Read John 13
What
happened on Palm Sunday? Jesus rode
into Jerusalem seated on the colt of a donkey and was greeted with cheers
of Hosanna. That moment while surely the
greatest event since
David’s military victories would be short-lived.
The people
would cheer. The Pharisees would be
offended. The day would come to an end,
but the week ahead held so much for the disciples and for us.
Jesus gathered
his disciples surely for a meal—an intimate meal with his closest friends. But first he stripped down to next to
nothing, took a towel and a water basin and moved about the room washing the
feet of his disciples.
This was the
act of a servant. This was Jesus their
Master.
This was a job for the
least among them. This was Jesus the
Lord.
There were
people who were supposed to do this work.
Jesus took the towel and the basin and went to work.
As far as we
know, nobody said a word until Jesus got to Peter. Imagine the feeling in the room as Jesus went
from disciple to disciple washing their feet.
How thick that air must have been to hold the silence.
Realize that
Judas was still among these men. Jesus
washed the feet of his betrayer.
Finally, it
was Peter’s turn. Peter said what’s up
with this? You don’t think you—the
Christ—are going to wash my feet, do you?
This just can’t be right.
Jesus
replied, “You do not realize now what I am doing, but later you will
understand.”
As you live
this moment, you can’t understand its significance, but you will. That future understanding likely came with
the coming of the Spirit at Pentecost.
At this particular moment in time, it was too much to understand.
Understand
it or not, Peter told Jesus that there was no way he would wash his feet.
Jesus
answered, “Unless I wash you, you have no part with me.”
Peter didn’t understand what Jesus was doing, but he was not
going to be left out of what Jesus had in store for him. Give me a bath and a shave and a
hairdo! OK then, give me the works.
Jesus went on to explain that if the body was clean, all
that was needed was to wash the feet.
That was a factual statement and an analogy as well. The disciples had been made right with God in
their discipleship.
They believed Jesus to be the Christ.
They believed Jesus to be the Son of God.
They worshiped him.
They were clean. They
didn’t yet understand what was ahead of them but Jesus had made them right with
his Father, save the one who must betray him.
Jesus finished his tactile and kinesthetic lesson and put his
clothes back on. Now was the time for
these disciples to begin contemplating the lesson.
“Do you
understand what I have done for you?” he asked them. “You call me ‘Teacher’ and
‘Lord,’ and rightly so, for that is what I am.
Now that I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also
should wash one another’s feet. I have
set you an example that you should do as I have done for you. Very truly I tell you, no servant is greater
than his master, nor is a messenger greater than the one who sent him. Now that you know
these things, you will be blessed if you do them.
As we near the end of the gospels, we see Jesus present two
things that should continue among his believers in the age to come.
The first was to
serve. This was not about washing
feet. It was about the conditioning of
the Christian heart to serve others. It
could be digging ditches. It could be
raking leaves. It could be cooking for a
multitude. It could be cutting the grass
for a shut-in or pushing a car out of snow and ice.
Service
takes other forms, but Jesus was teaching his followers about a heart
inclined to serve. Later in this gospel,
Jesus commanded his followers to be known as his followers by their love.
Sometimes that love looks a lot like service.
The second thing—which should be very familiar and in your
recent memory—was to take the gospel to the world. We are commissioned
to take the good news of life in Jesus Christ to the world.
I conclude with the words of Jesus from the end of this
section.
Now that
you know these things, you will be blessed if you do them.
Amen.
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