September 28

The Son of man came not to he ministered unto but to minister. - Matthew 20:28.

THERE are persons who will often dispense with the attendance of others on themselves, who are not willing themselves to attend upon others, and especially those who are below them; but what do we see yonder? “Jesus rises from supper and lays aside his garments, and takes a towel and girds himself. After that he pours water into a basin and begins to wash the disciples’ feet, and to wipe them with the towel wherewith he was girded; and he said, Know you, my disciples, what I have done? Ye call me Master and Lord, and ye say well, for so I am. If I, then, your Lord and Master, have washed your feet, ye ought also to wash one another’s feet.” Not as to the action, but the principle of the action; this we are to seek after. Jesus came to minister.

He may be considered a servant: “Behold my servant,” says God, “my righteous servant. “He took upon him the form of a servant.” He was emphatically “the servant of all;” and there never was a servant yet in the world that was so attentive to the calls of his office. Here a centurion has a servant sick of the palsy; the word is a slave. He addresses him on his behalf; immediately he says, “I will come and heal him. Behold the Lord of lords and the King of kings, proceeding at a moment’s notice, and passing through the mansion to a hinder apartment and standing by the pallet of a poor diseased slave. The Son of man came “to minister.”

There is a large class of mankind who are trampled upon or overlooked by those around them; they are the poor. He at once enriched their minds and fed their bodies; “he had compassion on the multitude because they had nothing to eat,” and “he taught them many things,” and “the poor had the gospel preached unto them.” Here is a poor woman following a funeral; it was her own and her only son, and she too was a widow. Already she had entombed her husband, whose grave was now to be re-opened, to awaken all her tears and to receive the remains of one who was her last prop struck from under her. Our Saviour saw her, and had compassion on her, and said unto her, “Weep not.” And he said, “Young man, I say unto thee arise; and he that was dead sat up, and began to speak. And”-O what a present!-“he delivered him up to his mother.” The Son of man came to minister to the relief of a guilty mind.

We talk of anguish; can anything heal the pangs of a distressed and wounded conscience? Here is a woman taken in adultery. By the law of Moses she was condemned to be stoned; she is mercilessly dealt with, and at length turned over to the Saviour by a company of wretches, every one of whom was guilty of the very same crime, though they had as yet escaped detection. And he turned to the woman; instead of condemning her, he said, “Go, and sin no more.” On another occasion he dined in the house of a Pharisee. While he was there, a woman in the city that was a sinner, knowing that Jesus was there, came, and, ashamed and afraid to look him in the face, got behind him, and stood at his feet weeping, and “began to wash his feet with her tears and to wipe them with the hair of her head, and kissed his feet and anointed them with ointment.” What said our Saviour to her? “Thy sins are forgiven thee.” The Pharisee murmured. Never mind, said he: “Woman, I say unto thee, thy faith hath saved thee; go in peace.” “The Son of man came not to be ministered unto but to minister.”