‘Servant leadership and power in weakness - the upside-down way of Jesus’ by Dan Green, 6 April 2025

What makes a great leader? Dan Green looks at the differences between what people often expect and what Jesus showed through his service and self-sacrifice. Why was it controversial to put a life-size, captive Jesus (Mark Wallinger’s “Ecce Homo”) onto a giant plinth in Trafalgar Square, and would we find this comforting, inspiring or disturbing to see? Could it help to remind ourselves of how people were so surprised to see Jesus lead the way he did, and even more surprised to see the power of his kingdom?

Creative Commons image by Dave Pearce, flickr.com

Building up towards Easter – 2 weeks to go. I’d like to share with you two thoughts I’ve been thinking about recently, which I hope will give you food for thought in the coming weeks too. First is about what kind of leader Jesus was - what his leadership style was, and how it offers a revolutionary alternative to the models and methods of leadership that were prevalent at the time, but that also persist today. And the second is about the paradox that God’s power has actually been demonstrated not through strength, but through weakness, and that as we reflect during this time on Jesus’ journey towards the cross, we’re confronted with some challenging and at times uncomfortable thoughts about God.

I’ve been reminded of the time back in 1999, when the nation was preparing to celebrate the year 2000, the new Millenium, it was decided that an appropriate statue should be at last installed on the empty 4th plinth… some of you may be familiar, the plinth stands empty and is used to exhibit artwork on a rotating basis. This is because in 1843, Trafalgar Square in London was first opened. The centre piece was of course Nelson’s column, but four enormous plinths  had been built around it to hold statues of King George IV, William IV and two heroes of the British Raj – Sir Henry Havelock and General Sir Charles James Napier. King William had failed to provide funds for his statue though, so it was never installed.

So in 1999, when we were all getting ready for the big year 2000, the big debate was who the new statue should be of? Churchill, Queen Victoria, Shakespeare? In the end, a statue of Jesus was chosen, as a nod to the link our calendar and our millenium has to his life. But the statue chosen only enraged the debate. Mark Wallinger’s Ecce Homo (behold the man) was a simple white life-size statue, a mere fraction of the size of the plinth itself. Naked apart from a loincloth, his hands tied behind his back and a gold-plated barbed wire crown of thorns on his bald head, Jesus looked tiny and insignificant. Most passers-by were taken aback by the image – it was in such stark contrast to the usual, grand, triumphalist images around it and in most depictions of Christ. Where were his beard, his long hair, his halo, his robes? Why was he so tiny and vulnerable? One person commented ‘You couldn’t put your faith in someone like that – he’s weak as a kitten’. One of the UK’s leading Christian magazines expressed its concern: ‘It’s a statue of weakness. Will it send out the wrong signals?’

I wonder what you think makes a good leader? We live in a world where might is right, where more and more countries seem to be electing leaders who portray themselves as strong, their opponents as weak or dangerous, and where the threat of violence is openly used to try and keep ourselves at the top, and to protect our own interests. We live in an era when nuclear was is avoided by making sure you have nuclear weapons. It’s actually pretty scary, and what’s even scarier to me is the way that many who claim to follow Jesus buy into this mentality. We’ve seen that in the U.S particularly, where evangelical Christians are one of the main support bases for the America First and MAGA movements.

But the problem with this is that as we approach Easter, we’re going to be bringing into focus a series of events in Jesus’ life that demonstrate that in God’s kingdom and God’s equation, the exact opposite is actually true. That God’s power is somehow, incredibly, mysteriously, demonstrated through voluntary weakness, through servant leadership and through sacrificial love.

I want to focus today on a moment in this story which I believe is a hugely significant one, one where Jesus flips on its head on the expected model of leadership the Messiah would bring. On the eve of his crucifixion, Jesus invited his disciples for a meal. Their expectation was that they were coming together to celebrate Passover – something the Jews did every year to remember how God had rescued them from their enemies in the past. We pick up the story in John 13: 

It was just before the Passover Festival. Jesus knew that the hour had come for him to leave this world and go to the Father. Having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end.

The timing of this story makes Jesus’ actions all the more significant. Tonight he will be betrayed and arrested, tomorrow he will die on a cross. So what teaching or example does he want to leave his followers? What will he do to sum up his message?

2 The evening meal was in progress, and the devil had already prompted Judas, the son of Simon Iscariot, to betray Jesus. 3 Jesus knew that the Father had put all things under his power, and that he had come from God and was returning to God; 4 so he got up from the meal, took off his outer clothing, and wrapped a towel around his waist. 5 After that, he poured water into a basin and began to wash his disciples’ feet, drying them with the towel that was wrapped around him.

Normally, when people arrived in a home, before everyone settled down to enjoy the meal, everyone had their feet washed. Only those at the very bottom of the social ladder, Gentile slaves, were expected to perform such a task – people were not allowed to instruct their Jewish slaves to do it – as this act was seen as demeaning and something for the lowest of the low. But because Jesus had hired the room, there were no slaves to wash everyone’s feet. So taking this moment, apparently knowing what lay ahead in the coming days and wanting to give them a lasting and memorable lesson, much to their shock, he begins to wash their feet.

6 He came to Simon Peter, who said to him, “Lord, are you going to wash my feet?”

7 Jesus replied, “You do not realize now what I am doing, but later you will understand.”

8 “No,” said Peter, “you shall never wash my feet.”

Jesus answered, “Unless I wash you, you have no part with me.”

9 “Then, Lord,” Simon Peter replied, “not just my feet but my hands and my head as well!”

10 Jesus answered, “Those who have had a bath need only to wash their feet; their whole body is clean. And you are clean, though not every one of you.” 11 For he knew who was going to betray him, and that was why he said not every one was clean.

He knew who was going to betray him. How amazing that Jesus chooses to invite Judas to take part in this meal and even to wash his feet. Think how counter-cultural that is in today’s world, where disagreement with someone or mistreatment by someone is normally followed by cutting them off, cancelling them, demonising them. But not Jesus – perhaps he was keeping the door open for Judas to change his mind, even right up until the last moment.

12 When he had finished washing their feet, he put on his clothes and returned to his place. “Do you understand what I have done for you?” he asked them. 13 “You call me ‘Teacher’ and ‘Lord,’ and rightly so, for that is what I am. 14 Now that I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also should wash one another’s feet. 15 I have set you an example that you should do as I have done for you. 16 Very truly I tell you, no servant is greater than his master, nor is a messenger greater than the one who sent him. 17 Now that you know these things, you will be blessed if you do them.

So there we have it – Jesus gives them this incredible example of servant leadership. He was making a statement that in God’s kingdom, status does not come from having people running round and serving you, but it comes from serving others. He was showing his closest friends that if they wanted to follow him, they would have to live differently. And I don’t know about you, but I find that so refreshing and so striking in the world’s current view of what it means to be a leader, what it means to have influence. So refreshing.

But I also find it deeply challenging, because this is not an easy example to follow! We naturally want to be seen, to be recognised, to have importance. Quite often, I’m the last one to leave the office of our charity Bridges. And like any team that is made up of human beings, people forget stuff. They don’t wash their cups, they leave paper on the desk, they even leave their chairs out in the middle of the room – shocking isn’t it! But when this happens, don’t tell any of them, but I have this inner battle, whether to do it myself, whether to say something to them etc. And most of the time I just do it, sometimes I don’t. It’s a silly example, but my point is this… There isn’t really another leader who challenges me in the same way as that of Jesus. The servant leadership he modelled has forever messed with and challenged the leadership model that says leaders are more important than those they follow, or there are certain tasks only followers should do.

But it doesn’t come naturally. Our ego pushes against it, and the same happened with Jesus’ disciples. Luke’s gospel tells us that the very same evening… Luke 22: 24-27

A dispute also arose among them as to which of them was considered to be greatest. 25 

They clearly didn’t get it! But Jesus responds to them:

Jesus said to them, “The kings of the Gentiles lord it over them; and those who exercise authority over them call themselves benefactors. 26 But you are not to be like that. Instead, the greatest among you should be like the youngest, and the one who rules like the one who serves. 27 For who is greater, the one who is at the table or the one who serves? Is it not the one who is at the table? But I am among you as one who serves.”

It's the upside down kingdom. Where the one who rules looks like the one who serves. It was as radical and surprising then as it is for us now.

But it shouldn’t have come as a complete surprise to Jesus’ followers should it? They’d have been familiar with his life story, they’d have surely started to realise that though he was someone great, he was very happy to be in a lower position, to be a person without status? Starting with humble beginnings and being born into a life of poverty. Then for the last few years he had been acting out examples of this, and in just the previous chapter, Jesus had entered the city in a quite bizarre way - Jesus sitting on a donkey, weeping! This was not the kind of triumph that would have impressed Rome or would have impressed most of the world today, looking for strength and for control.

What they were about to experience in the days around Easter was only going to continue the same trend. Fast forward with me to Good Friday, where on the cross, Jesus took on the idea that power is shown through strength and that violence is the ultimate solution, by ‘turning the other cheek’ and refusing to return evil with evil, willingly absorbing its impact into his own body, and choosing to be put in the position of ultimate weakness, stripped, humiliated and ultimately killed. But, mysteriously, Jesus wasn’t failing as Messiah; he was actually succeeding. The Kingdom wasn’t coming through military force. It was coming in God’s way – through self-giving love. Through other-serving love. Through sacrifice.

And in the last book of the Bible, Revelation, the language used to describe Jesus gives us further insight into this mystery. In Revelation 5, 5 Then one of the elders said to me, “Do not weep! See, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, has triumphed. He is able to open the scroll and its seven seals.” 6 Then I saw a Lamb, looking as if it had been slain, standing at the center of the throne, encircled by the four living creatures and the elders. 

The ancient Lion of Judah is revealed as the Lamb that was slaughtered. It is the lamb, the crucified, annihiliated, weakest of all, who turns out to be the saviour of us all, who is at the centre of God’s throne, and becomes the symbol of power.

So running right through the life story of Jesus, at the heart of our faith lies this paradox that God’s power is demonstrated not in strength, might, wealth or grandeur, but in voluntary weakness, in sacrifice, in love.  This is what the Easter story brings front and centre of our minds each year, and it’s an incredible and wonderful thing.

So what does this mean for us?

Jesus asked his followers to do 3 things to remember him. To baptise others, just as he had been baptised by John. To remember the meal he shared that evening, and to wash one another’s feet. We don’t tend to do this in a literal sense – pe we should consider it – but we can all be thinking about ways that we can serve people around us this Easter. It can start in small ways, as small as offering to make a cup of tea for someone in your household or your office, but every small act is a small reflection of what Jesus has shown us and taught us.

The servant leadership that Jesus demonstrates and calls us into can set us free.  Many of us spend our days giving people a good impression, building a reputation, trying to cover up our weaknesses. But the way of Jesus frees us of the need to do that. It gives us the opportunity to become less important, not more. And as we do that, we get little glimpses of  what God feels – freedom, release, purpose, meaning, joy. In our best moments, those times we willingly sacrifice our own needs for the good of others, we are participating , as Edward Yarnold said, in the image of God. The more we come to know this God, and the more we understand our true nature, the more natural self-sacrifice will become to us.

Secondly, this Easter, whenever you have time to contemplate, to pause, to consider, think again about this mystery of God’s power demonstrated through weakness, this way that Jesus has shown us of servant leadership, and the way he has acted in love for us. As Stewart Henderson put it in his poem about the cross:

Strange way to reassure your mother

Strange way to finish your world tour

Strange way to pose for all those paintings

Strange way to gather the poor

Strange dissident of meekness

And nurse of tangled souls

It’s so unlike the holy

To end up full of holes

Just pause with that for a moment. The cross, though we’re now so familiar with it, is still shocking, surprising, confusing… and yet somehow we resonate with it, and sense a glimmer of God’s sacrificial love for us as we contemplate it. ‘Do you understand what I’ve done for you?’ Jesus asked his disciples, and perhaps asks each of us today. The truth is that I don’t… maybe I can’t. It always feels like there are more layers to unpick and treasures to discover, where I get a glimpse of one thing and then another layer pops up to work through. Claire has done a great job unpacking some of this. Perhaps it’s helpful just to think of it in the simplest terms, that he did for us. That he gave his life for us, in a way not dissimilair from someone jumping on the track and pushing you out of the way of a train. Or a firefighter going into the blaze, a policeman rescuing a hostage. Or perhaps it’s as Eddie Askew says in his book Cross Purposes ‘I don’t understand what Jesus has done… but I’m sure glad that he’s done it!’

The events of that first Easter turn the tables, and show that God’s power, while not demonstrated in the show of strength that the world expects, is power nonetheless. That love, while sacrificial and voluntarily weak, is stronger than death. There is hope.

And as we journey towards Easter, on Maundy Thursday and on Good Friday, this is what we will reflect on, this incredible demonstration of divine love that is given to us by the cross. We’re going to finish by doing this together, by celebrating the Lord’s supper, and by worshipping together again.

In a couple of weeks we’ll be celebrating the resurrection, and rightly so. Without the resurrection, the cross is a bitter blow. Its message is that violence wins, might is right, the weak will always be oppressed and abused by the powerful. Power, privilege, money, position and guns rule. But that’s not where the story ends, and the truth is that Sunday is coming. But it’s noticeable that Jesus told his followers to remember his death… he could have waited until after the resurrection when he was sitting on the beach eating fish with them, and said whenever you eat this fish, remember that I was raised from the dead. But he didn’t, he felt that it was important for his followers to remember his death. And my guess is that that’s because it stands forever as a reminder to us, that while God is powerful and God is victorious, that victory has come through voluntary weakness, becoming a small baby, born into poverty, leading a ragamuffin band of followers, dying on a cross… and in the process, giving us the ultimate depiction of love.