9 Holy Week Lessons for Handling Hard TimesSample

Just before Jesus was betrayed, arrested, and the height of his suffering began, he served his friends.

The night of the Last Supper in this text has become known as Maundy Thursday. But before there was ever a Last Supper, there was this picture of Jesus, love and service to his disciples.

The apostle John makes sure to tell us that Jesus showed the “full extent” (ESV) of his love. If you’ve ever washed someone’s feet, you know it takes a lot of love to smell those feet and scrub them down. But this year, I’m seeing something different in the passage. I’m seeing that the full extent of love is serving others while you are suffering.

Our family is only on the front end of a journey of suffering, but I’m already discovering that there’s great power in serving others during our own suffering.

I’ve seen it so many times in my pastoral ministry. I’ll never forget in the first church I served, visiting a cancer patient named Peggy Lovvorn.

Peggy was a schoolteacher, somewhere in her early 40s when she was diagnosed with a brain tumor. She was beloved by so many, and one of those favorite teachers that everyone talked about. We got to know each other pretty well during her brief battle with cancer.

I would go sit with Peggy and her husband, to try and talk to her about her condition and what I could do to help. But every time I tried to talk about Peggy, she would turn the conversation toward other people that needed help.

One time, I went to visit Peggy in the hospital while she was receiving a chemotherapy infusion. She was literally hanging upside down on a gravity table having toxins pumped into her body that were going to make her feel awful. I asked her what I could do to help her. And all she said was, “William, there’s a guy next door who’s having a really hard day. Would you mind going to pray with him right now?” A selfless act. And I’m beginning to see it was also a self-healing act.

We will find our healing when we focus on healing others.

Can you imagine what was going through Jesus' mind as he was washing his disciples feet? John tells us that Jesus was washing the feet of Judas, the one who had betrayed him. He also washed Peter’s feet, who he knew would deny him three times. And yet he chose to show them the full extent of his love.

It’s just speculation on my part, but I wonder if in serving others right before the height of his suffering, Jesus wasn’t shoring up strength to walk the path before him. When I see people who have handled suffering well, they are almost always focused on helping others who are suffering. They refuse to only talk about their own pain or suffering. In short, they refuse to be a victim.

I’ve lost count of how many people I’ve interviewed for jobs over the years, but I can count on one hand the people who refuse to be a victim when it comes to talking about how a previous job ended.

Maybe there’s a lesson for us on this Maundy Thursday that can help those of us who are going through suffering. Perhaps the quickest way to find healing from your own suffering is to focus on serving others.

There’s an age-old bit of trivia many pastors quote about how the Dead Sea is super salty and very little can grow in it. Why? Most people speculate that it’s because the Dead Sea doesn’t actually flow anywhere else. It’s a receptacle, only receiving things. It never gives itself away. Healing, life, and abundance all come from letting things flow out from us rather than just receiving.

That seems to ring true for those facing suffering. Rather than just receiving care (which people in suffering need to do willingly), what would happen if you also focused on letting things flow out of you that served others?

The reason we call this Thursday Maundy Thursday is because the old word maundy means “mandate.” And as Jesus was washing his disciples’ feet, he said, “Now I’m giving you a new mandate, love one another as I have loved you.” (John 13:34)

This might have been Jesus’ last instruction to his disciples before they saw him suffer and die. And I wonder if it wasn’t his first instruction to the people who would succeed him as the leaders of a newborn church. History tells us that every one of the apostles were martyred. They all ended up facing their own suffering, which Jesus predicted on this last evening.

Perhaps his advice and guidance to men that he knew would face death for following him, was simply this: Love one another.

I’m trying to learn as I’m facing a valley that this is the single best time for me to focus on serving others. Perhaps the same can be true for you when you face your next trial.

Prayer:

Lord, help me to focus on alleviating others' suffering. Help me to love others the way you loved us. And in use that service Lord, to help me through my own valley.

Amen