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At the beginning of His great final message and prayer with His 12 closest students (John 13-17; Luke 22:7-38), Yeshua was not calling them to be servants but friends. Servants and masters do not love each other but friends do. Our lives are more temporary than we think. Our lives can be very short or very long. We can make our lives long in the short time we have when we put our lives in God’s hands. God is taking us over the horizon, beyond what we can see. We have to have faith to walk with God when we can’t see where he is taking us.
John 13:1-20 is a heavy passage, especially John 13:1, which says of Yeshua (Jesus), “…He loved them to the end.” There are a couple of Greek words we will look at more closely.
- loved = ἀγαπάω agapaō (Strong’s lexicon No. G25), “to have a warm regard for and interest in another, cherish, have affection for, love.” This is often called charitable or unselfish love.
- end = τέλος telos (G5056), end, conclusion, close, goal. This is the same Greek word used in “Christ is the end of the law” (Rom. 10:4), i.e., “Christ is the goal of the law,” as the New American Standard Bible notes in the margin.
He loved His disciples so they would fulfill His purpose for them. We have this “squishy” view of love. Greek has several different words for love. The love Yeshua is expressing here is not a brotherly love or camaraderie but an unselfish, sacrificial love. This is love between members of a close-knit family.
The “goal” Yeshua was seeking was an unfettered connection between mankind and God. You see this in Yeshua’s conversations with Judas Iscariot and Simon Peter. Something good to note is in John 13:3:
“Yeshua, knowing that the Father had given all things into His hands, and that He had come forth from God and was going back to God.”
We are not to be obsessed with our role or station in life. We are not to argue or concern ourselves with who is “greater.” Yeshua was not concerned about appearances and protocol, because He knew what His position was as the Mashiakh Messiah). Those who would understand, did also.
Apostle Paul in Philippians 2 reflected on Yeshua’s role in much the same way Yeshua prayed at Pesakh (Passover) for people in God’s kingdom to get past their pretenses, to “get over themselves” and the things that held them back from each other. He didn’t want them to be distracted by ways not by God’s instruction. How fantastic we think we are gets old pretty quickly.
One thing that goes in the opposite is the role that we have in the “greater scheme of things.” God can take what is deteriorates and make it into something that will never deteriorate. The things that God creates work in opposition to the forces of chaos and destruction. One day we will be in the Kingdom that lasts forever.
‘he … lifted up his heel against me’
“He who eats my bread has lifted up his heel against me” (John 13:18) is a quotation from Psalm 41:9. When we see these “one liners” from the Tanak in the New Testament, go back and read the verse and its context to see the bigger picture. The significance will open to you. Psalm 49 is an example of this. The entire Psalm is about Yeshua and Yeshua is referring to the entire psalm even though he is only quoting one verse of the psalm.
King David experience this betrayal from Saul to Absalom, in his younger years but also in his later years. David is a type of Mashiakh and “a man after God’s own heart,” so we are not surprised that David and Yeshua had much in common. Even in the face of all that betrayal, both David and Yeshua reached out to their betrayers.
Yeshua quoted from Psa. 41:9: “Even my close friend in whom I trusted, who ate my bread, has lifted up his heel against me.” As we have seen before, when Yeshua or His apostles quote from the TaNaKh (Hebrew Scriptures aka “Old Testament”), the larger context of the quote is key to the reason for using it, and it would have been known to the learned members of Yeshua’s audience. The first verse of Psalm 41 is key:
“How blessed is he who considers the helpless; The LORD will deliver him in a day of trouble.” (Psa. 41:1)
The Hebrew word for poor means helpless or poor: דַּל dal (H1800b), low, weak, poor, thin. from the root verb דָּלַל dalal (H1809), to hang, be low, languish
Yeshua sought out as students and citizens for the Kingdom of God those who were “poor in spirit” (Matt. 5:3), i.e. humble. Yeshua is looking forward to a future Passover, when God has completed all things.
Yeshua was not calling them to be servants but friends. Servants and masters do not love each other but friends do. Our lives are more temporary than we think. Our lives can be very short or very long. We can make our lives long in the short time we have when we put our lives in God’s hands. God is taking us over the horizon, beyond what we can see. We have to have faith to walk with God when we can’t see where he is taking us.
We are to go beyond the surface of the Torah and go deeper to learn about the heart of God. For example, when Yeshua said to drink His blood and eat His body, He was trying to get the people to think deeper but most of the people didn’t want to go there and left Him instead.
Speaker: Jeff. Summary: Jeff and Tammy.
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