Letters to the Prison - Week 150

Hello, friends!  We’ve begun our study of John 13 and already something profoundly astonishing is happening:  Jesus --the One who claims to be God in the flesh… eternally existent and all-powerful… come to sacrifice himself to save sinners… claiming all eternal authority over everything… all of which he himself created for his own glory—has decided to spend some of his final moments… before his last meal on earth… doing what?  

Washing feet.
 
Even the feet of Judas, the one who would betray him --something to consider carefully.  
But to continue:

• [Jesus] came to Simon Peter, who said to him, “Lord, do you wash my feet?” 7 Jesus answered him, “What I am doing you do not understand now, but afterward you will understand.” -John 13:6-8a

“What I am doing you do not understand now…”  Isn’t this true far more often than we’d like to admit?  Friends, how many times does this happen in our own lives?  God is at work and we just… don’t… get it.  We’re anxious and apprehensive about things we don’t know…  outcomes we can’t see… things we can’t control.  These are all dangerous prospects to us.  Yet… “afterward,” in retrospect… looking back, we can see how God was working all along and for our good.  Perhaps an even greater danger is mistakenly thinking that we do know what God is doing and what his intentions are…  how can we fathom the plan of God for our lives?

• For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.-Isaiah 55:9

This is all certainly true and coming into play for Peter in this moment.  Peter has no idea why it would be a good thing for the God of the universe to wash his feet... but he nevertheless thinks he knows best whether it should be done or not.  We encourage you to consider:  Why would Peter not want Jesus to wash his feet?  There might be a thousand reasons we could think of.  Maybe Peter felt “unworthy.”  Maybe Peter thought such a task was “too low” for Jesus.  Maybe Peter was just putting on a show in front of the other disciples.  In any case, Peter is resisting and questioning what Jesus is doing.  How Jesus responds is extremely important:

• Jesus answered him, “If I do not wash you, you have no share with me.” -John 13:8b

Let’s just sit for a moment with this.  Jesus is insisting on doing this humble, lowly thing in obedience to God.  He’s not asking the disciples to wash their own feet and get ready for dinner… Jesus is doing it to them and for them.  Jesus is the one doing the washing.  It’s something he needs to do, otherwise the disciples “have no share” with him.  Even further, Peter needs to let Jesus wash him.  Peter needs to grant permission for Jesus to wash his feet.

Friends, we’d like to encourage you… and ourselves…  to consider what this shows us about Jesus’ relationship with us –and our relationships with one another… and how those relationships work.  Jesus is giving us an example, after all.  What does it look like for us to “wash one another’s feet?”  How do we embark on such a lowly task with the right intention and the right attitude?  What does it look like for us to give each other permission to do so?

Dean A.