John 13:1-17


Note to Self: Pantry Served 1653 so far this year. 37 households and 183 people in November alone. Ptl!

Text: John 13:1-17

Theme: Jesus shows us what love is all about.

Context – Verses 1-3

This story in Scripture is unusually detailed in how it sets the scene. In most other stories of Jesus, the Bible simply tells us what Jesus did and how people responded to it. Here we have nearly a paragraph worth of all that was about to occur, Jesus’ motivation, knowledge, and thoughts behind this action. God wants us to know that this simple act of washing His disciples’ feet actually carries very deep significance and is a deeply loving act.

First its noted that this occurs before the Feast of the Passover – the most important holiday of the year for the Israelites. For us today as Christians it’s a tossup between whether Christmas or Easter is more important – they both depend upon one another – but the people of that time didn’t celebrate either yet. They celebrated Passover. It was a celebration of how God spared those who had faith in Him from His wrath.

It’s also noted that Jesus’ hour had finally come. Jesus spoke about this to His disciples and would say “my hour has not yet come.” Jesus’ time to depart from the world has finally come, and the time opens with a prayer before this, and this loving act.

His motivation is simply love. And it’s love that continues and does not falter despite how grave the situation is. He loved His disciples to the very end and the fact that Jesus does this demonstrates it.

Jesus had several reasons, humanly speaking, not to do this thing. By all our style of reasoning, the situation should have been reversed. This is Jesus’ last moments and last meal on earth. He is about to be betrayed by one of His closest followers. He is of infinitely higher importance than the men he is eating with – as He has come from God, is going back to God, and God has given everything – everything – into His hands.

He could have played the victim card and said “I’m about to be betrayed. I’m not going to serve someone who will betray me.”

He could have played the entitlement card and said “I come from God and all things are mine. Other people should serve me instead.”

He could have played the hard circumstances card and said “I am about to and indeed already am beginning to suffer and sorrow tremendously. I just want to rest and be served for a bit in these final moments.”

That’s why God takes such time to explain all of these things. He wants you to see that Jesus had the excuses not to do what He is about to do – and they were perfectly valid excuses. But that’s not who Jesus is and that’s not why He came. Jesus once said “the son of man came not to be served, but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many.” He lived that as true to the end. He loved his own who were in the world. He loved them to the end.

Link: And Jesus now, Jesus – who came from God and is going back to God, who now carries the heavy weight and knowledge of an impending betrayal and crucifixion, upon whom the weight of the world is settling in this most important of events in the history of the universe, proceeds to do thusly:

Verses 4-5

This was the job of servants. It was not fit for the leader and most honored person among them to be the one to do this thing. How it was usually done was that a host would provide a guest of honor a servant to wash their feat for them. The person washing the other person’s feet was, culturally, viewed as lower than and subservient to the person whose feet they were washing.

This whole situation just didn’t happen like this around that time period. Servants would only be ordered by the host for a special guest. Regular friends didn’t do this for each other. What especially, never happened, was that the host, Rabbi, teacher, or Lord would be the one to go and wash everybody’s feet.

And these were dirty feet. People needed to have their feet washed back then. People didn’t have socks. People wore sandals and picked up a lot of dirt and mud on their feet.

Link: But Jesus thought of His disciples, loved them and chose to do something kind for them at the moment He was most entitled to love and service himself. And he wanted this to stick with them forever, so they would follow his example in the future. In full mind of who He is and what awaits Him in the near future, He chose to do a humiliating act of service to show His love to His disciples.

Verses 6-8a

Peter’s response is perfectly understandable. Peter thinks just like we do. Jesus is infinitely higher and better. Jesus is Lord. Jesus is so loving and good. It is absolutely not OK for Jesus to wash my feet. Jesus should be honored, not shamed. If this were to be done, a servant ought to have been acquired to do it. Or, short of that, I ought to be washing the feet of Jesus. And so he very sternly states that Jesus will never wash Peter’s feet.

Jesus says “what I am doing you do not understand now, but afterward you will understand.” Peter simply didn’t understand.

And in Peter’s defense, I don’t think it was quite possible for him to understand the full weight of this at this present time. He didn’t know that Jesus was about to be crucified. He didn’t know that Jesus’ final hours had come. He probably sensed something very weighty about this meal, but he didn’t know it as “The Last Supper” like we do.

Verses 8b-9

Peter still doesn’t understand, but he changes his tone and stance immediately when Jesus says very strongly that if Peter is not washed by Jesus, then Peter has no share with Jesus.

Jesus here is speaking about Peter’s need to be cleansed by Jesus’ blood. Of course, Peter doesn’t understand that now. He will understand that afterward. So he thinks that Jesus is talking about his feet. I think most of us would understand it that way, given the setting and that Jesus has not yet become the Passover Lamb.

Peter still doesn’t get the point, but his attitude has changed and so he says, kind of comically, “not my feet only but also my hands and my head!” He’s gone from saying no to having his feet cleaned, to asking for a shower. He wants to do what Jesus wants him to do; he just doesn’t understand what that is yet. His heart is in the right place. He just doesn’t understand.

Link: Jesus explains Himself in verse 10, but again it is only possible to really understand it after the fact.

Verses 10-11

In the setting of the even itself, this statement was probably taken in this way “Don’t be silly, Peter. You don’t need a full shower. The feet are only what need to be cleaned. All of you are clean, but not everyone.”

That last bit might have raised some eyebrows, but was not taken for its true meaning. We know from verse 11, though, that Jesus isn’t really speaking about physical cleanliness here. He is talking about spiritual cleanliness. All of the disciples in this room had been cleansed through faith in Jesus.

Christians still need to practice daily confession and repentance for spiritual renewal, but they are nevertheless clean.

His disciples were clean. His crucifixion hadn’t happened yet, their faith was very imperfect because of that fact, but they were nevertheless right with God. Except for one. One of them was false. One of them was a betrayer. One of them was not really a Christian. One of them had never really believed Jesus’ claims and had now moved to rejection and opposition.

Link: This they could not yet understand, but Jesus moves in verses 12 and following to explain the example that He has set for them. They are able to understand this and it will have deep significance for them later in their lives, and I believe it has deep significance for us today as well.

Verses 12-17

After washing their feet, Jesus resumes his place. He sits once again in the chief spot and says quite plainly that He is their Lord and Teacher. Verse 15, speaking as their Teacher, Jesus tells them that He has given them an example that they should do just as He has done for them. This word more properly means a model. Here is a model of behavior that these believers ought to follow.

Some churches over the years have taken this to mean that they should literally wash one another’s feet. I see no problem with taking it that way, though we don’t follow it in that way here. But whether people take this statement to mean that Jesus wanted His disciples to develop a sacred ritual of actually washing one another’s feet or not, all are agreed that the principle thing and intention is that Christians are to lovingly serve one another. As their teacher He had this to say.

And as their Lord, Jesus reminds them that a servant is not greater than their master, nor a messenger greater than the one who sent them. If Jesus as their Lord and Teacher has humbled Himself and loved them to the very end, seeking to serve them and not Himself, then they also ought to do the same for one another.

There is a great weightiness to this command that I hope you don’t miss. It was not often that Jesus would say “I am your Lord and Teacher – on that basis you must do as I have done.” He stresses these things for a reason. He doesn’t want them to miss it. They must go and do likewise.

Application:

As I think of these verses, and what it looks like for a Christian to live this out in their lives today, I can’t help but think of Randall. Randall lived this. Randall followed this example set by Jesus. I think of several stories that Leah told me about him, and of the video we watched together about him.

I think of near the end of his life as he was traveling somewhere with his father. And his father, Dustin, was talking to Randall and Randall was sad. So Dustin wanted to know why Randall was sad, and Randall said “I’m not sad for me. I know where I am going. I am sad for you and mom because I don’t think you are ready for me to go.”

And Randall was always telling people about Jesus, trying to comfort others in their sadness, witness to them, show them love. He never complained, as his pastor told us in the video we watched not long ago. He carried his suffering, didn’t ask to be served, but focused on loving and caring for other people instead. He didn’t want his parents to be sad over him, even though he had every right for people to be sad over him. He wanted them to be happy and to know Jesus more.

And he could have used so many excuses not to be this way – he was tired, weak, suffering, he was just a little boy, he needed comforting himself. But in the midst of all of Randall’s suffering he loved and served others to the end. I wish I could have met him. Such people are not common, and to be as consistent as Randall was at it is the rarest virtue of all.

I’ve talked with a lot of people since Tuesday who have shed tears over Randall, people who never knew him personally. I’m one of them. The stories of his awesome kindness and love heighten our sadness in a way. But though it brings us sadness to talk about the death of a young and sweet boy together today, and I know many of you would sooner just try to forget it and move on, I believe very strongly that the Lord wants me to speak about it today so we can learn from this.

Let Jesus’ example strike you in your heart, and let Randall’s application of it in his life challenge you to follow Jesus as well.

If we want to learn from Randall’s life and untimely death, let’s learn this: Jesus was his Lord and Teacher. Jesus, having every reason not to serve other people, instead chose to do the work of a servant by washing the feet of others on the darkest night of his life.

Randall understood and did this. Randall, young as he was, was a man of God.

Jesus today is calling to us to do the same. As our Lord and Teacher, Jesus speaks “I have given you an example that you also should do just as I have done to you.”

Jesus is calling to us all: follow me. Love other people with a crazy love. Lay pride and self down and follow your Lord and Teacher in loving other people, even when you have excuses not to. And that is a serious and hard thing to do. Most of us will only be able to claim that by God’s grace and mercy we have done this sometimes. I want to learn to do it more and more.

But with that heavy and frightening charge comes a blessing.

In verse 17, Jesus says “If you know these things, blessed are you if you do them.” Jesus promises a blessing for obedience to this commandment. This kind of love and service does not go unnoticed and unrewarded by our Lord and Teacher. He does see and He will reward the person who faithfully does these things.