John 13:1-20
1 Now before the festival of the Passover, Jesus knew that his hour had
come to depart from this world and go to the Father. Having loved his own who
were in the world, he loved them to the end. 2 The devil had already put it
into the heart of Judas son of Simon Iscariot to betray him. And during supper
3 Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands, and that
he had come from God and was going to God, 4 got up from the table, took off
his outer robe, and tied a towel around himself. 5 Then he poured water into a
basin and began to wash the disciples' feet and to wipe them with the towel
that was tied around him. 6 He came to Simon Peter, who said to him,
"Lord, are you going to wash my feet?" 7 Jesus answered, "You do
not know now what I am doing, but later you will understand." 8 Peter said
to him, "You will never wash my feet." Jesus answered, "Unless I
wash you, you have no share with me." 9 Simon Peter said to him,
"Lord, not my feet only but also my hands and my head!" 10 Jesus said
to him, "One who has bathed does not need to wash, except for the feet,
but is entirely clean. And you are clean, though not all of you." 11 For
he knew who was to betray him; for this reason he said, "Not all of you
are clean." 12 After he had washed their feet, had put on his robe, and
had returned to the table, he said to them, "Do you know what I have done
to you? 13 You call me Teacher and Lord—and you are right, for that is what I
am. 14 So if I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to
wash one another's feet. 15 For I have set you an example, that you also should
do as I have done to you. 16 Very truly, I tell you, servants are not greater
than their master, nor are messengers greater than the one who sent them. 17 If
you know these things, you are blessed if you do them. 18 I am not speaking of
all of you; I know whom I have chosen. But it is to fulfill the scripture,
"The one who ate my bread has lifted his heel against me.' 19 I tell you
this now, before it occurs, so that when it does occur, you may believe that I
am he. 20 Very truly, I tell you, whoever receives one whom I send receives me;
and whoever receives me receives him who sent me."
It could have been any Saturday morning in the late ‘80s or early 90s,
we’d wake up to the smell of bacon fried in an old cast iron skillet and
hand-made biscuits right out of the oven. We’d eat a bite or two of breakfast
and maybe even catch an episode of The
Smurfs or The Muppet Babies (which we always called
the Muffet Babies) before running out
the back door and jumping in the bed of Grandma’s truck to head into town to
the grocery store. Now, Grandma didn’t always let us ride in the back of the
truck; sometimes we’d have to ride in the cab with her and watch as the ear
plugs she hung around the rearview mirror after working in the chicken plant
all week would swing back and forth with the rhythm of the road.
We always went to the same grocery store in town—Sav-U. We loved Sav-U
because we were members of their “cookie club,” and we’d always get a free
cookie from their bakery. Sav-U was sort of a playground to us. The floors were
checkered with red and white tiles; we’d pretend the red tiles were “lava” and
see if we could walk all through the store without ever touching a red tile. After
all, we didn’t want that lava to burn our bare feet. Grandma would eventually
round us up to head home, and we’d jump back in the bed of the truck and let
the groceries ride in the cab. After we got back home and unloaded the
groceries we’d usually lay on the floor in the living room and watch cartoons
before running back outside to play.
There was always a sure sign as to whether or not we had been to the
grocery store with Grandma on any particular morning. It’s a phenomenon we
refer to as “grocery store feet.” (Some of you know exactly what I’m talking
about!) Whenever we went to the grocery store with Grandma the souls of our
feet would get so dirty they’d be black with all the dirt and grime that
collects on the floor of a grocery store. Sometimes we’d even wash our feet
after a Saturday morning trip to the grocery store, and the water would be so
dirty you could feel the grit in it! Our feet could get awful dirty just from a
few laps around the tiled floor of the grocery store in town, so I can only
imagine how dirty our feet would have been if we had had to walk around all day
on the dusty roads in the dry heat of ancient Judea.
That wasn’t only a Saturday morning occurrence in the lives of Jesus and
his disciples living in first-century Judea. They walked everywhere! There was
no truck bed to be hauled around in, no taxi cabs, no sedans parked in the
yard; to even see others riding atop animals like horses and donkeys would have
been an exceptional sight. No, if Jesus and his followers were going to get
anywhere, they were going to walk, and they didn’t walk on nice, clean streets
either. They would have shared the same dirty, dusty roads as the rest of the
citizens of that ancient place. Furthermore, they wore simple, leather-thong
sandals (if they wore them at all), exposing their feet to the weather and the dirt
of those same roads. Needless to say, the people of ancient Judea had more than
just an occasional case of “grocery store feet.”
It was precisely because of this “dirty foot problem” that it was common
courtesy for one to wash his or her feet when coming into someone’s home,
especially for a meal. And if one was wealthy enough, a slave was given the
task of washing the feet of guests. For the Jews of ancient Judea, however,
foot washing was too lowly, too dirty a task even for Jewish slaves, so if a
slave was to wash your feet, it was surely going to be a Gentile (non-Jewish
slave). Washing feet was something left to the lowest of the low; it was a
filthy job left for those considered to be just above the filth themselves.
With that in mind, we turn our attention to this
passage before us from the Fourth Gospel (the Gospel according to John). Now,
this is the only place in all of the gospels where we have this particular
story. In fact, this story in John’s gospel takes the place of the “Last
Supper” narratives in the synoptic gospels (Matthew, Mark, and Luke). This
foot-washing scene is John’s Last Supper. It’s a particularly powerful story,
because we see our Lord truly exemplifying his teachings, taking the job of the
lowest slave in order to wash his disciples’ filthy, road-worn feet. The gospel
writer describes in detail just how Jesus went about his work in verses four and five: “[Jesus] got up from the table, took off his outer robe, and tied a
towel around himself. Then he poured water into a basin and began to wash the
disciples' feet and to wipe them with the towel that was tied around him.”
Can you imagine what the air must have been like in
that room when Jesus, after taking off his outer robe and tying a towel around
his waist, knelt down on the floor and began washing those filthy,
first-century feet? Can you hear the whispered gasps as Jesus splashed the
cool, clean water onto the first foot of one of his followers? Can you feel the
tension and embarrassment as Jesus wiped away the dust and the caked crust from
the feet of those men in that room? Can you smell the sweaty leather of
well-worn sandals and the feet that had worn them as the Creator of the
universe bent low to wash the stench away? Is it any wonder that Peter would
speak up with an obvious air of hesitation and refusal in verse 6: "Lord, are you
going to wash my feet?" They had been following this man, the Son
of God, for some time now; they had seen him perform great signs and wonders,
speak deep and mysterious truths, baffle both the religious and civil
authorities with his understanding of God’s Law, and now—now this same man was
kneeling on the floor to wash their feet like some unknown Gentile, slave?! And
so, Peter asks, "Lord, are you going to wash my feet?"
All throughout this gospel, Peter seems to be the one
who speaks before he thinks. He seems to almost understand, but in the end, he
misses it by a mile. Jesus says to Peter in verse seven: "You do not
know now what I am doing, but later you will understand." Now, as
to whether Jesus meant that Peter would understand after Jesus offered an
explanation, or after Jesus’ crucifixion and subsequent resurrection, or after
his ascension and the arrival of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, the answer seems
to be simply “yes.” Peter would understand what it was Jesus was doing only
after he understood who Jesus truly and fully is. So it’s no wonder Peter still
doesn’t get it in verse eight when
he still refuses Jesus: "You will never wash my feet." Jesus
explained to Peter, "Unless I wash you, you have no share with me."
Unless Peter was willing to accept all of who Jesus was, allowing Jesus even to
wash Peter’s feet, Peter could have no place with Jesus, no part to play in his
kingdom movement. So, Peter, as if trying to overcompensate for his lack of
understanding says in verse nine, "Lord, not my feet only but also my
hands and my head!" “Wash all of me, Lord!” Peter declares, but
still he misses the point, for Jesus tells him in verse ten, "One who has
bathed does not need to wash, except for the feet, but is entirely clean. And
you are clean.”
Now, at the end of verse
ten we read Jesus’ words: “And you are clean, though not all of
you." The evangelist gives us some narrative commentary on what
exactly Jesus meant in verse eleven: “For he knew who was to betray him; for this
reason he said, ‘Not all of you are clean.’” Here, in the middle of this powerful scene revolving
around the washing of the disciples’ feet, the writer of the Fourth Gospel begins
to weave another story, a contrasting story. You see, Jesus has washed his
disciples’ feet—all of his disciples’ feet, including the one who would betray
him, and it is Jesus’ betrayer to whom the evangelist begins to turn our
attention.
Now, in verses
twelve through seventeen, Jesus delivers a discourse explaining the
significance of what he has just done: "Do you know what I have done to you?
You call me Teacher and Lord—and you are right, for that is what I am. So if I,
your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one
another's feet. For I have set you an example, that you also should do as I
have done to you. Very truly, I tell you, servants are not greater than their
master, nor are messengers greater than the one who sent them. If you know
these things, you are blessed if you do them. With these words, Jesus
has not set a precedent for some sort of ritual; rather, he has set the example
for how those who call themselves his followers ought to behave towards one
another. In other words, it’s as if Jesus has said, “If you recognize me as
your Teacher, your Lord, your Savior, your God, your Master, and I (your
Teacher, Lord, Savior, God, Master, etc.) have done something for you as seemingly
lowly and slave-like as wash your feet, then what reason can you possibly have
to not do the same sorts of things for each other?” By washing his followers’
feet, Jesus has given them, given us, an example of humility and service, and
he has foreshadowed his greatest act of humility and service in the giving of
his very life on the cross.
There is, however, another story, another example,
developing in the same room as this foot-washing. For just as the evangelist
gave us a glimpse into the meaning of Jesus’ words back in verse eleven, in verses
eighteen through twenty Jesus
himself sheds some light on what else is taking place in the midst of his
disciples there: “I am not speaking of all of you; I know whom I have chosen. But it is
to fulfill the scripture, ‘The one who ate my bread has lifted his heel against
me.' I tell you this now, before it occurs, so that when it does occur, you may
believe that I am he. Very truly, I tell you, whoever receives one whom I send
receives me; and whoever receives me receives him who sent me." Jesus almost seems to shift gears in
the middle of his teaching about the foot-washing, when he makes reference to
Psalm 41 in verse 18. But there is
something there that ought to catch our attention, something that perhaps we
recall from the other gospel accounts of Jesus’ last Passover with his
disciples.
Unlike the other gospels, the Fourth Gospel makes no
bones about who it is that would betray Jesus. The other gospels build up a
little suspense. But in the Fourth Gospel we’re told as early as chapter six, verse seventy-one that it
is Judas, son of Simon Iscariot that would betray him. Now, Judas was no
outsider; he wasn’t some stranger who wandered in the door in the middle of
Jesus washing his followers’ feet. Judas wasn’t one whom the others rejected,
nor was he one who was treated with contempt or disappointment from the Master
(remember, Judas’ feet were washed the same as every other disciples’). Judas
even ate from the same table as Jesus and the rest of the disciples. There is
no doubt that Judas would have taken the bread that Jesus broke or the cup that
Jesus blessed according to the other gospel accounts. There is no doubt that
Judas would have been right along with the others in his proclamations of
loyalty and service to Jesus. Yet, in the end, after Jesus shows his followers
how they are to love and serve one another, even through the lowliest of tasks,
Judas betrays him.
Jesus washed Judas’ feet. Judas ate the bread Jesus
gave him saying, “Take, eat; this is my body (Matthew 26:26).” Judas drank the
cup that Jesus gave him saying, “this is my blood…which is poured out for
many for the forgiveness of sins (Matthew 26:28).” Judas was visibly a
disciple in every way, and yet when the time came, he betrayed his Lord.
There are many who, like Judas, are visibly disciples
in every way. They go to church; they read their Bibles; they give their tithe.
There are many who eat the bread; there are many who drink the cup. But are
there many who heed Christ’s example in his washing of the disciples’ feet? Are
there many who would stoop so low as to serve others? Are there many who would
take on even the lowliest of tasks in order to serve another human being? Are
there many who would heed the ultimate example of Christ and be willing to go
so far to serve others as to give their very lives?
There are many of us in this room today who are visibly
disciples in every way. We’re here at church; we’ve read our Bibles; we’ve said
grace at dinner. Today, we’ll eat the bread, and we’ll drink from the cup, but
I wonder. Will we go beyond being simply a people who eat bread and drink
juice? Will we go beyond being a people who simply go to church and do all the
other things so-called “good, Christian people” do? Will you simply eat this
bread and drink from this cup today and return to the world unchanged,
betraying the calling of the Lord, or will you eat this bread and drink this
cup prepared to fulfill the foot-washing example of our Lord and Master, Jesus
the Christ? Today, will you simply be about eating bread? Or will you also be
about washing feet?
Let
us pray…
