109. Happy
John 13:17 If ye know these things, happy are ye if ye do them.
Happiness usually means blessed in the Bible and it is connected to the general well being of life in all its goodness and richness. It is also often connected to conditional promises: if you keep the commandments, then you will be blessed. This is most certainly true: if we would obey the Ten Commandments and the words of Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount, for example, our lives would, in consequence, be blessed in every way. “Blessed is he who hears the word of God and keeps it.”
The conditional promise is also evident in John 13, where Jesus has just acted as a servant and washes the feet of the disciples at the Last Supper. He says, “You ought to wash one another’s feet. For I have given you an example.” The object lesson of the example is service: live your lives as a servant in the service of other people, always lowering yourself and serving the needs of others.
A servant does not serve to get blessed; he serves to get paid. But you will serve other people by dying to self and giving up your own needs to see that the needs and comforts of others are met. This thought runs contrary to all logic and normal experience. The world grabs and gets what it can before others do; we must rip and steal in order to gain; we need power to make others serve us. But you are not like your friends in the world: you are different; you are the opposite; you serve. There is no motivation to serve and love and give, for we do not see how we can get anything of benefit for it.
It is for this reason that Jesus gives the promise, “Happy are you if you do them.” It is worth it, giving yourself up for the benefit of others. Serving and giving and laying down our own lives (our own rights) have a return value, a benefit for self: you will be happy. Believe the promise: washing feet brings happiness. I would not know that unless I was told. So Jesus tells me. He makes a promise.