I guess I must have been about 13 and I was late for P.E. I arrived in the sports building and hurriedly changed into my vest and shorts before walking barefoot into the gymnasium where all my classmates were standing in line. I crept in and excused myself for being late. My P.E. teacher called me out to stand in front of the others and directed everyone’s attention to my feet.
I looked down and, to my horror, they were as grimy as I can ever remember them. It looked like they hadn’t been near a bathroom in months. I don’t know why; perhaps my shoes had holes in – or perhaps I really hadn’t washed for weeks – but my feet were inexplicably and exceptionally grubby. “Lambert! Your feet are absolutely filthy! When was the last time you washed! You come here into my nice clean gym and cause a health hazard with those feet, what have you got to say for yourself?” I can’t remember what I said, but I felt deeply embarrassed as the whole class erupted with laughter, pointing at me and making faces at the lamentable state of my feet.
You know what? Let them laugh. The Lord Jesus is not only my magnificent Saviour, my unparalleled master, my righteous redeemer, and my supreme king - who justifies me, who saves me, who delivers me and who crowns me with honour – he is the God who washes my feet.
Maybe that’s one of the reasons this passage of Scripture has always touched me. Why did Jesus do it? What did he mean when he said “Unless I wash you, you have no part with me?” What’s that about? And what did he mean when he said, “You also should wash one another’s feet”?
The Upper Room That Night
Let’s go back and explore. It was the night Jesus was betrayed and arrested. There was tension in the Jerusalem air. He was in a first floor room for the Passover, which he was about to celebrate with the twelve. Everything was on the table. Everything was ready. They were all reclining around the table, rather than sitting upright. Each was lying on a thin mat and leaning on their left elbow, eating with their right. Their heads would be resting against the chest of the person to their left, their feet pointing away from the table rather than tucked under it.
In our culture people wash hands before coming to table. In Bible times people washed feet before eating. It was really necessary because everyone walked around in open toed sandals through dusty, insanitary streets. (Even in 1980 when I was in Jerusalem, my guide told me, “Mind where you’re treading because it could be anything - and probably is.” In Bible times, there were many more animals roaming around and sanitation was much more primitive. Everyone’s feet got dirty and would smell at the table.
That’s why washing feet before eating was indispensible! But unsurprisingly, nobody wanted to do it. It became the most demeaning of tasks. If there wasn’t anybody available to wash your feet, you did your own. In that very hierarchical society it just wasn’t the done thing even to wash the feet of an equal. Nobody would even think of washing the feet of somebody below them in the pecking order.
In Luke’s gospel it says that a dispute arose at the table as to which of the 12 was the greatest among them. They were jockeying for position. Who’s the most important? Who’s highest up the pecking order? Who’s top dog?
This is how it worked; the second lowest servant had the demeaning task of unfastening people’s sandals but only the absolute lowest of household servants had the indignity and humiliation of actually washing the feet afterwards. John the Baptist looked at Jesus and said, “I am not worthy of untying his sandals” but Jesus didn’t think washing feet was beneath him.
It’s difficult to think of an equivalent thing for our day and age; imagine being invited out to dinner at someone’s house and just before you sit down to eat your host gives you a toilet brush and bottle of Harpic and tells you to clean the toilets because they haven’t been done for weeks. You’d be embarrassed and taken aback wouldn’t you? You just wouldn’t ever expect anyone to ask such a thing.
But shortly before the meal was served, to everyone’s amazement, Jesus abruptly pushed himself up from his mat, left the table, took off his outer cloak, thus adopting the simple clothing of a slave, tied a towel around his waist, filled a bowl and began to wash his disciples’ feet. This is what Philippians 2 means when it says, “He made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant… humbling himself.”
One by one… he carefully took each sandal off, took each dusty, sweaty, malodorous foot, lifted it in the water bowl, splashed water over the ankles, rubbed off the ground-in dirt, paying particular attention to between the toes, until each was clean again, then he dried the feet with his towel. What was the expression on their faces as he did it? By the time he finished his towel will have been stained brown with dirt, dust and muck.
There are two things going on here. Let’s look at v6. Jesus washes these men’s feet one by one – apparently to stunned silence. When he gets to Simon Peter, Peter can’t quiet any longer. “Whoa! Wait a minute, Lord; you’re not going to wash my feet are you?”
Jesus answers, “You don’t understand now what this is about, but it will be clear enough to you later.” With respect, that’s a hung parliament of an answer. Peter wants a straight “yes” or “no.” Or to be perfectly honest, he really wants Jesus to suddenly coil back and say, “Oh, Peter, you’re right! What was I thinking! Of course this is improper. I am your superior, you are my subordinate. Oh dear, I got that wrong didn’t I? Let’s see if we can find a complete nobody from somewhere who will take care of the foot washing!” But Jesus doesn’t say that. He just looks at him.
So Peter persists, Maybe if I just say it strongly enough, Jesus will see I’m offended and back down. “You’re not going to wash my feet - ever!”
Jesus doesn’t blink. “Peter, if I don’t wash you, you have no part with me.” Unless you humble yourself and let me do this, you can’t be part of what I’m doing.
Let Jesus Cleanse You
We have to allow Jesus to wash us. Jesus is not commenting here on Peter’s personal hygiene. Jesus is saying here that there is a symbolic, spiritual significance to this washing of feet which Peter would not fully understand until he received the Holy Spirit. It is, in fact, a symbol of Jesus’ imminent death on the cross.
Jesus could have suggested that everybody wash their own feet. “Come on guys, you’ve got to take responsibility for your foul-smelling feet, I’m trying to eat here” But he didn’t. Jesus washed did them all. And in doing that, he literally took their dirt and transferred it from them onto himself. Just as, on the cross, God made Christ, who had no sin, to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. As he suffered and died Jesus took on himself the full blame and the whole punishment for all our moral filth – everything, once for all.
This is what Jesus means in v8. It doesn’t mean: “Peter, I’ll be frank with you. The smell of your feet is so horrible that I don’t think I’m ready to look at my starter until you’ve had a wash.” It means: “Peter, unless you are ready to let me wash away the stain of sin in your life, I am wasting my time with you.”
And so it is for each of us here this morning. I am dirty before God because of my sins, and there is nothing I can do to clean myself up. You are in the same boat as I am.
In Philippians 3, the Apostle Paul listed his best achievements and his most immaculate religious correctness - and then said this: “The very credentials people wave around as something special, I’m tearing up and throwing out with the trash - along with everything else I used to take credit for. All the things I once thought were so important are gone from my life. Compared to the high privilege of knowing Christ Jesus as my Master, firsthand, everything I once thought I had going for me is insignificant.”
Isaiah 64.6 says that all our righteous acts are like filthy rags. That’s the good things we do. Oh, the ego, the pride, the vanity they lead to.
Your dilemma, and mine, is that we need much more than a quick spiritual wipe down to bring us up to scratch. Oh yes! We are objectively guilty before a God who is so morally pure and gloriously holy that we could never hope to earn his acceptance on the merit of our tainted goodness. Just don’t even ask. But the amazing truth is that God’s love is so high, low, deep and wide that he has decisively cleansed us from every sin; past, present and future by washing us clean, washing away the otherwise indelible stain of sin forever. That’s what the cross is all about.
Are you allowing Jesus to come near, to wash your feet? Are you submitting to his leadership, seeking his forgiveness for sin? Are you letting Christ effect that ongoing cleansing you need in order to stay in a life-giving relationship with him?
Some people needlessly forfeit intimacy with God because they won’t let Christ wash their feet in this way. “No Lord, you will never wash my feet!” The point of resistance may be failure to submit to his moral leadership; “Jesus, I am not willing to accept your decision as final my relationships, choices and values.” Or it may be a refusal to admit that there is a need for cleansing; “Lord, I’m all right really as I am. I’m comfortable with dirty feet. I don’t want need you to do anything.” Or there may be a lack trust his power to cleanse. “Lord, how can I be sure that you will want to cleanse someone as bad as me?”
This is one of the basics of what it means to be a Christian. It’s so simple. But it cuts right across the grain of ego and self-sufficiency. That’s it’s one of the keys of spiritual growth and blessing; because God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble. Learn the secret of daily letting Jesus bathe and cleanse you from sin.
Peter caught on pretty quickly. “Master!” said Peter. “Not only my feet, then. Wash my hands! Wash my head!”
Notice that Jesus did not say, “Since I washed your feet, you should wash mine.” This is one of the world’s ideas about love - “I scratch your back, now you scratch mine.” But Jesus’ security and self-esteem was always rooted, not in getting appreciation and gratitude from men, but in his Father’s unconditional love and approval for him.
But that’s not all. Jesus didn’t stop there. He finished off, washed them all, including Judas, and put his outer garment back on. Everyone’s eyes followed him back to his place at the table. I bet you could hear a pin drop.
Wash One Anothers’ Feet
What was he going to say now? Could he possibly come out with something more outrageous? Let’s pick it up again at v12.
“Do you understand what I have done for you?” he asked them. “You call me Teacher and Lord, and rightly so, for that is what I am. Now that I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also should wash one another’s feet. I have set you an example that you should do as I have done for you.”
Could he possibly come out with something more disagreeable, more unpalatable, more outrageous than washing their feet? Oh, yes. He says here that it isn’t enough that God incarnate gets manure under his fingernails just before sitting down to dinner – he expects them to do the same!
“You also should wash one another’s feet.” I’ve been to Foot Washing Services before, usually organised for Maundy Thursday. And what happens is this; someone in senior leadership, a bishop for example, takes a basin and towel and symbolically washes the feet of the laity – only to go back and be waited on by his staff in his episcopal palace or castle. Some people find that sort of thing moving and uplifting. Whatever… I don’t think this kind of ceremonial show is what Jesus meant here when he said “You also should wash one another’s feet.” For a start, everyone who has their feet washed in a service like that would be mortified if their feet turned the water brown so they tend to make sure they’re spotless beforehand. Look, Jesus washed his disciples’ feet because they were dirty. They smelt. It was not a sacramental ritual – it was a functional chore.
When Jesus said, “wash one another’s feet” he was building on his commands to “love one another as I have loved you” and “live in peace with another.” He was saying to his disciples – and by extension to everyone who claims to belong to him – you must embrace a lifestyle of serving love toward others. Someone said, “Humility is not thinking less of ourselves but thinking of ourselves less.”
You know, in the hours before Jesus died the Bible tells us that there were two bowls of water. One was used by Jesus for washing other’ feet. Can you think of what the other one was? The other was used by Pontius Pilate to wash his hands of Jesus. There are only two bowls; if we do not embrace a life of lowly service we choose to wash our hands of Jesus and his message. The one and only alternative to serving others is indifference to Jesus.
When a brother or sister in Christ exasperates or angers you, creating an awkwardness or a distance between you, the easiest option is simply to wash your hands of them – just avoid them. We can even justify it. We say, “I don’t want to get hurt again, so it’s best we just stay away from each other.” Listen, Jesus washed the feet of a man who would, that night, hand him over to an assassin. Jesus washed the feet of a man who would, that night, deny ever knowing him. But I’ve seen people leave churches and go somewhere else instead of facing up to issues like this. Washing someone’s feet means swallowing pride and making a move and saying “I have not understood something,” or “I’m sorry, will you forgive me?”
In 1908 the Salvation Army held a conference. The founder of the Salvation Army, William Booth, was old by then and was unable to attend due to ill health. So he sent a telegram. The message contained just with one word. Does anyone know what it said? “Others.” The Salvos at that time were in danger of becoming inward looking. “You also should wash one another’s feet” said Jesus. But if he was sending a telegram and only had one word, I reckon it might be the one William Booth used. The Salvation Army have gone all round the world with their blood and fire. Their movement is a byword for Christian love and service to the poor and needy. Even the bitterest opponents of the gospel admit that the world is a better place for these Christians - who wash the dirtiest feet of tramps and prisoners and prostitutes and drug dealers.
Finally let’s look at v17. “Now that you know these things,” says Jesus, “you will be blessed if you… do them.” Don’t be distracted by that word “blessed.” It can sound a bit churchy and religious but it just means “happy” or “satisfied” or “contented.” Jesus says here that foot washing is the pathway to true happiness.
Don’t believe the world when it says that you’ll find fulfilment when other people run around you and give you what you want when you want it. That’s a lie. Jesus says you can only be truly happy when you have learned to wash the feet of others the way he, on the cross, has washed you clean from sin. That’s the truth.
Sermon preached at All Saints' Preston on Tees, 9th May 2010
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