He Knows Where You’ve Been: Jesus Can Relate
Now before the Feast of the Passover, when Jesus knew that his hour had come to depart out of this world to the Father, having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end.
Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands, and that he had come from God and was going back to God, rose from supper. He laid aside his outer garments, and taking a towel, tied it around his waist. Then he poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples’ feet and to wipe them with the towel that was wrapped around him.
You have to consider the events of Christmas when you consider the events of Easter. Jesus became a man and lived among people to live the human life. He struggled the way humans struggle and He overcame temptation by His devotion to the Father. The conclusion of His perfect life wasn’t a Nobel Prize or a statue set up somewhere and a happy speech, but a dinner, washing of His friends’ feet, desperate prayer in a lonely garden, and death by disgrace.
Jesus’ power in our lives is amplified when we see the sympathy with which He rules as the Lord Almighty. When we come to Him with our pride and arrogance and confess our sin to Him, He remembers that night He had a chance to have the disciples serve Him at dinner. Instead of giving into the pride temptation, He got up, clothed Himself like a servant, and served them.
When we come to Him and confess that we don’t want to stick to what He’s called us to, or when we confess that we don’t want to keep an oath, He forgives because He died for our sins. He listens and understands how we feel because He was once in a garden begging God the Father to come up with another path that didn’t involve death on the cross.
He forgives our sins because of His own sacrifice, but we have confidence that He understands our struggle because He lived it. That is the reason why we celebrate Christmas — that is why we sing of miracles and angels and joy. The God who came to forgive is also the God who came to show us that He understands. He knows and He has felt every one of sins we could confess to Him.
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