⁷ Jesus answered and said to him, “What I do you do not realize now, but you will understand hereafter.”

A young seminarian, bored with a minute point of theology, sardonically intoned to his professor, “I don’t see the relevance of this.” The man of God responded, “Although you don’t see the importance of this truth now, someday you will need it.” Later in life he grew to understand what might be called “delayed appreciation for profound truth.”

To Peter’s initial objection and astonishment, Jesus recognized that Peter would not fully appreciate what as taking place. After all, what Jesus knew that Peter did not, was that in a few short hours Christ would be hanging on the cross, dying for the sins of the world, He would be resurrected three days later, then after another short while, He would be physically taken up from them to return at a later undisclosed date. What Peter didn’t know at that time, was that he, along with the other disciples under the power of the Holy Spirit would soon be launching a world-wide, epoch making movement called the Church.

One can understandably cut Peter some slack in not comprehending this humble servant-like act of Jesus, His first act in the Upper Room in preparation for the end, which as it turns out, is really the beginning.

How often does God do things that we don’t understand? If you walk with the Lord for any length of time, you find that that is “typical” of how God does things. One of those truths that we have an extremely difficult time grasping is that through serving comes greatness. Who among us would have ever have thought that a good battle plan when fighting a foe would be to die! That is completely counter-intuitive, or to put it more bluntly, that is ridiculous from our limited human perspective. Yet, in the cosmic battle of evil versus good, of Satan and his forces assaulting God, and eventually His church, that the ultimate battle plan is for the Captain of the Lord’s army, the Lord of Hosts, to lay down not just His weapons, but to lay down His life. How can one understand that?

In the upper room, as things unfold, did Peter sense the foreboding darkness that was coming? Now did not seem the time for pleasant niceties of foot washing, the tide seemed to be turning against them. One day later he did come to appreciate that even in the midst of conflict and persecution, humility was to be central to Christian behavior. He later wrote to the scattered, persecuted Christians, “Clothe yourselves with humility toward one another, for God is opposed to the proud, but gives grace to the humble” (1 Peter 5:5).

Lord, help me to appreciate the importance and absolute centrality of humbleness and serving for being effective in spiritual warfare.