Master Model Maker

I am not an avid model maker as some people are. Yet over the years I have snapped and glued together my share of model planes, cars, tanks, ships, spaceships, birds, and even dinosaurs. I confess, though, a fundamental failing in my model making. “Paint all parts before assembly.” Those may not have been the exact words, but they constitute the gist of instructions I failed to follow every time. When I looked at the box in the store, I did not see a lot of dull, monotone parts affixed to plastic strips – a bewildering array of small and large pieces requiring a master maker to paint and assemble carefully and lovingly from beginning to end, step by detailed step. I saw the whole thing. I saw the beautifully painted, fully assembled result on the cover of the box. That is what I desired. That is what I bought. Or at least that is what I thought I bought. Until I opened the box at home; balked at the mass of parts; impatiently began to snap and glue together with only the barest regard for instructions; and ended up with a dull, messy object sort of approximating the work of art the real maker had completed and displayed on the box cover. Then I tried to paint it to look like the image on the cover. “Paint all parts before assembly.” Regularly, frustratingly, I discovered the reason in this instruction. I guess I thought I could make the entire model without painting the parts first, and without following instructions too closely, then paint it in detail to its most beautiful state, as if by magic. What I really needed was a true master model maker, for I am not one.

I thought of all of this when recently re-reading John 13, about Jesus washing the disciples’ feet the night of his arrest, in prelude to his crucifixion, then instructing them that they must follow his example. The foot washing embodied for them that he – their Teacher and Lord – had become a servant to them. They – his followers – must become servants to each other and to others. In our turn, we also – to be followers of Jesus – must become servants.

In reality, we want to be the master model maker of our life. We want to build the model in our own way and in accord with our own image of it. So we follow the instructions little or not at all. Instead, we want to give Jesus the fully assembled model of our life – the model we constructed without painting the parts first or following the instructions – and have him paint it after the fact to cap the beauty of it. In other words, we do not really want to be like Jesus if it means certain things – such as becoming a servant. We want to be like Jesus in the ways we want to be, not the ways he wants us to be.

If Easter life means anything, if death and resurrection in Jesus mean anything, they mean that we cannot give him our life fully assembled, according to our own design and instructions, and expect him just to cap it with paint – that is, bless it after the fact. He must assemble our life. He must paint all the parts first, and then assemble it rightly. This means he must disassemble our present life (death in Jesus) and then reassemble our life anew according to his design and instructions (resurrection in Jesus). Our life will then become a beautiful model of him as he paints and assembles it carefully and lovingly from beginning to end, step by detailed step. For Jesus – our Teacher and Lord – is the true master model maker.