Ask any parent who gets up at 2:00 a.m. and then at 3:00 a.m. and then at 3:30 a.m. to answer the cry of a sick baby. Lovers never ask, “What’s the least I can do?”

Ask any man whose income is so limited that after he pays his rent and buys his groceries he has only pennies to spare. But his sweetheart has a birthday the next month and he has his eye on something that means he’ll have to go without lunch for three weeks. So he buys it.

Boys’ Town near Omaha has made capital of a poster showing a little guy toting a tyke nearly as big as he is, saying, “He’s not heavy; he’s my brother.”

Are any of these lovers looking for a medal? No. They’re only doing their duty. And it’s only natural.

Our relationship to Christ is like that. For although Jesus may have been cracking a small joke when he portrayed how ludicrous it could have been if the master served the slave, yet that ridiculous reversal of roles is just what took place in the Upper Room when the Master served the disciples, washing their feet. It was symbolic of his entire ministry, including the cross.

Alvin Rueter, Freedom to Be Wrong, CSS Publishing Company