Thirteen and Its Place

[HKHaugan]

“The evening meal was being served…”

So we come to the second contextual consideration, place. Consciousness of time brings with it a consciousness of place. Jesus had called the disciples together in the context of a meal, the Passover meal (Lk.22:8-20). This is also a connection place; the interception of the vertical in the horizontal. They are together in a time and place sharing a meal which will be the pattern for the later spiritual meal remembrance of His death and Resurrection until He comes again (1 Cor.11:23-26). He will be present in the Spirit whenever they repeat His Supper.

Jesus provides a ‘place’ event so that it is not defined by the world in any way. The ‘place’ Jesus chooses is always a happening, an occasion, a gathering in faith. Jesus came to build not an institution but a “Body.” Jesus initiated a movement not an organization. In substance Jesus is the movement. Place is not dictated by buildings but by hearts faithfully responding to God’s call to be the Body of His Son in worship. It is a relational experience between Him and His people. It can be undertaken in a living room, a motel conference room, an outdoor setting, any physical place His people are led to assemble. This is the implication of this passage since no specific facility is mentioned. And if we carry this implication to its logical conclusion, being disciples of Jesus does not bind you to an inorganic and lifeless institution ruled by man but to a living organism, which is the Body of Christ wherever it is led to meet. In John 14:2 Jesus says He is going to prepare a place for us so that He can come back and take us to be where He is. He does not mean a man made facility but a spiritual home. And that home is not just in the ‘sky by and by’ but in His Kingdom which is, as Paul says in Romans 10:8-9, when we say Jesus is Lord and believe in our hearts He is risen from the dead. As Jesus said in Luke 17:21 ’…the Kingdom of God is within you.’

Being an organism and alive does not infer that in this world we need no structure. God is a God of order and discipline. When we assemble He has given us instructions in His Word about how we are to worship. His Word is our binding mechanism. The main thing about having any visible form is that it arises as a result of Him leading the organism to bring it into being. Physical facilities and worship structures follow from what He has led them to be. Confirmation is always found as the Word of God shapes the Body’s heart. If the real ‘place’ is an event, as the Bible seems to show, then its location is first in the heart and secondly in a physical setting. The very fact that Jesus does not specify the name or the location of the Passover meal indicates that as long as He is in the center everything else works itself out. Jesus makes this quite clear when He says because God is Spirit we are to worship in Spirit and in truth for that is what the Father wants (John 4:24).

Over the course of the last two millennia man has allowed his institutional forms to dominate. The balance between man’s institutional reliance and God’s heart restoration plan has been upset. It maintains its proper balance only if the Word is given its full authority in the guidance of the Spirit, Jesus being the model. What man has done is to play out his need for power apart from God. Many mainline denominations have become little more than institutional monarchies dominated by four factors: titles, power, money and land. Believers have become more like subjects than family, servants of leaders rather than disciples of Jesus, building maintainers than heart ministers. Leaders have become adept at using the right language to shade their lust for power. Many clergy can be heard to call their congregations a flock or the sheep as though they don’t have any spiritual sense or ability. It is condescending to say the least. Their supervisors are no better. They rule rather than serve. They use church laws made by man as their club of authority. They intimidate rather than lead. They conduct worship as illustrious potentates rather than allow the Spirit to guide.

The condition of the institution in Jesus’ day was no different. This is why the event of the Passover meal held a dramatic departure from what had been taking place in the Temple. The Passover had become more of a traditional business enterprise than a spiritual reminder of the presence of a Holy God. It was no longer a spiritual event but a social and economic power display. The institution had grown apart from God and become a human Babel-like tower of man’s self-worship and importance. It had become a religion instead of a relationship. Today’s institutional churches carry the same dynamics. Political intrigue, success orientation, cultural compromise, forming alliances with pagan systems and governments, managing huge budgets and property holdings are just a few symptoms of the high maintenance religious corporations that have bred distrust and alienated the human heart from its Maker.

There is a desperate need for a reformation in the true Reformation sense. The rise of the independent so-called non-denominational church that tries to regain the sense of an ‘event’ taking place is on that track.

But let’s go back to the Passover meal and its dramatic content. Jesus not only brings the idea of a God-event taking place but He conducts it in an extraordinary way. First, He is the center. All eyes are on Him. He does not enter in the jeweled vestments of a high priest or into the grandeur of man-made architecture. Second, He chooses a non-descript room in a non-descript unnamed place, emphasizing what is taking place, not their surroundings. This is an event unfolding. Third, and most dramatically in contrast to institutional worship, He takes off His outer clothing and wraps a towel around His waist. In essence He is demonstrating something radically new. He is demonstrating the nature and love of God. He now ‘showed them the full extent of His love (13:2).’ It is His version of “What you see is what you get.” He is not hiding behind extravagant vestments but becoming a visual picture of a God who is humbling Himself before man in order to gain His heart. He is being a servant, a minister to His people. What a remarkable contrast to the leaders they have traditionally come to expect.

Not only does He come almost naked before them, He washes their feet, something no one in social standing would have ever considered. It is not so much the action of washing the feet, which was astonishing in itself, but it was the obvious spiritual impact of realizing that God was giving the disciples a picture of inner spiritual transformation necessary to be His disciples. The event was the Lord Himself bringing the Spirit to bear on the heart. So ‘place’ is an ‘event’ thus true worship is also an ‘event.’ Jesus is calling us not to the structure of worship in a facility of worship but to a living event wherein He is encountered personally. He is not calling us ‘to go to church’ but rather inviting us to participate in a spiritual event in which He is the host and true leader ready to wash the world’s dirt from the feet of our hearts.