

Washing Feet









Jesus gave a powerful, memorable picture of the attitude he wanted to see in his disciples. It was the night he was betrayed. It happened in the upper room where they also had the first Lord’s Supper. Jesus knew all that was about to happen- his arrest, his brutal treatment, his false trial, his flogging, his crucifixion on a cross.  But he brushed these things aside in order to teach his disciples some final, important things. All that Jesus taught was important, but we must conclude that those things he taught in his last hours were most important.  The foot washing is among them.

Often through the years the disciples had argued about who was the greatest- who was the chief among the disciples (Mark 9:33-37).    Jesus explained that he who wanted to be greatest must become the least servant of all.

So Jesus gave the disciples a picture lesson of what he meant. He took off his outer clothes, wrapped a towel around himself, and washed his disciples’ feet.  This was normally the task of the lowliest servant in the household.  Visitors stopping by for dinner did not need an entire bath. That was done at home But they needed their dusty feet cleaned and dried from the foot journey over dusty roads.

“For I have given you an example, as I have done for you, so do for one another.”  Some churches do that literally. They hold a ceremony where congregants pair off and wash one another’s feet. Or, sometimes, the ministers of the church symbolically wash select feet from the congregation.  But does that really fulfill Jesus’ wish and command?  You can wash someone’s feet and still walk away thinking you are better, smarter, more noble than they.  But what Jesus really meant is that his disciples would inculcate the attitude that nothing was too low, too disgusting, too weird to do to help another person.

This is the example Jesus left. Not just washing feet for his neighbor, but suffering for his neighbor, bleeding for his neighbor, laying down his life for his neighbor. “Love your neighbor as yourself” is what Jesus gave as the 2nd great commandment. “Love as I have loved you.” Jesus loved you all the way to the cross and to the very terrors of hell.

You can humble yourself and wash a few feet.

-Pastor Anderson