Service Must Be In Your Blood
The last two weeks have been full of opportunities and challenges. In the aftermath of hurricane Ida, much of southeast Louisiana was left without water, power, and basic resources. Our family evacuated New Orleans the Saturday before the storm and returned Wednesday of the following week. As we drove into the city, an eerie feeling settled on my heart. The damaged buildings, mangled signs, and scattered debris were obvious, but the real strangeness came from what was absent. The hustle and bustle of the Big Easy was gone. Looking out over the city at night, I saw nothing but darkness.
When the morning rose, however, it was time to get to work. Members of Immanuel Community Church (our sending church) and Harvest Church leaped into action and began serving all over the city. We tarped houses, cleared debris, distributed supplies, and prepared meals. We shared homes, meals, and generators as we lived life together. Churches from all over the nation gave generously in order to come alongside us, and in the midst of the exhaustion, there were sweet times of fellowship.
One day as we served at Phillis Wheatley Community School, a staff member saw all that our church was doing and told me, “Service must be in your blood.” As I pondered his words, I realized that the opposite was true. I had just spent the better part of a week scrambling across roofs and unloading supplies while my son was in Mississippi with his grandparents. A selfish corner of my heart wanted to take care of my own home, pick up my wife, and head straight back to Mississippi until everything normalized in New Orleans. Service was not in my blood.
Ever since Genesis 3, service has not been in anybody’s blood. Pity and goodwill can carry us along for a while, but in the end, we end up saying with Cain, “Am I my brother’s keeper?” In our culture dominated by social media likes and follows, much of our service can be self-serving. We crave virtual pats on the back more than we desire the good of our neighbor. The words of Jesus still ring true. “Be careful not to practice your righteousness in front of others to be seen by them. Otherwise, you have no reward with your Father in heaven” (Matt. 6:1). If we’re honest with ourselves, we often grow indignant when the people we are serving do not seem appreciative enough. The pride of the “righteous” person–both secular and religious–is insidious, and burnout is so prevalent in helping professions because our hearts are not ever flowing wells of service.
Luckily for the Christian, there is one who has service in his blood. “Whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first among you must be your slave; just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many” (Matt. 20:26-28). Jesus, the King of all, condescended and took on human flesh. He was constantly interrupted and inconvenienced by children, the sick, the poor, and the marginalized, but he never huffed self-righteously about how tired he was. He stooped and washed the feet of his thick-headed disciples while they argued about who was the greatest. The only one with genuine reason to be proud was more humble than we are able to fully grasp.
But service was not only in his blood; Jesus’ blood was his ultimate service. He answered Cain’s question with a resounding “Yes!” when he hung on the cross as the ransom for many. No one patted him on the back as the blood trickled down his crown of thorns. Rather, he received mockery from the crowd and abandonment from his closest friends. Love held him there when the nails could not. Service almost seems too shallow a word to describe the work of the Suffering Servant. “In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace” (Eph. 1:7).
It is only through the blood of Jesus that service truly gets into the blood of the Christian. The cross simultaneously crushes our pride and sets us on the firm foundation of Christ’s righteousness. Because God gave his Son for us, we have nothing to prove through our giving. Because God loves us and calls us his children, we no longer rise and fall on the approval of the world. Because Jesus has served us, we are free to selflessly serve others.
