It has always been about you. As billions of people around the world celebrate Passover and Easter this week, I am reminded that this Holiest of Weeks is all about you. Yes, to be sure, the main focus is on Jesus who came to live out his powerful message of love and in these final days to die and then, to rise. Yet everything that Jesus did he did for you. From the beginning of time God had you on his mind.
Think about this. God, who is omniscient, all knowing, knew that Adam and Eve would disobey him and sin and cause the fall of all things. Their sin opened up the door for evil. Yet knowing this, God still decided to create Adam and Eve. Why? Because God desired to love us, to love us more than himself. This selfish act defines God, climaxing in Jesus’ actions during a week like this one.
Today we celebrate Maundy Thursday, which is the day Jesus sat down to eat his last meal with his disciples. He tells his disciples “I have eagerly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer. For I tell you, I will not eat it again until it finds fulfillment in the kingdom of God.” (Luke 22:15-16) This statement captures again the selflessness of Jesus. He eagerly desired to spend as much time with his disciples as possible. In this moment it was not about him; it was about them.
Jesus then does the unthinkable. The Gospel of John records that “The evening meal was in progress. Jesus knew that the Father had put all things under his power, and that he had come from God and was returning to God; so he got up from the meal, took off his outer clothing, and wrapped a towel around his waist. After that, he poured water into a basin and began to wash his disciples’ feet, drying them with the towel that was wrapped around him.” (John 13:1-5)
Notice again that instead of celebrating that his time was up and he would return to the Father, he begins to wash his disciples’ feet. No rabbi, no leader, no person of any significance would ever dare wash someone else’s feet. Yet this was not foreign for Jesus because since the beginning of time, everything God had done had been done for us. God who created us wanted to serve us. And still today, He loves us and wants to serve us.
Tomorrow, on Good Friday, we remember the crucifixion. In Jesus’ greatest moment of pain and agony he utters a few last phrases. And of these phrases the majority is not about him but others. Having been crucified and yet with the power to curse his murderers he says “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing” (Luke 23:34).
In his deep anguish he still has time to listen to the criminal hanging beside him and says to him “I tell you the truth, today you will be with me in paradise" (Luke 23:43).
Seeing his earthly mother Mary and the disciple John, whom he loved, he thinks not of his own death and departure but of his mother’s care. He says “Dear Woman, here is your son!” and to the disciple “Here is your mother!” (John 19:26-27)
Finally as the hour arrived where the human body of Jesus could hold on no longer he cries out in a loud voice saying “Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?” which means, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Matthew 27:46).
God forsakes his own son on the cross in order to receive and accept us. You see, it has never been about God. It has never been about Jesus. It has always been about you. God created the world for us to enjoy. He created us to demonstrate his love for us. He sent his son Jesus to live for us, to serve us and ultimately to die for you and for me.
Whether you celebrate Easter or not, you must admit that there is no other true story like this. No other God like this God. Jesus “who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage; rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death, even death on a cross!” (Philippians 2:6-8)
All of this because it has always been about you and it still is.
Therefore this Easter focus on the selflessness of Jesus by living a servant’s life by doing “nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of others.” (Philippians 2:3-5)
About Rev. Marcos O. Almonte
Rev. Marcos O. Almonte is senior pastor at Brandywine Baptist Church, the oldest Baptist Church west of Philadelphia. Pastor Marcos is a graduate of Palmer Theological Seminary with more than 10 years working with families with an expertise in theology, trauma and addictions. Pastor Marcos and his wife Mary have three children, Carmen, Joseph, and Lincoln.
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