After 50 days without a post it is probably about time I wrote something!
I started the new year with good intentions of blogging more regularly - maybe even three times a week... I guess the less said about that the better!
In a letter in 1887, Lord Acton wrote, "Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men."
Abraham Lincoln said, "Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's character, give him power."
In the film Bruce Almighty, Bruce Nolan comes face to face with God and gets the chance to do God's job for Him. With Jim Carrey playing the character of Bruce, it should come as no surprise that Bruce's first response is to use this power totally for his own advantages as the film trailer shows.
[If you are easily offended please note that I chose, on reflection, not to use this clip in church on a Sunday morning.]
I wonder - what would we do in Bruce's position?
In January we started a new Sunday morning series looking at the things that Jesus said to his disciples in the last few hours before his arrest, based on John's gospel, and chapters 13-17. In chapter 13 John makes it clear that Jesus knows exactly who he is, where he has come from, where he is going, what is about to happen, and that all power has been given to him.
And his response to all this is to get some water and a towel and to start washing his disciples' feet. This was a job normally reserved for the lowest servant, and no one present at this meal felt that they should be doing it. But Jesus had come to serve, and to call those who follow him to serve too. Even when serving means doing the jobs that no one else wants to do.
Do we claim to follow Jesus? Who are we serving?
