a favorite technique of movie makers to capture the attention of an audience. Think of the slow action sequences in the “Matrix” movies. Of the four gospel writers, John is the only one that goes deeper into the events that occurred in those moments. He is saying, “Wait just a minute, before we go on, I want you to catch the deeper motives running through the heart of Jesus.

You are familiar with the story of Jesus washing the feet of the disciples. The shock value of someone washing another’s feet often causes us to stop examining the story at that point…as in “wow…washing feet…that’s pretty radical…serving others…pretty radical…we should probably do more of that…” The problem is, the washing of feet in Biblical times was not radical at all. It was a common practice when a guest entered a home, as a sign of welcome, of placing the needs of the guest above those of the host, and of course, to rid the feet of the smell that came from walking in sandals upon dusty roads that people shared with donkeys, other animals, and their droppings.

The radical thing isn’t the washing of feet, it was who was washing feet. Jesus, as a Rabbi, held a place of significance in Jewish culture. Only the best of the best of the best became Rabbis. And their disciples were oathbound to not only serve them completely, but to emulate them; to try to do what the Rabbi did, and to become like the Rabbi was. For the Rabbi to take such action was a shock. So there had to be a specific intent in what Jesus was trying to teach his disciples when they gathered at the table that night, and Jesus took off his robe and bent down to wash their feet.

First, consider this, when you are going to wash someone's feet, what physical movement do you have to make in order to get close to his or her feet? You descend.
The first motion of a servant is descent. Henri Nouwen put it this way in a letter to a relative, "…how is it that love is made visible in Jesus? It is made visible in the descending way. God has descended to us human beings to become a human being with us. And once among us, he descended to the total dereliction of one condemned to death…each one of us has to seek out his or her own descending way of love.”

Jesus chose the upper room, gathered with his disciples turned friends around a table for these climactic acts of his ministry. Again, God uses places and relationships to form identity. And two millennia of Christians have had their identity as children of Grace shaped by that group, in that room. There's a very simple but powerful message in Jesus’ actions. He descends to you. He comes to you to give of himself the ultimate gift of love and grace. God descends to you.

The second motion of the servant is to incarnate. (Ok, it’s not really a verb, but I wasn’t an English major either…) Mother Teresa defines incarnation this way: "God's love is infinite—full of tenderness, full of compassion. God loves the world through us—you and me. The way you touch people, the way you give to people, that love for one another. It is his love in action through us…"

As Jesus descended to wash the disciples feet that night, he wanted them to realize that God's love must be made tangible through acts of compassion and mercy.

I spent 10 days this past October in Biloxi, Mississippi, living with 45 other volunteers on a church floor. We dug the mud, destruction and mold out of homes so they could be salvaged and served up to 350 families a day at an emergency relief distribution center. Eddie was an offshore oilrig worker made homeless by the storm, whose Father had been hospitalized in New Orleans, though Eddie did not know if he was alive or dead, and there was no way to find out. Eddie was passing through one night and saw us sitting outside of the church after a long work day and walked up, wondering if he could sleep outside in a tent we used to store supplies. Eddie stayed and volunteered. When we left, Eddie sobbed…which of course, opened up the floodgates for the rest of us. As he hugged each of us goodbye, one of my teammates, Phil, took off his watch, and discreetly slipped it into Eddie’s hand. You see, the watch that Eddie’s father had given him had been lost in the hurricane. Phil’s act was one of pure love and grace. In that moment, I saw Jesus incarnate in these two men.

Again, from places and relationships, God creates identity. 18 years ago when I preached in this pulpit, I never dreamed I would be who I am today. It was my grandfather, my mother, my father, my wife, my children, my friends, my congregation, Chaplain Elvee, Garrett Paul, Kevin Byrne, Dennis Johnson, Craig Johnson, Eddie, Phil and many others who God used to shape my identity by descending into them and becoming incarnate to me. Thanks be to God for using them in my life. Thanks be to God for places like Gustavus, and all the other places in my life that have been significant. And thanks be to God for calling me to be who I am.
Out of this place and others, out of this community and others, God descends to become incarnate to you. You may not know who God is calling you to be. But trust that your identity is being shaped. Thanks be to the God who descends to you, for calling you to be who you are, and to be God’s love incarnate to others.

Amen.