The Thursday before the Passover
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? 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. (John 13: 12-17)
The day before the day of Jesus’ execution, as recorded by the gospel writers, has given rise to literally thousands of books, hundreds of thousands of sermons, and uncountable and unknowable transformations and changes in human behavior, collectively and individually. From the Passover meal, celebrated a day early with his disciples, and all of the various events within that supper, to Jesus’ time alone in the Garden of Gethsemane, his betrayal, his arrest, and his being led away, the day was full far beyond the many lifetimes which have been spent in understanding it.
It seems to me, however, that the single incident of washing his disciple’s feet, before the Passover meal began, defined Jesus more than any other single thing he said or did. And because it was an incident that defined Jesus, it must also define us, his disciples.
I have written here before of the foul regard people of the Middle East had (and have) toward feet. Remember how the Iraqui people danced on the fallen statue of Saddam Hussein; how some of them removed their shoes and hit the statue with them? Feet are regarded as highly insulting parts of the body, with a whole mythos of insulting meanings attached to them. It’s far worse, I’ve been told, than the kind of insult Westerners try to conjure up with their middle fingers.
It wasn’t merely the really bad forms of dirt that Jesus was willing to wash off the feet of his disciples, then; it was the mystical debasement involved in doing so. To willingly touch, let alone scrub, someone’s foot, was to empty oneself of any trace of honor or pretension. As the Apostle Paul would later write to the Philippians, Jesus, in this act among others, was emptying himself of himself.
It horrified the disciples to see Jesus doing this. There he was on the floor, his upper torso bared, a towel at his waist, with a bowl of water, waiting. Pick the person you admire most in your life and imagine them kneeling in supplication at your feet. That begins to describe the feelings the disciples would have felt seeing such a sight. Peter balked at what Jesus was doing and certainly the other disciples did , too. “No, never!” he protested. But Jesus told him that unless he did this thing for him, Peter could have no share in the life of Jesus. To have one’s feet washed by Jesus, in other words, was not a choice. It was mandatory.
I think many of us forget that. I forget that. I forget that Jesus must have that most despicable, ugly, dirty, foul part of me- that part of me that I am so ashamed of that I hold it back from him, thinking I must hang onto it myself long enough to clean it up a little before I give it to him, and then only reluctantly. But, as Jesus emptied himself for us, for me, so must each of us also be willing to give to Jesus that thing which most disgusts us about ourselves. To hang onto it, whatever it is, is to maintain the illusion that there is something we can do about it, something we can do to fix it ourselves. And in so doing, we are betraying our own unwillingness to completely empty ourselves. We are keeping some part of ourselves for ourselves that Jesus cannot have.
God the son emptied himself the night before he would have to do the one thing that would demand his complete trust and obedience of God the father. It was a place on his journey for us that he had to spend time in. It is also a place in our journeys for others, done in his name, that we must make time for, too.
The day before the day of Jesus’ execution, as recorded by the gospel writers, has given rise to literally thousands of books, hundreds of thousands of sermons, and uncountable and unknowable transformations and changes in human behavior, collectively and individually. From the Passover meal, celebrated a day early with his disciples, and all of the various events within that supper, to Jesus’ time alone in the Garden of Gethsemane, his betrayal, his arrest, and his being led away, the day was full far beyond the many lifetimes which have been spent in understanding it.
It seems to me, however, that the single incident of washing his disciple’s feet, before the Passover meal began, defined Jesus more than any other single thing he said or did. And because it was an incident that defined Jesus, it must also define us, his disciples.
I have written here before of the foul regard people of the Middle East had (and have) toward feet. Remember how the Iraqui people danced on the fallen statue of Saddam Hussein; how some of them removed their shoes and hit the statue with them? Feet are regarded as highly insulting parts of the body, with a whole mythos of insulting meanings attached to them. It’s far worse, I’ve been told, than the kind of insult Westerners try to conjure up with their middle fingers.
It wasn’t merely the really bad forms of dirt that Jesus was willing to wash off the feet of his disciples, then; it was the mystical debasement involved in doing so. To willingly touch, let alone scrub, someone’s foot, was to empty oneself of any trace of honor or pretension. As the Apostle Paul would later write to the Philippians, Jesus, in this act among others, was emptying himself of himself.
It horrified the disciples to see Jesus doing this. There he was on the floor, his upper torso bared, a towel at his waist, with a bowl of water, waiting. Pick the person you admire most in your life and imagine them kneeling in supplication at your feet. That begins to describe the feelings the disciples would have felt seeing such a sight. Peter balked at what Jesus was doing and certainly the other disciples did , too. “No, never!” he protested. But Jesus told him that unless he did this thing for him, Peter could have no share in the life of Jesus. To have one’s feet washed by Jesus, in other words, was not a choice. It was mandatory.
I think many of us forget that. I forget that. I forget that Jesus must have that most despicable, ugly, dirty, foul part of me- that part of me that I am so ashamed of that I hold it back from him, thinking I must hang onto it myself long enough to clean it up a little before I give it to him, and then only reluctantly. But, as Jesus emptied himself for us, for me, so must each of us also be willing to give to Jesus that thing which most disgusts us about ourselves. To hang onto it, whatever it is, is to maintain the illusion that there is something we can do about it, something we can do to fix it ourselves. And in so doing, we are betraying our own unwillingness to completely empty ourselves. We are keeping some part of ourselves for ourselves that Jesus cannot have.
God the son emptied himself the night before he would have to do the one thing that would demand his complete trust and obedience of God the father. It was a place on his journey for us that he had to spend time in. It is also a place in our journeys for others, done in his name, that we must make time for, too.
posted by D.Barry Weber at 10:07 PM
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