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The scripture reading of the morning is from the gospel according to John, the 13th chapter. I begin the reading at the verse which is numbered 1. "Now before the feast of the Passover, when Jesus knew that his hour had come to depart out of this world to the Father, having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end. And during supper, when the devil had already put it into the heart

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of Judas Iscariot, Simon's son, to betray him, Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands, and that he had come from God and was going to God, rose from supper, laid aside his garments and girded himself with a towel. Then he poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples' feet, and to wipe them with the towel with which he was girded. He came to Simon Peter,

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and Peter said to him, 'Lord, do you wash my feet?' Jesus answered him, 'What I am doing you do not know now, but afterward you will understand.' Peter said to him, 'You shall never wash my feet.' Jesus answered him, 'If I do not wash you, you have no part in me.' Simon Peter said to him, 'Lord, not my feet only, but also my hands and my head.' Jesus said to him, 'He who has bathed does not

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need to wash except for his feet, but he is clean all over, and you are clean, but not every one of you.' For he knew who was to betray him; that was why he said, 'You are not all clean.' And may the same Spirit who inspired these words incline our hearts to the understanding of them. Pray with me, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, amen.

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Armand Niccoli has been for many years now the Chief of Psychiatric Services at Harvard University. In an address given not too long ago, he identified what psychiatrists and psychologists today consider to be the marks of a healthy personality. Dr. Niccoli was careful to point out that this was the most up-to-date, the most sophisticated, the most erudite view of

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contemporary psychological thought. The four aspects of a healthy personality as he identified them are, first, a healthy sense of identity, knowing who you are and being happy with that. Second, a loving spirit, that is, having a heart that reaches out and encompasses others. Third, having a conscience, a sense of right and wrong, and a vigorous pursuit of what you know to be

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right. And third, to have a healthy attitude with regard to one's own death, a responsible sense of one's finitude. Now, as I heard these marks of a healthy personality identified, I immediately began to think of Jesus, for I understand Jesus to be the most perfect one who has ever lived, to be that one who lived without any blot or any blemish. And as I thought of him

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in terms of these four standards, I recognized immediately that they were all overwhelmingly evident in his life. These are, in very truth, the marks of the Master's manhood. And as I contemplated this, there were two verses of Scripture which came singing into my consciousness as a kind of summation of his personality, and those verses are our text for this morning. And

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Jesus, knowing that the Father had put all things into his hands, and that he had come from God and was going to God, rose from the table, laid aside his garments, and girded himself with a towel. Now think of the truths that are contained in these verses with me. The first mark of a strong personality, according to psychological thought, is a healthy sense of identity and self-worth.

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We see that in Jesus, and we see it immediately in these verses. How do they begin? Jesus, knowing that the Father had put all things into his hands, and that he had come from God. In other words, Jesus having a sense not only of the fact that he was fashioned by God, but that he was magnificently favored by God. I think it's important for us to remember,

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as our Lord did, how much we are loved of God. Paul says that God so loved us that he gave himself for us. We are the only ones in all of creation that can say that. And we can say that because we are the only ones in all creation made in the likeness of God. We are made after his own spirit. Why then, when we are so made and so blessed with his love, do we so often tend to

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denigrate ourselves? We so often see ourselves in terms only of our weaknesses. I remember talking to a young man from Colorado who had a rather conspicuous birthmark on his face. He said to me, "When people look at me, all they see is this great ugly thing." Now, this was a very bright and creative young man. He had the natural grace of an athlete,

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though he was not in athletics. He was rather shy and retiring because of his sensitivity with his birthmark, but that only gave a certain winciveness and attractiveness to his personality. But when he thought of himself, he thought of himself only in terms of what he described as this great ugly thing. Fat people think that when other people look at them, all they see is fat. Brilliant

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people oftentimes think that when other people look at them, all they think is egghead. Individuals who are handicapped in some way have a tendency to believe that when people look at them, all they see is the handicap. What we do, you see, is we measure ourselves by others and then we flunk ourselves, failing to recognize that we are all made different one from the other, and therefore

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it is not right for us to judge ourselves by others, but rather only by the fact that we have been made and gifted by God. I, as many of you know, worked for ten years on a college campus. Now a college campus has a lot of faculty people on it, and they're very sophisticated and very, very alert. They're specialists in their fields, and that's the reason I always found it so amusing

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when they sat down to talk with one another. They found it very difficult to talk with one another. Their conversation, as a matter of fact, was oftentimes just a little more than comic. See, I know philosophers who can't even keep an appointment. I know an economist who won't talk about anything but economics because it's the only thing he knows. I know a professor of

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business who couldn't tell the difference between Beethoven and the Beatles if his very life depended on it. I know a language teacher who needs help to start his own automobile. Believe me, outside of their own fields, most of these individuals are dummies. And the fact of the matter is, most of us, when we get outside of our fields of expertise, are immediately limited. So

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why do we look at someone else, judge ourselves by them, and then flunk ourselves as part of the result? The fact is, we have been made by God as we are, and we have not only this divine origin, but we also have grand gifts which he has given us. You ever had the experience of standing in some aisle in the supermarket and there's something there you'd really like to have,

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and you pick up one of the jars and you look at it and it says $6.95, and you think to yourself, "Oh my, I just could never spend that much money on myself," and you put it back on the shelf. Now, the next time that happens, you remember that you were designed by God. You remember that you were made in the likeness of God. You remember that you have been bought and paid for by the blood of the

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Son of God. You remember that you are gifted by the Holy Spirit of God. You remember that you are worth more than anything you ever dreamed about, and then buy six jars. The fact of the matter is, Jesus had a high view of himself, and as his disciples, we should have the same. Now, the second mark of a healthy personality is a spirit that reaches out and loves others. Now,

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notice this is the second mark. It cannot be the first mark, and the reason it cannot be the first mark is this. You cannot reach out to love others until you have, first of all, settled with loving yourself. That's the reason Jesus says, "Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself." That's not only a command, that's a spiritual axiom. The fact of the matter is, you cannot extend a love to

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another person if you do not yourself feel loved. I mean, if you have contempt for yourself, if you have no ego strength, if you don't believe there's anything in you that's really worth sharing with another person, if you're wallowing all the time in self-pity, if when you look inside you see only defeat, you're not going to spend any time looking outside at all. There must be this healthy

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identity and satisfaction with what you are before there can be the love that is extended to others. Notice that's what it says in our text. "And Jesus, knowing that the Father had put all things into his hands, and that he had come from God," what? "rose from the table, laid aside his garments, girded himself with a towel." Now, girding himself with a towel to wash the feet of his

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disciples was, of course, an act of great love. But he could only extend this love out of the love which was already in him. In this sense, love is very much like knowledge. A teacher can teach and teach and teach and teach, and she never has anything left. After all that teaching, she has never lost what was in her. She still has all the knowledge she had in the first place, provided that

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she had knowledge in the first place. And the same way with love. You can love and love and love and love, but the amount of love in you is never diminished if there is love in you in the first place. You know, every Sunday morning when I stand up here and when I look at you, or when I think of our radio audience, I always have two thoughts. The first thought is what a blessed privilege it

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is for me to be able to share God's Word with you. And the second thought is what an incredibly diverse group of people you are. You walk on so many different pathways. Some of you walk in pathways of corporate power. Some of you walk in pathways of service, in dentistry or medicine or nursing. Some of you walk in the pathway of the home, building a place of love and shelter for

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those who are closest to you. Some of you walk in pathways of law enforcement. Some of you walk in pathways on college or university or high school or junior high school campuses. You walk on an incredible number of pathways. And all of those pathways are of value. It doesn't make any difference what the pathway is. And you can change that pathway if you will. The one thing that is

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important is that in the path you walk, there be a heart. See, the path isn't really important because the path will end when your life ends. What is important is that there be a heart in that path. I mean that in the path you walk, you can love people. That like Jesus, you can gird yourself with a towel and spend yourself in the service of others. That you have a heart in you

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big enough to include other people. If you walk your path like that, then you'll be like those two men who walked the pathway to Emmaus with Jesus and they said, "Our hearts burned within us." The health of the personality and the holiness of Jesus is to be found in his great love. And it ought to be the same for us. Now the third mark of a strong personality and of spiritual

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maturity is a developed conscience and a zeal in pursuit of those things which are right. Now that's the reason Jesus put on the towel. If you remember what was happening was that the disciples were having an argument. They were very prideful. They were very arrogant. They refused to serve one another. And Jesus knew that this was wrong and so Jesus took a stand. And he not only took

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a stand with his word, he also took a stand with the magnificent eloquence of his deed. And when he had done what he did, girding himself with a towel and washing their feet, then he said, "I have given to you an example that you might be the servants of all." Notice that, the servants of all. When Jesus washed their feet, Judas was still there. He washed Judas' feet, a traitor. He washed

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Peter's feet, a loudmouthed blasphemer. He washed James and John's feet, and they were selfish persons. He washed Thomas' feet, and Thomas was a man of little faith. Now in order to love like that, you have to have a conscience that stands for right. In order to serve like that, you have to believe that certain things are right and pursue them and do them in spite of the noxiousness or

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the difficulty of the task to which you are called. That takes commitment of heart, love, but it also takes commitment of conscience. Remember that Broadway musical, Camelot? There's a song in there that says, "The rain must never fall till after sundown. By eight, the morning fog must disappear. The snow must never slush upon the hillside, and by 9 p.m., the moonlight must appear." That's the

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way it is in Camelot. And a lot of Christians would like to be able to serve in Camelot. The trouble is, there is no Camelot. We are called upon to love imperfect people in an imperfect world, and that means there must not only be love, but conscientious commitment to what is right. I think of Jean Donovan. Jean Donovan was a young woman, 27 years of age, a Christian. She felt called of

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God to serve God's people in El Salvador. You know, serving those people down there who don't think too highly of the U.S. of A. and those people who, very many times, don't say thanks. But convicted that that was the right thing to do and pursuing her conscience, she went there to serve. She worked in a small mission station. She helped to keep their books. She led the youth choir. She

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had a little van, and she would go out and talk about nutrition to pregnant women, and she would lead songs and tell Bible stories and lead Bible studies and also lead small prayer groups. Now, as she served there in El Salvador, things got worse. Camelot, it was not. But she understood that she wasn't called to serve in Camelot. She was called to serve in El Salvador, so she stayed.

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And as the conflict grew, there were times when driving about in her little van, she would find dead persons by the road, and she would have to stop and bury them. And in March of 1980, her spiritual leader, Archbishop Romero, was assassinated right after he had said mass on a Sunday morning. That would have been a good time to run, but she didn't run. And on the night of

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December the 2nd, 1983, she and three other women were traveling in their little van, and they were stopped by a group of men. The next day, the van was found smashed and burnt. The day after that, they found the bodies of the four women in a shallow grave by the side of the road. They'd all been shot in the back of the head. Two of them had been assaulted before they were murdered.

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You know the rest of the story. Now, that kind of commitment to right is a conscientious commitment That is the pursuing of what is right at whatever cost. That's the spirit who was in Jesus. That's the spirit which motivated Him. That's the spirit which led Him to stand up for loving service, even when it meant He had to be half naked and on His knees in the midst of a bunch of stinking feet.

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That's quintessential conscience and love and discipline. I am not so sure that all of us are brave enough to confront the cross. I'm not sure about that myself, so I certainly cannot be sure of it for anybody else. But in Jesus' name, we ought to be able to confront a towel. A towel. In loving and conscientious service in a world that isn't Camelot. That's one of the marks of

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Christian maturity. That's one of the marks of a healthy being. And the last mark is to have a responsible view with regard to one's own death. A sense of one's own finitude. Notice what our text says, "And Jesus, knowing that the Father had put all things into His hands, and that He had come from God and was going to God, rose from the table, laid aside His garments, and girded

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Himself with a towel." I love the story of the old woman who had committed great passages of Scripture to memory. She knew whole books. But as she got older, her memory began to slip, and many of the verses disappeared away. And finally, when she was very, very old and very near death, all of the verses had gone except one. And she would repeat that verse over and over again, "I know

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whom I have believed, and am persuaded that He is able to keep that which I have committed unto Him against that day." And she would say that verse over and over again. And finally, even that verse began to drift away, until all she would say was, "That which I have committed unto Him." That which I have committed unto Him. When she was on her deathbed, her family gathered about, saw her

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lips moving, and they knelt down to hear what she was saying, thinking that there was some word of instruction or request. And they found now that only one word of the verse was left to her. And she kept repeating that word over and over again. "Him. Him. Him." She lost all the Bible except for one word. But in that one word, she had all the Bible. The Bible is the norm of our living. But

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the Bible is summed and surpassed in one word, and that word is Jesus. And He is the victor for us in life and in death. Because of Him, death has lost its sting and the grave has lost its victory. Because of Him, the tomb has been changed into a thoroughfare. Because of Him, darkness has been transformed into dawn. He taught us how to live, and He teaches us how to die. Because He gives to

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us life ever after. Have you noticed the circular nature of what I'm saying this morning? We start out, you see, with a healthy love for ourselves because we're made and fashioned by God. Now, when you have that in you, you are enabled to love other people, to extend your heart in your pathway of life to others. But that takes courage, and this is where conscience comes in. Conscience strengthens

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us so that we pursue the right. Now, the ultimate thing that can happen to us in the pursuit of right is that we be called upon to die. But Jesus even enables us to confront the reality of death, and how does He enable us to do that? By reminding us, now we've gone full circle, that we are so loved by God that He does not even turn away from us in death, and it's His love that drives away

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our fear. Like that little girl in Ohio, she was playing hooky from school, and they ran into a radio broadcaster who was standing on a corner poking fun in his microphone at people who were going by, interviewing them, and here comes this group of high school kids that had sneaked out of school for the day. And when he put the microphone in front of them, well, some of them,

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of course, giggled, and some of them chattered, and some of them whispered, and some of them looked very much dismayed and frightened. But there was one little girl who was very composed, showed no anxiety at all when he put the microphone up there, and he was rather surprised at that, and so he said, "How come you're so cool? You've been on the radio before?" "No," she said, "I'm

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not scared of your microphone because of my mother. My mother died when I was 11 years old, and the night she died, she called us all into her room, and she said, 'I'm going to die, but I'm not afraid. And I'm not afraid because I know Jesus, and Jesus has promised us that He has prepared a home place for us, and I believe Him. And I want you to remember this, because if you

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remember this, then you'll not be afraid to die. And if you're not afraid to die, then you won't be afraid of anything else. So that's why I'm not afraid of you or of your microphone." And that's it. If you have no fear of death, you have no fear of life. In our Lord Jesus Christ, we see the marks of full and glorious humanity. And when we are like Jesus Christ, there will be in us full

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and glorious humanity, the evidences of Christian maturity. So like flowers who keep their pretty heads always facing toward the sun, let us always keep our eyes upon Jesus as the Son of our souls, until—until for us to live will be Christ. Let us pray. O Father, God, remind us of your love. Out of that love, lead us to love others. Give us the

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courage to do it, because we stand with conscience by thy grace. Enable us to face even death itself, in the knowledge that we can be victors in life and death because of thy love, because of Jesus Christ. And if, Father, there are any now hearing my voice who do not know this Christ who is the answer to life and death, send thy Spirit into and upon them. Fan the flames of their need until they

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cry out to thee. And then, when they ask thee with their hearts for thy blessing, thy forgiveness, and thy love, swallow them up in your everlasting arms and make them new again, all by Jesus and for Jesus. Amen.