Foot Washing
John 13:1-15
We begin a new section of John’s Gospel this morning. From John 1:19 to 12:50, we’re told about Jesus’ public ministry. That section is often called the Book of Signs because in it John records seven miraculous signs that Jesus did which demonstrated His identity as the Son of God. John shined a spotlight on Jesus’ works and His words that proved that He is the Christ, the Son of God. One of the key words in that whole section was “light.” He used that word 24 times. John wrote about Jesus in his introduction, “In Him was life, and the life was the light of men. And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it.” Jesus concluded His public ministry by crying out in a loud voice (John 12:46), “I have come as a light into the world, that whoever believes in Me should not abide in darkness.”
And now, beginning in Chapter 13, and going all the way to the end of chapter 17, John gives us a record of Jesus’ private conversation and prayer with His disciples just before He went to the cross. The second half of John is often called the Book of Glory because Jesus has just stated in John 12 that the time has come for the Son of Man to be glorified, speaking of His coming death and resurrection. But it could also be called the Book of Love. In chapters 1-12 the word love appears an average of once per chapter. In these next five chapters love appears 34 times, about 7 times per chapter. It is obvious that Jesus is emphasizing His love for His own.
John 13, begins with love. In John 13:1 John writes about Jesus, “having loved His own who were in the world, He loved them to the end.” This section ends in John 17 with Jesus praying, “that the love with which You loved Me may be in them, and I in them,” (John 17:26). He begins and ends with His love for His own. It’s just like the Savior! And down through these five chapters we are given the heartbeat of our Savior for those He loves.
And this morning, we’ll look at the first great event of this great section in John’s Gospel—Jesus washing His disciples feet. We’ve all heard the statement that “a picture is worth a thousand words.” Apparently Jesus considered that to be true, and here in John 13 we see Jesus picturing two great truths that his disciples then, and all of us who are His disciples now, desperately need to learn and keep relearning. Jesus didn’t picture those truths with a brush on canvas–He pictured them by the act of washing His disciples’ feet.
Listen to John’s account of this event, John 13:1-15,
1 Now before the feast of the Passover, when Jesus knew that His hour had come that He should depart from this world to the Father, having loved His own who were in the world, He loved them to the end.
2 And supper being ended, the devil having already put it into the heart of Judas Iscariot, Simon’s son, to betray Him, 3 Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into His hands, and that He had come from God and was going to God, 4 rose from supper and laid aside His garments, took a towel and girded Himself. 5 After that, He poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples’ feet, and to wipe them with the towel with which He was girded.
6 Then He came to Simon Peter. And Peter said to Him, “Lord, are You washing my feet?” 7 Jesus answered and said to him, “What I am doing you do not understand now, but you will know after this.” 8 Peter said to Him, “You shall never wash my feet!” Jesus answered him, “If I do not wash you, you have no part with Me.” 9 Simon Peter said to Him, “Lord, not my feet only, but also my hands and my head!” 10 Jesus said to him, “He who is bathed needs only to wash his feet, but is completely clean; and you are clean, but not all of you.” 11 For He knew who would betray Him; therefore He said, “You are not all clean.”
12 So when He had washed their feet, taken His garments, and sat down again, He said to them, “Do you know what I have done to you? 13 You call me Teacher and Lord, and you say well, for so I am. 14 If I then, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet. 15 For I have given you an example, that you should do as I have done to you.
Here the Lord Jesus vividly demonstrated how much He loves us—not only in His act of dying for us, but in His ongoing care for us. In it, He demonstrates the degree to which He would condescend in serving us. And in it He even gives us the example of how we are to love and care for one another.
John 13 begins with,
1. The Preface to the foot-washing (John 13:1-3)
The first three verses of John 13 provide us with background information, which John believes we need to know to properly understand what Jesus does. First he gives us the setting (John 13:1a), “Now before the feast of the Passover …” This would be their last Passover together, and it would also be the occasion when Jesus would institute the observance of The Lord’s Supper although John does not include that in his account.
Contrary to Da Vinci’s famous painting, Jesus and His disciples were probably not sitting upright at a table in European style chairs. The custom of the time was that the men would recline while they ate. They would usually lay on their left side and eat with their right hand. They would be arranged in sort of a “U” shape around a table with their feet sticking out. The servants would bring the food and remove the dishes through the open end of the “U”. Jesus probably took the position that a father would have with his family. Jesus would lead the various ceremonial aspects involved in the supper.
John 13:2, “And supper being ended, the devil having already put it into the heart of Judas Iscariot, Simon’s son, to betray Him.” Literally the beginning of verse 2 reads simply, “and supper being.” The NASB renders it, “During supper.” So, the foot-washing incident which follows took place while they were at the table. As is still custom today, when people go to an important feast they would clean themselves up and put on nice clothes appropriate for the occasion. However, in ancient Jerusalem people wore open toed sandals and walked on dusty roads. When they would arrive, a servant would wash their feet so that they would be both refreshed and completely clean. Obviously no one had done this for anyone else before they came to the table.
We don’t know for sure how the disciples were arranged at this Passover table. John may have been directly on Jesus’ right and Judas on His left. But from the other Gospel accounts we do know the disciples’ attitude at the feast. Luke 22:24 tells us “Now there was also a dispute among them, as to which of them should be considered the greatest.” Perhaps they were all maneuvering for better positions forgetting what Jesus taught (Luke 14:8, 11), “When you are invited by someone to a wedding feast, do not take the place of honor … For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted.”
The attitude of the disciples contrasts greatly with the attitude of Jesus. John gives us insight into our Lord’s “state of mind” both in terms of what Jesus “knew” (John 13:1, 3, 11), and in terms of why He did what He did (namely, He loved His own).
John 13:1 tells us what Jesus was thinking and feeling as the cross loomed near: “Now before the feast of the Passover, when Jesus knew that His hour had come that He should depart from this world to the Father, having loved His own who were in the world, He loved them to the end.”
John tells us Jesus “knew” (John 13:1), “that His hour had come that He should depart from this world to the Father”, and (John 13:3) “that the Father had given all things into His hands, and that He had come from God and was going to God.” Jesus knew His earthly mission was nearly complete, and that He was returning to the Father in heaven. He knew that everything had been given over to Him by the Father. In other words, He knew that everything was as it should be, and that He was in complete control. John emphasizes Jesus’ authority and sovereignty.
John tells us that it was because Jesus had come from God, because He had all authority, because He was soon depart from this world to the Father—knowing all of this, Jesus humbled Himself to wash dirty feet. In spite of the fact that the Lord could have required all men to serve Him, Jesus served them. What an amazing thing.
It demonstrated His amazing love. John writes (John 13:1), “having loved His own who were in the world, He loved them to the end.” That last phrase can mean that Jesus loved the disciples up to the end of His life. Or, it can mean that Jesus loved them totally or to the uttermost. Both are certainly true. The act of washing His disciples’ feet was our Lord’s way of showing them how much He loved them.
Here is the amazing thing. Jesus loves His own. John 3:16 states that God loves the world, but here the emphasis is on Jesus’ love for His own. Jesus loves His own, knowing everything. He loves His own, knowing that He is sovereign, and that He is about to leave this earth and return to His Father. He loves His own, knowing that they have been arguing (or will shortly do so) about who is the greatest, knowing that they are about to forsake Him and flee for their lives, knowing that Judas will betray Him, that Peter will deny Him. He never stopped loving them in spite of their childish attitudes, their weak faith, and their slowness to understand the truths that He taught them.
It is one thing for people to love us, who do not know all of our wicked deeds, thoughts, and motivations. It is another for the Lord Jesus to love us, knowing every wicked thing we have done and will do. This is, indeed, amazing love.
That leads us to,
2. The performance of the foot-washing (John 13:4-5)
Verse 4 tells us that Jesus, “rose from supper and laid aside His garments, took a towel and girded Himself. 5 After that, He poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples’ feet, and to wipe them with the towel with which He was girded.”
The disciples must have looked at one another in amazement as they saw what Jesus was doing. Most didn’t know what to say; they were probably stunned that their Lord and Master, the Son of God, would perform this menial servant’s task. They sit speechless as Jesus washes their feet and dries them with a towel–that is, all of them but one were speechless. John 13:6 says, “Then He came to Simon Peter. And Peter said to Him, “Lord, are You washing my feet?””
Peter must have watched as the Lord washed the feet of the other disciples; and as the Lord drew near to him, he may have thought to himself, “How can they even let the Lord do this to them? How can they let Him who we all know to be the Christ— the Son of the living God—stoop down and wash their filthy feet? How can they even think themselves worthy to allow it to happen? Why; if anything, we ought to all be washing His feet! I certainly can’t allow Him to do this to me!
And it was all true as John has just told us. Jesus is the Son of God. Jesus has all authority. Jesus came from God and was returning to the Father. He is truly worthy of all respect, even worship. Remember what John the Baptist said about Jesus in John 1:27? “It is He who, coming after me, is preferred before me, whose sandal strap I am not worthy to loose.” In other words, John is not worthy to even untie the sandals of Jesus in order to wash the Lord’s feet.
That brings us to consider…
3. The point of the foot-washing (John 13:7-11)
John 13:7, “Jesus answered and said to him, “What I am doing you do not understand now, but you will know after this.”” Jesus was saying, “Peter, the point of what I’m doing goes far beyond what you’re seeing on the surface; I’m doing this to provide a picture for you, to illustrate some powerful truths. You don’t get the point at the moment, but you will later.”
The point was first of all …
A. Foot-washing illustrates a truth regarding holiness. (John 13:8-11)
Here look at John 13:8, “Peter said to Him, “You shall never wash my feet!” Jesus answered him, “If I do not wash you, you have no part with Me.””
When Jesus said, “If I do not wash you, you have no part with Me,” He clearly was referring to more than dirty feet. He was talking about a spiritual washing, the cleansing from sin that He was illustrating by washing Peter’s feet–and the feet of the others.
It’s hard not to love Peter. He is so much like the rest of us who seek—in our imperfect ways—to follow the Lord! If allowing Jesus to wash His feet was necessary to a full relationship with Him, then Peter wanted a complete bath! Verse 9,
9 Simon Peter said to Him, “Lord, not my feet only, but also my hands and my head!” 10 Jesus said to him, “He who is bathed needs only to wash his feet, but is completely clean; and you are clean, but not all of you.”
The bathing that Jesus was speaking of was the complete cleansing of the soul that comes through a relationship with Him. In Ephesians 5:26-27, we’re told that Jesus gave Himself for the church “that He might sanctify and cleanse her with the washing of water by the word, that He might present her to Himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that she should be holy and without blemish.” That’s our condition before Him right now. “There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus” We only need that ultimate washing once. In 1 Cor. 6:11 Paul writes about born again Christians, “… But you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God.” Again in Titus 3:4-5 Paul writes about our salvation, “But when the kindness and the love of God our Savior toward man appeared, not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to His mercy He saved us, through the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Spirit.” Revelation 1:5 speaks of Jesus as “Him who loved us and washed us from our sins in His own blood.”
So when Jesus speaks of “He who is bathed,” He means those who have believed and are saved, those whose sins are forgiven and cleansed by the blood of Jesus. These Jesus says are “completely clean.” But then Jesus also points out that even the one who has bathed, the one who is washed from sin, still “needs … to wash his feet.” “What, then, was he referring to? He was referring to that daily spiritual cleansing that all Christians need. Although sin is no longer on the throne in a Christian’s life, the fact remains that we do sin–and consequently we all need daily cleansing, just as people in the first century needed to have their feet washed on a daily basis as they traveled the dusty roadways of that day and time.
We live in a sinful, fallen world. We walk around in the course of this life on paths that are often sullied with sin. We don’t need to be “saved” over again. But we do need to come to Him often to confess our failings, and to be separated afresh from the wickedness of this world, and to have our feet washed from sinful contact with this world.
Sometimes, your feet get dirty because of deliberate sin. You choose to do what you know God’s Word forbids you to do. At those times, you need to confess your sin and appropriate the forgiveness that Christ secured for you by His death (1 John 1:9). At other times, you just feel dirty because of contact with this filthy, fallen world. Maybe you’ve been bombarded with sensual advertisements. Perhaps you’ve had to deal with worldly people at work, so the lusts of the flesh, the lusts of the eyes, and the boastful pride of life (1 John 2:16) have left you feeling defiled. Those are the times to open your Bible and let “the washing of water with the word” (Eph. 5:26) cleanse and refresh your soul. Let Jesus wash your feet!
So, even though we who have trusted Jesus as our Lord and Savior are “completely clean”–that is, saved and basically cleansed from our sins–we still need a “spiritual foot-washing” every day if we’re to know the joy and strength and fulfillment of a close daily fellowship with Christ. Jesus illustrated this daily cleansing by washing feet.
Secondly, we see that,
B. Foot-washing illustrates a truth concerning humility (John 13:12-17)
We will talk more about this next time, but let me just remind you what Jesus emphasizes about this foot-washing. Verse 12 tells us, “So when He had washed their feet, taken His garments, and sat down again, He said to them, “Do you know what I have done to you?””
Jesus asks them, “Do you know what I have done to you?” And knowing that they surely did not yet understand it, He explains the lesson to them by emphasizing His humble service.
13 You call me Teacher and Lord, and you say well, for so I am. 14 If I then, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet. 15 For I have given you an example, that you should do as I have done to you.
Jesus uses the foot-washing incident as an object lesson in humility. Jesus— our Lord and Master—never set Himself above serving us. In fact He said in Mark 10:45, “For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many.” And in serving as He did, He forever established our pattern to one another. He was saying to them, in essence, “You’ve been arguing and pouting over which of you is the most important, the most prominent; but I’ve just now shown you what a disciple’s attitude ought to be. Just as I have humbled Myself and taken the servant’s role in washing your feet, so you ought to have that same attitude toward one another.”
Humility is one of God’s primary prerequisites for His richest blessings. D. L. Moody once said, “If we only get down low enough, God will use us to his glory.” Another time Moody said, “The measure of a man is not how many servants he has, but how many he serves.” Allan Moseley said, “In the kingdom of God, the way up is down.”
By giving that object lesson in humility, Jesus was–by clear implication–warning us against the sin of pride. Peter’s initial refusing to be washed by Jesus looked like humility, but it was simply another face of pride. It embarrassed him to think of Jesus washing his feet. It would have served Peter’s pride much more if he had washed Jesus’ feet. Yes, we can even have sinful pride about our humility.
In C.S. Lewis’ classic, The Screwtape Letters the senior demon writes to his subordinate demon about how to tempt a Christian he has been charged with, “Your patient has become humble; have you drawn his attention to the fact? All virtues are less formidable to us once the man is aware that he has them, but this is specially true of humility.”
Peter learned the lesson well. So he encourages us in 1 Peter 5:5 writing, “Yes, all of you be submissive to one another, and be clothed with humility, for “God resists the proud, But gives grace to the humble.””
Many people are offended by the gospel or don’t see their need for it because they’re proud of their good works. They’re proud of all that they do for others. They view themselves as having clean feet. It would embarrass them to admit that their feet are dirty and that Jesus needs to wash them. But to receive the gospel, you’ve got to recognize that your feet are filthy and that no one gets to heaven by washing his own feet or by washing others’ feet. You only get to heaven when you let Jesus wash your feet.
Jesus is teaching that we are to be holy and humble.
Look now at verse 17. The NIV translates it as follows: “If you know these things, blessed are you if you do them.”
Jesus didn’t simply set before us a burdensome chore that made us miserable. Rather, in calling us to serve one another as He has served us, He has set before us the path to happiness and genuine fulfillment. We are blessed if we make ourselves one another’s servant!
But the first question that every person should face is this: “Have I experienced that initial cleansing of which Jesus spoke? Have I repented of my sins and by faith committed my life to Jesus as my personal Lord and Savior?” If you have not, you can settle that all-important issue right now.
