Grace and peace to you from God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ. The Word of God through which the Holy Spirit touches our hearts are the words of Jesus, recorded in John 13
[Jesus] began to was the disciples’ feet and to dry them with the towel that was tied around Him.
He came to Simon Peter. “Lord,” Peter asked Him, “Are You going to wash my feet?”
Jesus answered him, “You do not know what I am doing, but later you will understand.”
“No! Peter told Him, “You will never wash my feet.”
“If I do not wash you,” Jesus answered him, “you have no share with Me.”
After He had washed their feet and put on His outer garment, He reclined at the table again. He asked them, “Do you know what I have done to you? You call me ’Teacher’ and ’Lord,’ and you are right because I am. Now if I, the Lord and the Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet. For I have given you an example so that you also will do as I did to you. I tell you the absolute truth, a slave is no greater than his master, and one who is sent is no greater than the One who sent him. If you know these things, you are blessed if you do them. (John 13:5-8, 12-17 NET) – This is the the word of our Lord.
Dear followers of Jesus in his passion,
How often do you think about Jesus as a servant? We call him Savior, Redeemer, Messiah. We call him the Son of God, the King of glory, Christ the Lord. To call him a servant may at first sound strange to us. If he is God and Lord, how can he be a servant? To our human thinking, lord and servant are opposites. Would a lord or king or president help wash the dishes after an official state banquet? That’s not his work; that’s a servant’s work!
But God Word not only calls Jesus God and Lord; it also calls him the Servant. For example, through the Prophet Isaiah the Lord God refers to the coming Savior as my Servant. Jesus, himself, describes his mission as as a mission of service. He says, “The Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many” (Matthew 20:28 NIV). In the Passion History for tonight, you heard how Jesus did the servant’s work of washing feet.
What does this action teach us about his work as our Savior from sin? How does our attitude change, because of the work he did as the Servant? Let’s think about those two questions as we walk with the Servant tonight.
1) Remember his humble love that washes you.
What does his action of washing feet teach us about his work as our Savior from sin? To answer this question we first of all need to realize what led Jesus to do this servant-work. It wasn ’t a sense of duty. It wasn’t frustration, seeing that no one else had done it. What was the motive that led him to do it? Love. Humble love.
The divine words that introduce this section of Holy Scripture point us to Jesus’ love. As you heard in the Passion History: “Jesus knew the time had come for Him to leave this world and go to the Father. He had loved His own who were in the world, and He loved them to the end” (John 13:1 NET). Even on that night, when Jesus knew that Judas would betray him and the Romans would crucify him, his heart focused on loving his disciples to the very end.
His humble love would stop at nothing to bring God’s blessings to his disciples, no matter how far down he had to stoop. On that night the disciples had shown an attitude that cut them off from God’s blessing – the attitude of pride. They had argued about which of them was the greatest. None of them would stoop to wash each other’s feet. That was a job of a servant, not a disciple.
Now the whole idea of foot washing, may seem foreign to us. But remember that in Jesus day people wore sandals. The roads were dusty and dirty. People usually walked to most places. Feet became dirty and smelly. It was common courtesy to have the servants wash the feet of dinner guests. But since Jesus watned to have this last supper privately with his disciples, there wasn’t a servant around to do it. So Jesus in humble love takes the job of a lowly servant. He washes the disciples’ feet.
However, Jesus’ humble love was about to stoop even lower. He wasn’t going to wash just dusty feet but guilty souls. He was going to wash them not with water but with his blood. He was going to do this not only for those twelve in the upper room, but for all sinners, including you and me. That’s the washing he was referring to when he told Peter, “If I do not wash you . . . you have no share with me.”. Notice Jesus does not say, “If I do not wash your feet. . .” These words to Peter do not refer to foot washing, but to spiritual washing.
Only through this spiritual washing that Jesus humble love does for us, do we or anyone else have a share with Jesus. Why? Because our sins are far worse than dirt or dust. Our sins are a stench to God far worse than stinky feet. For although stinky feet may drive people away from you, sin separates you and me from God’s love.
Maybe our natural selves will admit that some really bad sins, like rape or murder, are dirty and stinky. But before God any sin, no matter how small we might think it is, any sin is a stench for which God drives us away from himself into the fires of hell. Any failure to stoop down out of pure love to serve someone is sin. Any pride that thinks ourselves better than another is sin. These any countless other sins make us more dirty than sweaty clothes worn in a dust storm.
But Jesus’ humble love washes you. He gets out the stain and stink of sin. For “the blood of Jesus, [God’s] Son, purifies us from all sin” (1 John 1:7 NIV). To do that, he wore your dirty clothes. He lowered himself to your death on the cross. His return to life declares you washed clean.
And yet don’t just think of Jesus washing you as something he did long ago on the cross or on the day you were baptized. Every day you and I need Jesus to wash us clean. As we travel through life, we sin every day. This damning dirt clings to us like dust to an ancient traveler’s feet. Each day your Lord washes you clean with the Good News of the fountain filled with his blood. Run to that fountain as you daily remember your Baptism that washed away your sins. Run to that fountain as you hear and read God’s Word which points you to Jesus’ humble love. Run to that fountain as you come often to the Lord’s Supper remembering his death and receiving the body and blood that he sacrificed on the cross for you. Confess each day, “Foul, I to the fountain fly – Wash me, Savior, or I die!” (Christian Worship 389:3 “Rock of Ages, Cleft for Me”) and close each day praying, “Jesus Savior, wash away All that I’ve done wrong today” (Christian Worship 593:2 “Now the Light Has Gone Away”).
As you walk with the Servant, what does his action of washing feet teach us about his work as Savior? The answer: I learn that Jesus, the Servant, washes away my sins with his blood.
2) Imitate his love in serving others
Now let’s now consider the other question: How does our attitude change, because of what Jesus, the Servant, has done for us ?
Jesus answers that question for us. He says, “For I have given you an example so that you also will do as I did to you.” He isn’t commanding a foot-washing ceremony. He calls that an example. He doesn’t tell us to do what he did; he tell us to do as he did. In other words, we are to act in the same manner. We are to imitate his humble love.
Why would we want to stoop down in humble love to serve others? Look at what Jesus did for you. He truly is the Lord. Yet he, the Lord, served you and me, stooping down to death on the cross. We are certainly not above Jesus, but we are blessed if we imitate his love in serving others.
One way that we fail to imitate Jesus’ humble love is our proud desire to save face. Do you find it hard to sincerely say words like, “I’m sorry,” or “Please forgive me.” Our pride does not like to admit fault. We usually can invent of some way to blame the other person, at least partially, so that we think they should take the first step. They are the ones who should apologize. They are the ones who should stoop down at our feet and eat humble pie. This can become a wedge between fellow Christian, between friends, between a husband and wife, between parent and a child. I struggle with this, especially when I know I’m right, even though an honest evaluation realizes that I, too, have sinned. None of us by nature want to stoop down to wash off the dust.
What will change our attitude so that we don’t cling to sinful pride? Remembering what Jesus, the Servant, has done for you. Don’t simply ask yourself: What would Jesus do? Ask yourself: “What did Jesus do for me?” Then remember how he stooped down to the cross in your place, how he washed you clean in his blood, how he keeps on coming to you in the Good News, wiping away your sins each day.
Filled with the Good News of Jesus’ humble love for you, we see that we are not losing anything by taking the first step to apologize, even if the other person might be more in the wrong. We aren’t losing anything because Jesus keeps giving us everything. We can stoop to the lowest level to serve others with a humble love, because our Lord has already stooped down to serve them and us.
So picture Jesus not only as King and Lord. Picture him as the Servant. “Have the same attitude that [he] had. . . He did not consider His being equal with God as a prize to be displayed. Instead, . . . He emptied himself, taking on the form of a servant . . .He became obedient and humbled Himself even to the point of death, yes, death on a cross” (Philippians 2:5-8 NET). Picture him as the Servant who washes you clean with his holy blood. Amen.
