Hansie served as a pastor for more than 42 years and has spent the past 14 years serving with OM. His primary role is the care and support of mission workers — a calling he is deeply passionate about. Walking alongside those who serve in challenging and often unseen contexts continues to shape his understanding of discipleship, service and the quiet, faithful way of Jesus.

“Just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.” — Matthew 20:28 (NIV)

Lent invites us to look again at Jesus — longer and deeper. Not the ‘safe’ Jesus we have grown comfortable with. Not the Jesus who fits easily into our calendars and social media feeds.

Lent invites us to stay with the radical truth of who Jesus chose to be. Jesus did not merely teach about service; He became a servant. Jesus freely chose a life defined by obedience and self-giving. He did this not to make a point, but to show us the way.

The context of Matthew 20:28 isn’t a quiet moment of prayer or teaching. It comes in the middle of an argument about greatness. Just before this verse, the mother of James and John approaches Jesus with a request: she wants her sons to sit at Jesus’ right and left when He comes into His Kingdom (Matthew 20:20–21). This is not a small or innocent request. It is a plea for status, closeness to power and public recognition (this is the way power and status work even today).

In Matthew 20:26, Jesus announces a decisive, radically different new way: “Not so with you.” With these four words, Jesus draws a clear line between the kingdoms of this world and the Kingdom of God.

In a world obsessed with status, hierarchy and honour, Jesus refused it.

To call Jesus a servant is to say something deeply confrontational. Servants were not admired. They were invisible. They were interruptible. They existed for the needs of others, not their own recognition. Servants had no platform.

And yet Jesus says plainly: This is who I am.

We often try to soften this truth. We over-spiritualise it. We make it easier to admire than to follow. Much like the gentle glow we place around the baby in the manger, we wrap Jesus’ servanthood in sentimentality, so it won’t disturb us too much.

But the servanthood of Jesus is not gentle in its implications — it is radical.

Jesus’ entire life flowed from this posture:

• He touched those others avoided
• He listened to those others dismissed
• He went to places others feared or ignored
• He gave Himself without controlling the outcome

And ultimately, He gave His life.

This matters because the posture of the Master determines the posture of the disciple.

If Jesus is a servant, then following Him cannot be about visibility, influence or being seen as ‘doing good.’ Lent exposes how easily our service can become another form of self-promotion. We serve — but we document it. We help — but we frame it. We give — but we make sure it is noticed. We serve — but we take selfies!

Jesus offers a different way. He did not come to be served. He came to serve with open hands, to love without needing applause and to lay down His life for many. This is where our call to the unreached quietly lives.

To follow a servant Messiah is to be willing to go where there is little recognition, little return and little immediate fruit. It is to choose faithfulness over visibility, presence over impact statistics, love over legacy.

Lent asks us:

• Are we willing to serve where no one is watching?
• Are we willing to be interrupted, misunderstood, or forgotten?
• Are we willing to let our lives be poured out quietly, like Jesus’ was?

This is the way that gives life. This is the way that redeems many. This is the way of the cross.