The first half of John’s gospel had focused on Jesus’ public ministry.  In fact, it’s the only account we have of Jesus’ ministry spanning three years.  This “book of signs” had focused on the way Jesus revealed Himself to the world.  But now the scene shifts.  Time slows.  The “book of glory” (John 13-21) focuses now on Jesus’ final week.  Chapters 13-17 even focus on Jesus’ final meal.

What can we make of this?  I can remember that when Mel Gibson’s Passion of the Christ was released, it was panned by countless critics who were baffled to devote so much attention to the man’s death rather than His life and moral teachings.  If Jesus was a moral teacher, then their criticism holds weight.  But if Jesus was Savior—if Jesus was God who came to give His life in our stead—then it makes more sense that we’d want to fully understand His death.  And that’s why John gives us so much detail about Jesus’ final hours with His disciples.  In John 13 we find Jesus at His final meal:

John 13:1-17  Now before the Feast of the Passover, when Jesus knew that his hour had come to depart out of this world to the Father, having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end.

John goes out of His way to connect Jesus to the Passover.  The Passover was a Jewish holiday that memorialized the day they were finally set free from Egyptian slavery.  They shared a meal—the centerpiece being a lamb, whose blood they used to mark the doorframe of their houses so that God’s horrific anger might “pass over” them.

Tonight, this house was marked by the blood of a different Lamb—not a Lamb whose blood was shed but a Lamb whose blood was about to be shed.  John gives no details of the meal itself, only that Jesus used the meal as a teachable moment—a time for an additional symbolic act.

² During supper, when the devil had already put it into the heart of Judas Iscariot, Simon’s son, to betray him,  ³ Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands, and that he had come from God and was going back to God,  ⁴ rose from supper. He laid aside his outer garments, and taking a towel, tied it around his waist.  ⁵ Then he poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples’ feet and to wipe them with the towel that was wrapped around him.  ⁶ He came to Simon Peter, who said to him, “Lord, do you wash my feet?”  ⁷ Jesus answered him, “What I am doing you do not understand now, but afterward you will understand.”  ⁸ Peter said to him, “You shall never wash my feet.” Jesus answered him, “If I do not 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, “The one who has bathed does not need to wash, except for his feet, but is completely clean. And you are clean, but not every one of you.”  ¹¹ For he knew who was to betray him; that was why he said, “Not all of you are clean.”

¹² When he had washed their feet and put on his outer garments and resumed his place, he said to them, “Do you understand what I have done to you?  ¹³ You call me Teacher and Lord, and you are right, for so I am.  ¹⁴ If I then, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet.  ¹⁵ For I have given you an example, that you also should do just as I have done to you.  ¹⁶ Truly, truly, I say to you, a servant is not greater than his master, nor is a messenger greater than the one who sent him.  ¹⁷ If you know these things, blessed are you if you do them.

I actually grew up in a church tradition that took this quite literally—my church washed each other’s feet when we observed the Lord’s table.  It was…pretty weird.

I can say that with no hesitation because the act itself was radically cross-cultural—especially in Jesus’ day.  In  a world of dust and sandals, it wasn’t uncommon for servants to wash your feet when you entered a home.  It was unheard of for the master of the house to do it himself—as if we visited Bill Gates and he offered to do our laundry.  No wonder Peter objected; this was an act that seemed beneath Jesus.  It might have even been a little embarrassing.

Jesus connects the act to the idea of being “clean.”  Did you know that all cultures have strong categories of clean and unclean?  In 1965 Mary Stuart Douglas wrote a book called Purity and Danger.  It’s a fascinating book, really.  One of the things she found was that centuries before we discovered “germs,” cultures maintained strong boundaries between clean and unclean.  Douglas wouldn’t go this far, but I would take this to mean that every culture recognizes the reality of “sin,” and the way it tends to defile us.

Think of our own culture.  What do we mean by “dirty?”  I’ve often observed the way we connect this image to sexuality: dirty movies, dirty bookstores, etc.  What phrase do we use when a young woman returns home in the morning after a one-night-stand?  The “walk of shame.”  “Ah,” you say, “but isn’t this just another example of Christians trying to make everyone feel guilty?”  It’s true that Christianity has a reputation for being something of a killjoy.  But look at what’s happening: if guilt and shame are nothing more than the pointed finger of Christianity, then why is it the further we run from these values, the dirtier we feel?  Maybe we’re dirtier than we first thought, and in more need of grace than we let on.

That’s what Passover was about.  By this time in Jewish history, all blood sacrifice purified sin.  It made us clean.  And Jesus was, after all, the “Lamb of God who lifts away the sin of humanity” (John 1:29).  On this night, of all nights, He portrays Himself as a humble servant, washing the feet of His followers—even Judas (we’ll return to Him tomorrow).

His closest followers were clueless what this all meant, but we have the benefit of hindsight.  We know that the shadow of the cross looms large on the horizon.  And in that shadow we understand—as if for the first time—just how shocking this act truly is.  If a servant washed your feet, it was expected.  If the master of the house washed your feet, it was unusual.  If God Himself washed your feet, it was an act of pure grace.  Did you know that the Hebrew word for grace comes from a word that meant “to bend” or “to stoop?”  In Jesus we see a picture of what God did for each of us.  He doesn’t wait for us to “get clean” before we come to Him.  He doesn’t roll His eyes and wait for us to realize our own filth.  He stoops down, with towel in hand, to handle even the filthiest parts of our souls.