"Jesus knew that the Father had put all things under His power, and that He had come from God and was returning to God; so He got up from the meal…wrapped a towel around His waist…and began to wash His disciples feet."
The feet are dusty. They have trekked many miles in pursuit of the Master. They are calloused and wrinkled, tanned and roughened. They smell. Maybe John or Andrew had especially ticklish feet, and they couldn't help but break the intensity of the moment with a suppressed giggle.
But their faces soon melt. Tears track down their leathery cheeks and gather in their beards as they see their Master, a mere thirty-three years old, kneeling and taking in His hands the feet that have left all to be covered in the same dirt that cakes His own.
I wonder if He thought about the nails that would pierce His feet mere hours later. Did He whisper a prayer of thanks to the Father for this beautiful, ridiculous, messy plan of redemption that would save His disciples from the searing pain of the nails as they tore through flesh and bone?
Simon Peter draws his feet away, leaving that peculiar loving ache in the heart of the Savior; He is especially fond of Peter, just as He is uniquely and especially fond of each of the others. "Lord," Peter stammers, "are You going to wash my feet?"
Did the tears spill over? "You don't understand now," He tells him, "but one day you will."
"No," Peter shakes his head, hanging it, acutely aware that he is unworthy. "You shall never wash my feet." Yet when told that unless he is washed -- unless he allows his Master, Teacher, his Lord, his dearest Friend to bend and serve him -- he has no part with Jesus, he stretches out his arms, begging to be washed head to toe.
The Master smiles. Dear Peter, he does not understand. "You are clean," He assures him, then turns to His betrayer, "though not all of you."
He has known all along. From the moment Judas left everything to become His follower, He knew the man's heart. But that did not make it any easier, now that the time had come.
And the Messiah, having been given all power, having all things placed under His feet, knowing full well what the next twenty-four hours would bring -- even with all this, Jehovah Sabaoth, the Lord of Hosts, knelt that night to wash the feet of His betrayer.
The words He speaks are cryptic to the others, but they are not spoken maliciously. There is a deep anguish in His tone for the one who is lost, the one who is not chosen, for he did not choose aright. Yet Jesus rests, confident that the Father knows best, assured that He is in the best of hands. And so He kneels.
He knelt that night, and He kneels still, to wash the feet of the wayward daughter, the unworthy son. Everywhere His people bow their knees to follow in His steps and wash the feet of brothers and enemies alike. "Unless I wash you, you have no part with Me," He says, bending to serve you, taking your dirty and bleeding feet gently in His hands. He heals them, cleanses them, commissions them; the feet washed by the Almighty are perfectly prepared for service. In that service they will be torn, and bruised, and scarred; but He waits, a towel around His waist, garbed as a servant, to show once more the full extent of His love; to love you, who are His own, until the last.
(read the whole story in John 13)
