Mosaiek Church Lent 2025: Jesus' Questions in Sufferingنموونە

“Who would you rather be: the one who eats the dinner or the one who serves the dinner? You’d rather eat and be served, right? But I’ve taken my place among you as the one who serves. And you’ve stuck with me through thick and thin

-Luke 22:27-28 (MSG)

We all look at someone. It shapes us. We can say that we are conditioned by that which we look at. What we think of ourselves, of life, of God, all of this depends on what we are exposed to and what we look at. And Christ makes his disciples aware that they are also looking at certain people. This is the culture and the time in which they live. There are people who want to enter positions of authority, for whom it is very important what other people think of them because then they can exercise power and live with the admiration of other people. By living in this way, they can then think and feel that they are really important, too. And He tells the disciples, that is exactly what you are doing now. You are arguing among yourselves, you are comparing yourselves with one another (Paul says this is foolish 1 Cor 10:12b). There is this need and desire in all of us to think and feel that we are important and admired. Christ is not against the fact that we have this deep desire to be important within us, but rather about how we think and what we do to fulfill it. We can get it from the Father, like Jesus, and then it does not matter what position we hold or what work we do. Jesus knew who He was, so He could do the work of a slave. His work did not make Him important, but He made His work important. John says that because He knew that the Father had given all things into His hands, that He came from the Father and was returning to Him, He rose on this occasion and began to wash the feet of His disciples (John 13:3,4).

Reflection: Who is the leader or great figure in your imagination that inspires you about life and how to get there? How do you think your imagination could be captured and the desire within you to choose the path downward, be grown?

Prayer: I ask for the grace of deep insight and conviction that my obsession with self is robbing me of life.