Bible Readings
Holy Week 3: Jesus washes His disciples’ feet and has His last supper with them
Read John 13:1–35, Matthew 26:26–29.
Four days after Jesus entered Jerusalem on a donkey, He gathered all twelve of His Jewish disciples for the Passover meal.
During the meal, Jesus washed their feet. This task normally belonged to the lowliest of household servants. It was a dirty job cleaning feet that had walked on streets filled with dirt and animal waste. Nobody would expect a respected religious teacher to do it. Yet Jesus showed the extent of His love for His disciples by taking on the role of a humble servant. But He also taught another truth.
At first, Peter was appalled and refused to let Jesus wash his feet. But Jesus said that ongoing fellowship with Him was dependent on the believer washing off daily dirt. In response, but not quite understanding Jesus, Peter asked that his hands and head also be washed.
Jesus then used the word picture or analogy that believers in Him have already taken a complete bath and are clean. The bath pictured a believer having their sins taken away by Jesus. Such a person had been justified by God and has a permanent relationship with Him.
But the believer would still sin in daily life. Such sins would spoil the intimate fellowship with Jesus. This was like getting one’s feet dirty. To restore fellowship, a believer had to confess their sin, then Jesus would forgive it. This was pictured by the washing of the feet, rather than a complete bath.
What did Jesus mean? When a person puts their trust in Him, God “bathes” them—their sins are removed and the person now has a permanent relationship with Him. But close fellowship with God can be marred by daily sin. This required confessing the sin to God and Jesus would “wash” the believer of that sin. Fellowship would be restored. The believer didn’t need to bathe from head to toe all over again because they remained clean (that is, remained justified).
Jesus also told His disciples that just as He cared for them by washing their feet, He wanted them to show the same self-sacrificing love towards each other. All His disciples had to be humble and follow His example of serving each other. In the past, God had asked people to love each other. Now Jesus asked them to love each other in a self-sacrificing way. That’s why His commandment was new.
Then Jesus revealed that while eleven of His disciples had put their faith in Him, one had not. In fact, Judas Iscariot was about to betray Jesus.
Even though Jesus knew Judas’s evil heart, Jesus still washed his feet and treated him kindly. No one knew it was Judas who would betray Jesus because Jesus didn’t treat him any differently. In fact, Jesus gave Judas an opportunity to turn away from evil by announcing that one among them was not clean. But unfortunately, Judas didn’t use the opportunity to repent. His heart remained hard and he left the room to betray Jesus.
That evening, Jesus did something else significant. He took bread and shared it with His disciples. He said the bread represented His body, indicating He would give His life for them.
Then He took a cup of wine and shared it with them, saying the wine represented His blood. He would be shedding His blood for them.
Jesus was referring to what was ahead of Him. He would be giving both His body and blood and dying on the cross for mankind.
Also, He specifically told these Jewish disciples that His shed blood confirmed the covenant God had made with Israel and Judah years ago. This contract, known as the New Covenant, was described by Old Testament prophets Jeremiah, Ezekiel and Isaiah. They had said that one day, God would forgive the sins of the nation of Israel, give the Jews new hearts and return them to the Promised Land.
In today’s reading, we see God’s heart for mankind. He loves people so deeply, so intimately and so humbly that He chose to wash the dirty feet of His disciples and chose to die on the cross for mankind’s sin. We have a God who is not high-handed and arrogant, but one who is loving, tender and personal.
Many of us wouldn’t think of being kind to those whom we know are out to get us. We might treat them with suspicion and far less warmth than we would a friend. Yet, we see that Jesus was gentle and kind even to His betrayer. Right to the very end, Jesus kept encouraging and giving Judas opportunities to repent.
Jesus said that the self-sacrificing way He loves us is the way He wants us to love others. That is the mark of a disciple of His.
Let’s pray and ask God to help us follow the example of Jesus. Let’s ask Him to help us be self-sacrificing in the way we love others.
And let us also remember that as believers, Jesus wants us to continually pay attention to our “dirty feet”, that is, the sins we commit in daily life. Even though we have been justified once for all time and have eternal life, He wants us to pay attention to our daily sins. He wants us to confess them and He will cleanse us so such sins won’t spoil the fellowship we enjoy with Him. Let’s confess our “dirty feet” and ask God today to “wash our feet”.