Jesus said, “If anyone would be first, he must be last of all and servant of all.” (Mark 9:35)
Those words of Jesus form our red letter challenge for this week. This is actually one that I have worked on for a little bit of time myself. It all started because I really don’t like standing in line. Because of that, I found out that it was easier for me to simply resign myself to being last. Being last has its benefits. If you know you’re going to be last, you don’t have to wait in line and you can do whatever you want until the line clears. That means you can have conversations with people or you can make the right stuff is being served or you can just have a little quiet moment to yourself. Being last isn’t that bad.
Simon Sinek wrote a whole book about how “Leaders Eat Last”. The major story of the book is military practice of high ranking officers eating last, assuring that the soldiers under their command have enough to eat. That’s another benefit of being last, it shows others that they are “first” in your mind. Jesus even mentions that there is a benefit of being last, that if we allow ourselves to be last and servant of all, then we will be considered “first”.
However, all too often we approach life with a “me first” attitude. After all, being first has its advantages too. We will find that those advantages are often short term, but they do present us with a temptation to put ourselves first.
Jesus had those same temptations to put Himself first, but He didn’t. He lived out His own words. He put Himself as last and servant of all, not for His own benefit, but for ours. And because of that, He became the First. The First to live a sinless life, the First be resurrected from the dead to eternal life, the First among all of us.
Put yourself last this week. Be a servant to all. There are benefits to it. The greatest of those benefits may just be that it will remind you of your Savior who put Himself last for you.