Transcription
A 7th Day Adventist evangelist was confronted by a person who knew a little bit about the Bible—in fact, more than the average—and was trying to find out why 7th Adventists were particularly interested in the Sabbath and some other things when others weren't. The evangelist said, "We believe in observing the Sabbath in honor of creation because that's what the Bible says, and we want to follow what the Bible says."
The one who was confronting him said, "No one really follows all that the Bible says, and you know that it can't be done." Why? This person said, "If you really believed and followed everything that the Bible said, you would wash one another's feet." The Adventist evangelist says, "We do." The person said, "Well, that's a feather in your cap; never heard of such a thing."
Now it's true that there are very few people in the Christian church today who believe in 3/3 of the Lord's Supper. There are some who believe in 2/3, and there are some who believe in one. Are you familiar with what I'm referring to? If we were to divide the service known as the communion service to us up into its three parts, we would have the ordinance of uh, feet washing, the cup, and the bread, right? And there are some Christian churches who take only the wafer or the bread; there are some who take the bread and the cup; and there are very few who take all three.
It's interesting that in the Bible the record concerning this ordinance is really found in one major chapter, John the 13th, and I wish you'd look at it with me this evening. We are talking about the beliefs of the Seventh Adventist Church, and this is the chapter that deals with Jesus revealed in the communion service. Of course, different people call it by different names. There's one church that would call it a Sacrament, and a Sacrament is not a bad word; it's an acceptable word. Uh, some people call it the ordinance of the Lord's House. I've heard that. Have you heard that? Some, the communion service, so forth, the Lord's Supper—different labels but the same basic service.
Now all four of the gospel writers—Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John—talk about the Lord's Supper; however, only John talks about the 3/3. The other three gospel writers talk about 2/3. I don't know if you uh place any significance in that; maybe some people do. I wish we could read it, the pertinent verses beginning with the first of John 13. Now before the Feast of the Passover, when Jesus knew that his hour was come that he should depart out of this world unto the Father—notice all of these little statements concerning what he knew—having loved his own which were in the world, he loved them unto the end. And supper being ended, the devil having put into the heart of Judas Iscariot, Simon's son, to betray him, Jesus knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands and that he was come from God and went to God—what an opener, what a prelude to the rest of the story—but it's significant, and a particular I like I'd like to call your attention to the last part of that prelude: Jesus knowing that he was come from God and went to God. He knew who he was; he knew that he was going to go back to his Father; he knew that he was God; he knew from whence he came; he knew that he was their creator; he knew that he was the one who spoke the worlds into existence. If anyone ever deserved any glory and honor, it would be Jesus, right? He knew all that. Then it starts with what happened, verse four: He riseth from supper, laid aside his garments, took a towel, girded himself. After that he poured water into a basin, began to wash the disciples' feet and to wipe them with the towel wherewith he was girded. Do you get the contrast? You know, just the contrast itself has a solemn, subduing effect on the human heart, doesn't it? Well, then you have the uh story of Peter, which we will forego for the moment. Skip down to verse 12: After he had washed their feet, and had taken his garments, and was set down again, he said unto them, Know ye what I have done to you? Ye call me Master and Lord, and ye say well; for so I am. If I then, your Lord and Master, have washed your feet—number one reason—now here we come to number one reason for washing feet: Ye also ought to wash one another's feet. Now comes number two reason for this part of the service: For I have given you an example that you should do as I have done to you. Verily, verily, I say unto you, the servant is not greater than his Lord, neither he that is sent greater than he that sent him. Here comes number three reason for continuing this service: If ye know these things, happy are ye if ye do them. All right, what are the three reasons for continuing the ord of feet washing? We ought to, he said; he is our example in this; and we're going to be happy if we do it.
Now I'd like to ask you how many of you are really happy to watch someone else's feet, and how many of you are really happy to get your feet washed during this hardness? I am not going to ask for a show of hands, although some of you already began to volunteer. I suspect that there are people who find real meaning in this service, find Jesus revealed in it, and uh, if they partake of the service at one church and it happens in another church where they are visiting the next Sabbath, they are overjoyed. I've also met other people who, if they partake of this service in one church and they uh come to another church where it is going on the next Sabbath, they say, "Well, we already did our duty for this quarter; we're not going to do that again. You know, don't have to; we already put in our time last week," type of thing. Am I being realistic? And there are people who absent themselves from this service each quarter because they find it distasteful, repulsive. Like one woman said, "Why uh, washing someone's feet? That's what you do in the hospital; the nurse does that for you in the hospital, and uh, you don't do that at church." And of course, as one student told it to me when I was partaking of this service at Walla Walla College during the week of prayer, as I began to wash his feet, he said, "I usually wash my feet myself," only he didn't say quite that tone; I'm exaggerating. And we began to talk about it because evidently something clicked when he said it, and not only my mind but his mind as well—to let someone else do for you what you usually do yourself. Do you get a message there at all? I'm big enough to do this myself; please God, let me do it myself.
Now, of course, one of my favorite questions when we're having this ordinance is to ask the person that I'm participating with which they find it harder to do—to wash someone else's feet or to get theirs washed. And of course, that's the negative approach; the more positive approach would be uh, which you find easier to do, but let's take the negative approach just for emphasis tonight. Um, I think I'll ask for a show of hands on this one just for fun: How many of you find it harder to wash someone else's feet? How many find it harder to get yours washed? That's the way it usually turns out. Why? Do you have any idea? Is it embarrassing? Is it something that is a private thing; you don't really want to expose your feet that publicly? Um, what is it? Or is there something deep down inside that's in the same category as that student? And is it possible that there are a lot more of us who pretend not to be humiliated or embarrassed during this service who really are? And the dead giveaway, of course, is the mundane topics that we often get involved in. I think that's the dead giveaway. One of the most uh interesting things is to watch a group of Adventist people washing feet who are embarrassed to tears, and they're trying to act like they aren't. And this has led some of us to uh take this position: Maybe there's something good about being humiliated, and uh, maybe for some of us it's par for the course, and maybe instead of fighting it and trying to act as though it wasn't happening, we ought to admit it and get the good out of it that was involved in the humility part of it. Uh, is it humiliating to have someone wash your feet? Is it humbling toward someone else's? And with that in mind, let's read the section about Peter, the 13th chapter again, starting with verse six: Then cometh he to Simon Peter, and Peter said unto him, Lord, dost thou wash my feet? Jesus answered and said unto him, What I do thou knowest not now, but thou shalt know hereafter. Peter said, Thou shalt never wash my feet. Now Peter found it hard to get his feet washed, but why? Why do you suppose Peter found it hard? He knew that Christ was a Son of God, and he didn't figure Christ had any business doing this sort of menial task. He was uh feeling guilty already for not having volunteered himself, so the humiliation came before he got his feet washed; he was humiliated that he had sat on his thumbs, so to speak. When, of course, you people all know, I suppose, the custom in those days—it was customary before they proceeded too far in the evening's activities, and I put that in because one passage talks about it being before supper and one after supper—for a servant to wash the feet, dusty feet of the travelers; and if no servant was available, then someone volunteered. And of course, you don't expect volunteers from a group of disciples who have been bickering and arguing about who's going to be the greatest. I mean, if you're going to sit one on the right hand and the one on the left in the Kingdom, you don't go washing people's feet, right? Or do you? But Peter was humiliated. My brother comes into the room at college; he says, "Hurry up, let's clean the room; it's Friday; I'm working on a term paper." I say, "I can't; I'm too busy." And he looks at me askance; his mouth drops open. We all clean the room together on Friday. So after insisting one more time, and I tell him I can't, I'm too busy, he relaxes, and he says, "That's all right; I'll clean the room; I'm happy to clean the room; I'm more than happy to clean the room; you must be under terrible pressure; I'll do it; I'll clean the room all by myself; I'll do it." And I am humiliated, and as he cleans the room, I slam my book shut, and I go and I help him clean the room, right? And so Peter has this kind of reaction; he doesn't like to see Jesus doing this. And then Jesus said, "If I wash thee not, thou hast no part with me." Simon Peter saith unto him, Lord, not my feet only, but also my hands and my head. And of course, we've always chuckled and smiled and kind of liked Peter for that. Jesus said, "He that is washed needeth not save to wash his feet." Peter had already had his hands and his head washed. When? When did you have your hands and head washed as well? When you were baptized. And I suppose that's why some people have said that the feet washing is a little miniature baptism, and maybe that's not too far off; it's suggested; it's not really stated; it's suggested. And then Jesus said a strange thing: "He that is washed needeth not save to wash his feet, but is clean every whit; and ye are clean, but not all; for he knew who should betray him. Therefore said he, Ye are not all clean." So who was it that was the exception? Judas. That meant that the rest of them were all clean, and they had just been arguing about who was going to be the greatest, right? That argument lasted up until the night before Jesus' crucifixion, and he said, "You are all clean." We've been studying lately about the uh, new heart and the cleansed heart; does this fit in here at all? Were they really cleansed from all unrighteousness? Was that the very end of their bickering about who's going to be the greatest? Is this imputed or imparted? Is this the same kind of statement that could be made about the thief on the cross? "Ye are all clean." I'm only asking. However, we do know that when we accept Jesus as our personal savior, because of his righteousness, we stand before God as though we had never sinned, right? Is that true? So that at least is true here. Is that good news? All right, so we have the sample of Peter, and we have a lesson in that for us, and we have Jesus' own statement that if we want to have a part with him, we are going to be involved in this service. If he does not wash us, we have no part with him. In the early church, I understand it was the custom, the practice, for the ordinance of feet washing to be a part of the Lord's Supper program, and that it gradually faded away. It's inconvenient. Baptism by immersion faded away; it's inconvenient; a much more convenient method crept in. They found it easy to leave this out, but Seventh Day Adventists still believe in it because we believe in what the scripture says. Sometimes we have different formats for our Lord's Supper service; sometimes we sing; sometimes during the Lord's Supper itself we uh, meditate; that seems to be the sophisticated thing to do—silence. Sometimes in the little churches out in the country we have testimonies. Have you ever been in one of those? St. Lena does it now; that's one of the little churches out in the country. All right, and uh, there are people who like it and who miss it, and we don't. Once in a while you have a testimony meeting killer who ruins it for everybody else, and we hope that that is at a minimum when that does happen. But uh, Seventh Adventists have found different ways to discover meaning out of this service—feet washing and the Lord's Supper. I really would like to take a poll sometime to discover what it means to you and what it means to the largest cross-section. You know good and well that uh, it isn't meaning a whole lot to you when you, during the ordinance of feet washing, are talking about the weather and the neighbors and the vacation and the latest news, right? One of the things that's been a mystery to me is that when some of us talk in front from the pulpit about keeping this out, and if we don't have anything spiritual to talk about, to just keep quiet—it's not all bad to sit and think, is it?—and to go immediately into the service and find out that evidently no one even heard you because the talk goes on just the same. You hear it across from you and next to you, and then you hear it from the one that's washing your feet—the news and the vacation and the latest—and you say, "Uh, people really don't believe that," I guess. Another thing that's been a mystery to me—we even said something about it in our last ordinance of uh, the Lord's Supper—is that uh, we pass out the bread, and then we take the bread, the wafer, and that goes good; that goes well. And then we pass out the grape juice, and uh, when we take the grape juice—well, you still have the cup to your lips—clickity-click, click-click down the aisles and across the rows of seats; people have gulped it down, and they're sticking their glasses in as fast as you can think. And that bothers some of us; should it? I don't know; maybe we're being ultra-sensitive, but I wanted to at least bring up that sore spot tonight during our discussion on it. Are we really trying to rush through it, get it over with? Are we thinking carefully, as solemnly about what we're doing? Is this a duty that we do, and even Botin Hearn, the one who wrote about Seventh Day Adventists, observed how lightly many of them took this service? Or is it a real blessing to you? Could it be more so? I believe that there are several services during which the spirit of God comes particularly near, and uh, if you've had your eyes and your heart open, trying to be sensitive to this, I believe you've discovered that the Holy Spirit is particularly near at a Christian baptism; the Holy Spirit is particularly near during the communion service; I believe the Holy Spirit is particularly near during a Christian funeral; and there may be a few other particular occasions that you have observed as well. The word communion attached to this service is not a bad label, after all; that's what the entire Christian experience and the basis of the valid Christian life is all about—communion with God, right? So I kind of like that word attached to the service, the communion service, which means if there is communion going on, it's two-way; a one-sided conversation is not communion; communion is two-way. That means that God is particularly anxious to uh communicate with us during these services. Now, of course, two classic chapters on this service are written in the book *Desire of Ages* on the Life of Christ, and the person who gets the most meaning out of this service is the one who sits down the night before and reads *The Servant of Servants* and *In Remembrance of Me*, right? Reads them carefully, and he finds out that the feet washing is a preparation for the Lord's Supper, and he finds out some other things about this one thing in particular: Where did the communion service and the Lord's Supper come from in the first place? Uh, in the New Testament record of Jesus and this service, he said, "Go and find the place where we will celebrate the what? Passover." Where did the Passover originate? Egypt. What was the occasion? The Exodus. And uh, you recall the story: The firstborn were going to be killed that night. I'd like to change that: The firstborn were going to die that night, or were they going to be killed? What do you prefer? And um, what were the people told? "If you will slay a lamb, put the blood on the doorpost, the angel, the destroying angel will pass over." What does that remind you of in advance? Anything? What does it tell us today? Is this something that's confined only to Egypt in the Exodus? If it wasn't for the blood from the Lamb of God, there are a lot of us that would never have been passed over, right? It's only because of Calvary; that's why the Lord's Supper continues to be meaningful, going clear back to Egypt in the Passover. It wasn't for the blood of Calvary; there wouldn't be a chance for any of us. And the interesting thing is that in the days of Israel when they were leaving Egypt, that the Egyptians also had a chance to hear about the Passover, and some of them joined them. Isn't that interest—it's a good point. I uh, thank you for bringing it up, that um, perhaps we should include as the primary issue Jesus revealed in the ordinance of both humility and and uh, the Lord's Supper. Perhaps it would be inadequate and maybe even inferior to dwell too much upon the humility of the individual; after all, it's Jesus we're thinking about and not simply ourselves. And what is revealed about Jesus in the ordinance of humility and Lord's Sup—you know it's obvious, isn't it? Yes, that's good. I am sure you didn't all hear that, but referring to a set of studies by Mary Walch in which Jesus symbolically is doing at the service what he did in heaven—laid aside his priestly, laid aside his glory and came down, right? Okay, thank you. Right here you did this all on your own. She says the most special communion she ever celebrated was at home with her mother, washing her feet—something you did all on your own in your home. Is there anything that says we can't? I've heard this debated some, and uh, I don't know of any authority that says that this, the uh, the service was evidently celebrated in the homes of the early Christians. Of course, some methodologies are being debated nowadays, you know, the co-ed thing and all that. But yes, you're going to bring up—he brings up the uh point that the service was held at night, not in connection with church, and the only thing at the service—service was the feet washing and the Lord's Supper—that was one of the most meaningful that he's been in. I'd like to uh witness to that as well. Down at La Sierra, we, because of the college primarily, began getting involved in a candlelight Friday evening uh, communion service, which we met in the dining commons—10 or 12 people around the table; we uh had pitchers of grape juice, and we poured each for the other; we passed the bread at the table; and some people who are are more familiar with the tradition of the church on Sabbath were very upset about this at first, and gradually they all began to get involved in it, and they discovered that they would have a hard time going back to the other way. It was very interesting to see the transition from the traditional concept to something that was deliberately planned to be like more like the upper room. Now you have to admit that the way we have it in church traditionally is not like the upper room at all, right? Excuse me for taking a shot at the tradition for a moment, but it wasn't. And uh, some of us really have gotten a lot more out of the service when it was as much as possible uh, patterned after the upper room type of thing. And there we had personal testimonial, witness thing; we had singing; it was very meaningful. We had it set up here once, and someone killed it. Yes, right here said, "Could it be possible that the most meaningful part of the service would be the heart preparation during the week before or the time before the service?" Thank you. Well said. Yes, it has been done that way. Here, here. No, this is back East, back East. Okay. All right, she she gave witness to a similar type of upper room format. All right. Yes. In other words, you are wondering if if maybe the uh John 13 was intended to be more symbolically illustrative of uh a life of this—I would—all right. He says that it means much more to him to have a um ongoing, everyday type of uh experience bent this direction of service, and doing it once a quarter—touche. I think the point would be well taken, wouldn't it? You're not necessarily saying throw the other out. Okay, then we're all okay. Then anyone else? One or two. Right here. Yes. Some people come from other Evangelical churches, and they um are used to these sacraments every week and wonder why we only have it once a quarter. I know of no biblical authority for once a quarter or even once a week. Do do you? You do. Yes, Dr. Anderson, the um point is that we place ourselves under a greater burden to have it meaningful if we um if it becomes a uh more of a routine habit, pattern, a regular thing. But as far as I know, the actual setting of how often it simply have been arbitrarily done, right? As far as I know. Yes. His question is, have a—why couldn't we not have a meal today followed by the communion service? Is that what you're asking? Which appears to be part of the uh service there. All right. I don't know. Does anyone? Yes. I uh, he said it uh at home; they had this at New Year's time. We used to have the the Lord's Supper, the communion service, on New Year's Eve down South, and um, we um celebrated the entrance of New Year's Eve up to midnight with testimony and singing; it was great; it was great. Everybody else was shooting off firecrackers and getting drunk, and um, and we uh found this a delightful uh departure. 1 Corinthians 11—I I know if you people have studied this lately, but uh, verse 34 says, "If any man hungry is hungry, let him eat at home," and it's following the ordinance of um, the—it's following the ordinance of the Lord's Supper. But of course, that could have some other meanings, and it certainly does not mean that we could not have a meal, but uh, perhaps this has been part of the thinking in the past on the part of some. Yes. Yeah. And this was his point over here, that um that the um gluttony thing had entered in, and people were stuffing themselves and uh short-circuiting the purpose of the Lord's Supper. Yes, back to the timing and the frequency. He says the Passover was once a year, so once a quarter would probably be uh more than ordinary. All right. And says, "As often as you do this," it's left open for that. Yes. She likes the idea of a small group experience like the Upper Room—much more meaningful than a huge thing, large potluck and so forth. One more, and then we're going to quit. Kind of worries me, talk now. Your point is uh, rather than the frequency of it being meaningful all the time? No, I think that we almost think we found a sol by having it, you know, every quarter. Yeah, yeah. He he said, "Just because we have it every quarter doesn't mean that that solves it for being meaningful." That's right; it can be just as much routine and form once a quarter as once a week. All right. And the only way that's going to be meaningful, whether it's once a quarter, once a week, is to have communion with God every day. As we close, let's remember that Jesus is revealed in the communion service, and perhaps that is the most significant of all of our study this evening—Jesus revealed. Father, dear Lord, we thank you for the privilege, opportunity of communion with Heaven. We're thankful that through the Holy Spirit you have made provision to be closer with us than when you walked with the disciples. We pray that we'll all know that each day, and that the communion service will be that much more meaningful because of it, for Jesus' sake. Amen.
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