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Welcome back to "Praying the Names of Jesus." If you missed the explanation for the name of
Jesus we're studying this week, click here or scroll down to Monday's entry.

One of the most winsome promises Jesus made to his followers was the promise of rest. But when was the last time you felt rested? Like the people Jesus was addressing, we often feel burdened by "laws" we have difficulty keeping. In our case, it may not be laws made by religious leaders but by our culture or by our families. Our children must be perfect, our bodies shapely, our careers impressive. The list of standards that we consciously or unconsciously adopt can be endless.

Of course we can also get bogged down in legalistic forms of religion that produce weariness rather than peace and joy. This is why some of us feel so fatigued despite Jesus' promise that his burden is light. Part of the secret of receiving the rest Jesus speaks of is to be sure that we are wearing the right "yoke." A yoke is an instrument used to harness two animals together so that they can combine their strength to carry a load. Jesus tells us his burden is light not because it is easy but because he is on the other side of the yoke, helping us to serve with his strength. Ask Jesus today to free you, his servant, from burdens he does not want you to carry. Tell him you want to rest in his promises and trust in his strength.

Promises in Scripture

The Lord redeems his servants; no one will be condemned who takes refuge in him. (Psalm 34:22)

Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light. (Matthew 11:28-30)

Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, as clear as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb down the middle of the great street of the city. On each side of the river stood the tree of life, bearing twelve crops of fruit, yielding its fruit every month. And the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations. No longer will there be any curse. The throne of God and of the Lamb will be in the city, and his servants will serve him. They will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads. There will be no more night. They will not need the light of a lamp or the light of the sun, for the Lord God will give them light. And they will reign for ever and ever. (Revelation 22:1-5)

--Ann Spangler

Adapted from "Praying the Names of Jesus" by Ann Spangler, with permission. Each day for five weeks, learn to better understand the nature and character of Jesus through his many names. Did you miss any entries? Stay subscribed to this feed and you'll receive the entries you missed once the feed restarts.

Welcome back to "Praying the Names of Jesus." If you missed the explanation for the name of
Jesus we're studying this week, click here or scroll down to Monday's entry.

When he had finished washing their feet, he put on his clothes and returned to his place. "Do you understand what I have done for you?" he asked them. "You call me 'Teacher' and 'Lord,' and rightly so, for that is what I am. Now that I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also should wash one another's feet. I have set you an example that you should do as I have done for you. I tell you the truth, no servant is greater than his master, nor is a messenger greater than the one who sent him. Now that you know these things, you will be blessed if you do them." (John 13:12-17)

Reflect On: John 13:12-17. Praise God: For sending his Son to show us how to live. Offer Thanks: For the humble, practical ways others have served you. Confess: Your sorrow at the opportunities you have missed to serve others. Ask God: To give you the heart of a servant.

Do you ever question your purpose in life? As a zealous young Christian I used to wonder what I could do to make the most impact. What single thing, what career or ministry, would enable me to make the greatest contribution to the kingdom of God? That question, full of youthful ambition, recycled itself in my mind off and on for many years. Finally an answer occurred to me that took me completely by surprise. It was simple, unspectacular, but true. It didn't involve giving up all my worldly possessions. Nor did it mean moving to the inner city to help the poor, good as that might be. In fact, it required no drastic change in terms of what I was already doing.

I began to realize that the secret to fulfilling God's purpose for my life resided not so much in what I did as in how I did it. It didn't matter whether God gave me a large role or a tiny one; I could still have impact if I could learn to do one thing - to love people in whatever circumstance I found myself. Why? Because love lasts. Because love never fails. Because love does not envy, and it never boasts. It is neither proud nor rude. Love is easily angered, and it keeps no record of wrongs. Love always protects, always trusts, always hopes. Love never gives up. God is love. Love, in fact, is the hardest, most powerful thing in the world. Whether driving a child to school, leading a church, cleaning a bathroom, heading up a multinational corporation, or washing feet, love is the secret to making a lasting impact.

To be truthful, I would have found it easier to move to a Third World country to live among the poor than to try and make God's love present within my family, my neighborhood, and my church. Even now, after years of knowing the Lord, I am aware of the meagerness of my efforts, of how tainted they are by selfishness. Speaking of how difficult it can be at times to love others, Mother Teresa once remarked, "I have found the paradox that if I love until it hurts, then there is no hurt but only more love." This remarkable woman knew the power of loving in simple practical ways:

Some of my sisters work in Australia. On a reservation, among the Aborigines, there was an elderly man. I can assure you that you have never seen a situation as difficult as that poor old man's. He was completely ignored by everyone. His home was disordered and dirty.

I told him, "Please, let me clean your house, wash your clothes, and make your bed." He answered, "I'm okay like this. Let it be."

I said again, "You will be still better if you allow me to do it."

He finally agreed. So I was able to clean his house and wash his clothes. I discovered a beautiful lamp, covered with dust. Only God knows how many years had passed since he last lit it.

I said to him, "Don't you light your lamp? Don't you ever use it?"

He answered, "No. No one comes to see me. I have no need to light it. Who would I light it for?"

I asked, "Would you light it every night if the sisters came?"

He replied, "Of course."

From that day on the sisters committed themselves to visiting him every evening. We cleaned the lamp, and the sisters would light it every evening.

Two years passed. I had completely forgotten that man. He sent this message: "Tell my friend that the light she lit in my life continues to shine still."

I thought it was a very small thing. We often neglect small things.

Ask for the grace today to be mindful of the things that seem too small to capture your attention. Ask God to help you slow down and recognize the opportunities he is giving you right now to make a lasting impact in this world through the power of his love.

--Ann Spangler

Adapted from "Praying the Names of Jesus" by Ann Spangler, with permission. Each day for five weeks, learn to better understand the nature and character of Jesus through his many names. Did you miss any entries? Stay subscribed to this feed and you'll receive the entries you missed once the feed restarts.

Welcome back to "Praying the Names of Jesus." If you missed the explanation for the name of
Jesus we're studying this week, click here or scroll down to Monday's entry.

Now before the festival of the Passover, Jesus knew that his hour had come to depart from this world and go to the Father. Having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end...During supper Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands, and that he had come from God and was going to God, got up from the table, took off his outer robe, and tied a towel around himself. Then he poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples' feet and to wipe them with the towel that was tied around him. (John 13:1-5, NRSV)

Reflect On: John 13:1-5. Praise God: For loving us to the end through his Son, Jesus Christ. Offer Thanks: Because Jesus has cleansed you from the defiling power of sin. Confess: Your unworthiness. Ask God: To help you receive the gift of salvation with gladness.

Imagine that you are living in first-century Palestine. Though you are in the prime of life, you know that you will die within the next twenty-four hours. In fact, you have known this for some time. Despite your efforts to prepare your friends, they seem thickheaded, unable to grasp the situation. You know that your death will shatter them. They will flee from shadows that will overtake you, terrified lest they also be overtaken. In the hours and days that follow, each will be tempted to despair, thinking that your promises were nothing more than well-intentioned dreams.

Now, before it happens, you long to comfort them, assuring them that everything will be all right, but they aren't listening. Instead they are distracted by trivialities, arguing which of them is greatest. And they are doing this in the middle of the Passover feast, the last meal you will share with them prior to your death.

Something else is in your mind too, a kind of confidence that seems strange in light of your knowledge of coming events. You know both who you are and where you are going. You also know you are precisely where you should be in God's timetable. You are determined to move forward, knowing that nothing can happen without your consent. But before you walk headlong into darkness, you decide to make one more attempt to communicate with your slow-witted disciples. You choose to do this not with words they are too deaf to hear but by acting out a parable. So you get up from the table and remove your outer clothing. Wrapping a towel around your waist, you pour water into a basin. Then you stoop down and start wiping the grime from your friends' feet. It's what a slave would do. By now the bickering has stopped. Each man looks at you with bewildered eyes. You are certain that each of your friends will remember this moment for the rest of their lives.

John's Gospel tells us not only that Jesus loved his disciples but that he loved them to the end. What he did for them the night before his death illustrates the extent of his love. But the meaning of that acted-out parable eluded them at first. Later, in excited conversations, they would have begun to understand what Jesus was trying to tell them.

The night before he died, Jesus removed his outer garments. Wasn't he showing them a picture of what was about to happen, when the next day he would be stripped of his clothing before being nailed to a cross? And what about the water he had poured into the basin in order to cleanse them? Hadn't he also poured out his blood for them on the cross? Surely Jesus had acted the part of a slave by washing their feet. Wasn't he also executed as a slave? Crucifixion, they knew, was a punishment so cruel it was reserved for subjugated peoples and slaves. In the midst of his disciples' reflections, one of them would have recalled Jesus' words shortly before the Passover feast: "I lay down my life for the sheep...No one takes it from me but I lay it down of my own accord" (John 10:15, 18).

Jesus gave his life - not grudgingly, but gladly. He stripped himself of power so that a deeper power could be at work reversing the deadly effects of our sin. Today, when you think of Jesus as the Suffering Servant, think not so much of what you have done to cause his suffering but of what he has done to cause you joy. Dwell not on your own unworthiness but on his worthiness. Think about his willing sacrifice, his determination, and his love. Just as Jesus loved his disciples to the end, he will love you to the end. Praise him for saving you and changing you through his great, long-suffering love.

--Ann Spangler

Adapted from "Praying the Names of Jesus" by Ann Spangler, with permission. Each day for five weeks, learn to better understand the nature and character of Jesus through his many names. Did you miss any entries? Stay subscribed to this feed and you'll receive the entries you missed once the feed restarts.

Welcome back to "Praying the Names of Jesus." If you missed the explanation for the name of
Jesus we're studying this week, click here or scroll down to Monday's entry.

See, my servant will prosper; he will be highly exalted...

My servant grew up in the Lord's presence like a tender green shoot, sprouting from a root in dry and sterile ground. There was nothing beautiful or majestic about his appearance, nothing to attract us to him. He was despised and rejected - a man of sorrows, acquainted with bitterest grief. We turned our backs on him and looked the other way when he went by. He was despised, and we did not care.

Yet it was our weaknesses he carried; it was our sorrows that weighed him down. And we thought his troubles were a punishment from God for his own sins! But he was wounded and crushed for our sins. He was beaten that we might have peace. He was whipped, and we were healed! (Isaiah 52:13; 53:2-5, NLT)

Reflect On: Isaiah 52:13 - 53:12. Praise God: For raising up his Son, Jesus. Offer Thanks: For Christ's long-suffering love. Confess: Any pride that keeps you from receiving the forgiveness Jesus offers. Ask God: To help you look into the face of Christ on the cross.

I will never forget the profound silence that characterized the crowd as we streamed out of the theater after viewing The Passion of the Christ. For 126 minutes we had been painfully transfixed by Mel Gibson's graphic depiction of the last twelve hours of the life of Christ. It left us speechless. What words could we summon to defend ourselves? How could we explain the mitigating circumstances that made us not responsible for everything that had happened to Jesus? Words do not exist for such a task, and so we shuffled out in grim silence. It felt as though the wretchedness of the whole human race had been glaringly exposed. Our condition was far worse than I had imagined. How else to explain the magnitude of God's suffering?

John Calvin believed that human beings cannot attain true self-knowledge without first contemplating the face of God. He compared our distorted self-perception to an eye that has only been exposed to the color black. When that eye is exposed to a lighter color, even something with a brownish hue, it may mistake it for white because it doesn't have a clue about what white looks like. In other words, we are misshapen human beings surrounded by other misshapen human beings. Some of us may look good compared to others but we are still deeply flawed compared to God and to the kind of person he means us to become.

Jack Roeda, a pastor and professor of preaching at Calvin Theological Seminary, comments on John's Gospel, saying:

John wants us to look on the face of Jesus until the conviction becomes rooted in our hearts that we are looking into the human face of the living God. Perhaps this face of God comes most into focus when it wears the crown of thorns. As Nicholas Wolterstorff writes, "It is said of God that no one can behold his face and live. I always thought this meant that no one can see his splendor and live. A friend said perhaps it meant that no one could see his sorrow and live. Or perhaps his sorrow is his splendor."

I think Wolterstorff is right. God's sorrow is his splendor. His goodness, standing as it does in contrast to our sinfulness, enables him to see with absolute clarity how far human beings have fallen. His sorrow is a gauge of his love, because it expresses what he was willing to endure, in the person of his Son, in order to heal our wretchedness. Jesus, the Man of Sorrows, reveals the splendor of God's face to us.

Dorothy Ranaghan writes about the difficulty of facing God when we know we have done wrong:

Averting the eyes because I am not worthy to look upon the face of God and live is one kind of response. But to run away internally or, worse, to cease praying for a period of time because I only want to see the Lord smiling at me is self-centered. The only corrective is to look upon the bloody, agonized face of Christ crucified and accept in those eyes of pain neither disgust nor approval, but only salvation and love beyond comprehension.

Jesus came to show us God's face. At times it is a face consumed by sorrow. Pray today for the grace to gaze on Jesus, seeing not only what he has suffered but why. Then praise him for his salvation and his love beyond comprehension.

--Ann Spangler

Adapted from "Praying the Names of Jesus" by Ann Spangler, with permission. Each day for five weeks, learn to better understand the nature and character of Jesus through his many names. Did you miss any entries? Stay subscribed to this feed and you'll receive the entries you missed once the feed restarts.

Welcome to "Praying the Names of Jesus," by Ann Spangler. This week's name: Servant, Servant of God, Man of Sorrows.
--
See, my servant will prosper; he will be highly exalted....

My servant grew up in the Lord's presence like a tender green shoot, sprouting from a root in dry and sterile ground. There was nothing beautiful or majestic about his appearance, nothing to attract us to him. He was despised and rejected - a man of sorrows, acquainted with bitterest grief. We turned our backs on him and looked the other way when he went by. He was despised, and we did not care.

Yet it was our weaknesses he carried; it was our sorrows that weighed him down. And we thought his troubles were a punishment from God for his own sins! But he was wounded and crushed for our sins. He was beaten that we might have peace. He was whipped, and we were healed! (Isaiah 52:13; 53:2-5, NLT)

Whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be your slave - just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many. (Matthew 20:26-28)

Prayer
Lord, I was like a bruised reed you would not break, a smoldering wick you would not put out. Instead you allowed yourself to be pierced for my transgressions, crushed for my iniquities. You were despised and rejected, a man of sorrows and familiar with suffering. The punishment that brought me peace was placed on you. My Lord and my God, I worship you.

Understanding the Name
After God led the Israelites out of their slavery in Egypt, he did not treat them as slaves but as his own people, his sons and daughters. Though slavery was practiced in Israel, the Law forbade the forcible enslavement of freeborn individuals. To kidnap or sell such a person was to incur the death penalty. However, people could sell themselves in order to pay off their debts. Even so, Hebrew slaves were to be released after a certain number of years because no child of God was meant to live in perpetual bondage.

Though the Israelites were not considered God's slaves, they were considered his servants, freely putting his interests before their own, confident of his care and protection. To be God's servant involved living with an attitude of dependence and obedience. Scripture speaks of Moses, Joshua, Hannah, David, Isaiah, Mary the mother of Jesus, and many others as God's servants because they lived a life of faithful obedience.

The Servant Songs in Isaiah (42:1-4; 49:1-7; 50:4-9; 52:13-53:12) all speak of a mysterious Servant who would bring justice to the nations. Through his suffering this Man of Sorrows (ISH makuh-BOTH) would redeem many. The Jews may have understood this as a reference to Israel while early Christians understood these passages as messianic prophecies pointing to the suffering, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. By becoming one of us, Jesus suffered both with and for us. He was the Servant (E-bed) par excellence, the Servant of God (PAIS tou the-OU), who not only obeyed God but obeyed to the point of death.

As his people, we are to follow his example, remembering his words that "the greatest among you will be your servant." Jesus' words make particular sense in light of the fact that in ancient times, a servant's status was directly related to the status of his master. To be a servant of the King of kings, then, is the greatest of privileges. It is no surprise to discover that the word "minister," derived from a Latin word, and the word "deacon," derived from a Greek word, both mean "servant."

Studying the Name

1. How does the passage from Isaiah fit or fail to fit with your image of Jesus?
2. When you think of Jesus' suffering, how does it make you feel about him, about yourself, about others?
3. Describe an experience in which someone served you? How did it affect you?
4. Describe experiences in which you have been able to serve someone else with the love of Christ.

Adapted from "Praying the Names of Jesus" by Ann Spangler, with permission. Each day for five weeks, learn to better understand the nature and character of Jesus through his many names. Did you miss any entries? Stay subscribed to this feed and you'll receive the entries you missed once the feed restarts.

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