If it is the Messiah you seek, you’ll find him scrubbing toilets

We have many messiahs in our legends and lore, but no folk singer, historian, or poet ever made a claim about them like the one John makes about Jesus of Nazareth. That “[God] had given all things into his hands, and that he had come from God and was going to God,” (Gospel of John 13:3).

If you believe it, Jesus stands apart from the messiahs of human history as the only Messiah who comes from God and goes to God, who holds all things in his hands.

So what does he choose to do with those hands?

He scrubs toilets.

The verse that comes straight after the grandeur of the Gospel of John 13:3 reads: “[Jesus] 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,” (Gospel of John 13:4-5).

In those days, people walked everywhere in sandals. The streets were dusty. They were polluted with animal droppings and whatever people threw out (or up) into the gutter. The filth of the street stuck to feet.

Perhaps you’re in the habit of taking off your shoes when you enter a home. It’s good hygiene and manners to do so. In Bible times, folks washed their feet when they entered a home. Like us, they didn’t want to track dirt and fecal matter into the place where people eat and sleep.

When a wealthy person hosted a dinner party, he often had his lowest-ranking slave wash the feet of his guests when they arrived.

I want to help you get a strong mental picture of what this means.

So imagine public restrooms.

A couple of months ago, my family went to Disney World. Every time I went into a restroom in one of the theme parks, my weird brain wondered how many people use those restrooms in a day. Then my weird brain thought: How much nonstop work does it take to keep a public restroom at Disney World clean? And who are the people who have to do that gross job?

I reckoned that at Disney World, as at most places, the lowest-ranking employees get stuck with restroom duty.

Why?

Because nobody wants to do it! It’s not only disgusting, it feels demeaning. Shameful. You could catch me doing a lot of menial jobs. But being a 49-year old with a graduate degree, the one that would embarrass me the most would be scrubbing toilets.

And yet, the One who comes from God and is going to God, the One who holds “all things” in his hands, gets down on his knees and washes feet. Or, to the 21st century American imagination, he gets down on his knees and scrubs toilets.

This is good news.

First, it’s because we live in a time when men who occupy places like Hollywood, the Ivy League, the Pentagon, Silicon Valley, Wall Street and the White House either claim to be messiahs (the word means “anointed”) or are regarded as messiahs by the masses. They (and we) mistake their seats of power as proof of their “anointed” status.

But those of us who are old enough know how human sinful nature and power are a toxic mix. These men, no matter how much power they amass for themselves and or who gives it to them, have no power to save us. Nor do they have the character, the inclination, or the will to do so. They cannot love us the way we need to be loved because love is not what they are about. They are simply about power and more power.

But thank God! The Messiah who comes from God and is going to God, the Messiah who holds all things in his hands gets down on his knees and scrubs toilets. This tells us all we need to know about his character and what motivates him toward us. It has to be love. Pure love.

That is good news. That is a Messiah we can trust.

Second, eventually we all end up scrubbing toilets. Sometimes it’s just the drudgery and misery of how death invades our lives. I’ll never forget helping my dad go to the restroom when cancer made him too weak to go by himself. That was some circle of life stuff that broke my heart to its bottom.

Sometimes, we make mistakes and messes that land us back at Square One, scrubbing toilets just to get by. Or the injustice and unfairness of this world pushes us into a public restroom stall and shoves a sponge into our hand. It is good to know that when we’re in that sad situation, the Messiah comes alongside us, takes the sponge from our hands, gets down on his own knees, and goes to work for us.

So, take heart! There are many who act like or claim to be messiahs in the world today. They think their power is proof. But the Messiah who comes from God and is going to God, the Messiah who holds all things in his hands, the only Messiah worthy of the name, is scrubbing toilets.

You can believe in him and trust him.

Grace and peace.

Photo by Leandro Aguirre on Unsplash