Pastor Sara Hubble has written this week’s letter. We hope you are blessed by her thoughts this week.

It was just before the Passover Festival. Jesus knew that the hour had come for him to leave this world and go to the Father. Having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end. – John 13: 1 (NIV)

The power of love is greater than the love of power.

John 13 reveals that Jesus understood that he had absolute power; he also knew what he was facing as the time neared for his arrest and crucifixion. A few hours prior to encountering and carrying the full weight of the world’s brokenness, Jesus Christ, the Son of God could have done anything.

So, what did he do?

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: 4-5 (NIV)

The power of love is greater than the love of power.

Friends, we live in a time where many confuse this, sometimes believing as Voldemort, the villain in Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, that “there is no good and evil, there is only power and those too weak to seek it.”

Jesus Christ, fully God and fully human, present at creation, and the author and finisher of our faith (Hebrews 12:2) rejects the way of the world (and Voldemort) and instead embodies the deep and lasting truth that the power of God’s love and goodness is triumphant. 

Facing his darkest hour, Jesus postures himself as a servant and washes the feet of his disciples. Then he invites them into a shared life of loving service,

Now that I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you should also wash one another’s feet. I have set you an example that you should do as I have done for you… Now that you know these things, you will be blessed if you do them – John 13: 14-15, 17

We are invited into that life as well! May we realize, by surrendering our tendency to serve ourselves and our own interests, and instead embracing the opportunity to serve God and neighbor, that

The power of love is greater than the love of power.

I can hardly wait until Sunday when we gather in worship to proclaim the full power of God’s love!

Grace and Peace,

Sara