The night before Jesus was crucified, He had a personal and intimate evening with His disciples. John 13:3-9 records for us something worth looking into:
“Jesus, knowing (fully aware) that the Father had put everything into His hands, and that He had come from God and was [now] returning to God, got up from supper, took off His garments, and taking a [servant’s] towel, He fastened it around His waist. Then He poured water into the washbasin and began to wash the disciples’ feet and to wipe them with the [servant’s] towel with which He was girded. When He came to Simon Peter, [Peter] said to Him,
“Lord, are my feet to be washed by You? [Is it for You to wash my feet?]”
Jesus said to him, “You do not understand now what I am doing, but you will understand later on.”
Peter said to Him, “You shall never wash my feet!”
Jesus answered him, “Unless I wash you, you have no part with (in) Me [you have no share in companionship with Me].”
Simon Peter said to Him, “Lord, [wash] not only my feet, but my hands and my head too!”
In that day and culture, people washed their feet when they entered a house because there were no paved streets as we know them today. It was a dusty, hot climate, and washing your feet when coming inside was customary so as not to carry all the dust into the home. If you could afford a servant, it would have been their job to assist in washing the feet of the owners when they entered the abode. Special towels would have been set aside for washing feet so as not to contaminate anything else. If they were good servants, a servant would have known their place as well and did their tasks without being told.
Jesus was telling His disciples that He was The Servant. Before this evening, there had already been a couple of times when women washed Jesus’ feet. Still, the night before He would be taken captive, Jesus Himself tells His disciples that He was a servant – the servant of Isaiah 42:1, “Behold, My Servant, whom I uphold; My chosen one in whom My soul delights. I have put My Spirit upon Him; He will bring forth justice to the nations.” All through the book of Isaiah, Israel is called God’s servant. If they had accepted Jesus as their Messiah, Israel was supposed to have been the nation to spread the gospel throughout the world and bring in God’s harvest of souls into heaven. So, all those in the upper room would have considered themselves servants, not the other way around.
However, it’s not just a fulfillment of that prophecy that speaks to me; it’s more personal. Not only was Jesus pulling back the curtain to Himself before the twelve, manifesting a part of Him they hadn’t seen before, but Jesus put Himself on the level of a servant, the lowest person in a household. The disciples and many who followed Jesus expected Him to be crowned King over the Romans. This display of humility would have shocked their senses. They wanted to see Jesus wear a crown, not remove His outer garments and stoop down to wash their smelly, dirty feet.
I’m sure that Peter’s reaction was what they all were thinking at the moment; it’s just that Peter couldn’t pretend or hold in what he was thinking. What Jesus was doing to them made no sense to him. Isn’t that just like grace? It makes no rational sense to us that someone else took our place at the cross. It doesn’t seem fair to our human flesh that Jesus, who did no sin, in Him was no sin and knew no sin, would become sin for us on the cross, die in our place, and pay the wages of sin (which is death) on our behalf. That substitution was scandalous and still is if we only use our human reason. That’s why faith is called faith. It means trusting in another to accomplish what we never could or can.
This display of servanthood is more profound because Peter declared (and I imagine he said it empathically), “You shall never wash my feet!” I can hear him as he says, “never” loudly and in a showy way, as if he was better than Jesus and was giving Him orders. We are often blinded to our pride, which arises at the worst times. Even if he didn’t know it, Peter was saying that Jesus had it all wrong – that Peter was the servant, not Jesus. Oh, how we love to show Jesus our works for Him! We like being the servant because it can (but not always) puff up our pride before God. But what have we to give Him – the One who owns the universe?! I’m not against serving; we are indeed called to serve one another in love, but hear me out as I make my point. It’s Jesus’ response that makes it personal.
Jesus answered Peter, “Unless I wash you, you have no part with (in) Me [you have no share in companionship with Me].” Unless we welcome and receive the truth that Jesus is the One giving, He is the One serving us, we cannot have true fellowship with Him. There’s an intimacy Jesus longs to have with us if we humble ourselves and receive all He died to give us. He wants our lives to be filled with abundant life, to walk in victory with Him this side of eternity. That same evening, in John 15, Jesus calls the disciples His friends and not servants! (See the post on Friends.) He is the servant and came to serve the Father and us by giving His life for our eternal life. He desires deeper fellowship with us, but it can’t happen if we view ourselves as servants. Yes, we ultimately serve Him, but not in a slavish way. He doesn’t want our honorable service if we serve with a slave mentality. Knowing that He first served us produces an entirely different attitude when we serve Him. We love Him because He first loved us (1 John 4).
I love Peter’s response. He instantly changed his mind (he repented immediately) because I believe he suddenly understood what Jesus was doing and saying. Peter wanted that deeper fellowship with Jesus and didn’t want to be left out of anything. In fact, Peter goes a bit overboard in asking Jesus to wash every part of him. Jesus replies that Peter is already clean – spiritually speaking. There’s more to this event than what I’ve written. Allow me to encourage you to receive from Jesus. Romans 8:32 says it all, “He who did not withhold or spare [even] His own Son but gave Him up for us all, will He not also with Him freely and graciously give us all [other] things?” Permit yourself to receive all He has to give you!
Receive from Jesus 