What would you do if you knew, for a fact, that you only had one day left on this earth. Jesus knew, and he washed feet.

In my post on the Last Supper, I referenced that event in the synoptic Gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke. John writes a very different type of Gospel account, one that is not narrative in nature. He may take for granted that his readers have read one or more of the other Gospels so he is sharing additional information and not repeating details that others have already recorded. He assumes from Chapter 1 that the reader knows certain things about the life and ministry of Jesus and jumps straight into explaining that he is God. The Gospel of John represents what we call high Christology, a very high view of Christ as eternal and divine.

The events of John 13 take place on the night of the last supper. Only John records an event that took place after the meal was finished. Jesus got up, took off his outer garments, tied a towel around his waist, then with a basin of water began washing the disciples’ feet. Every middle and upper class home in Israel would have had a servant at the door to wash the feet of guests as they entered. (Lower class homes would probably have had a station set up for you to wash your own feet as you entered.) The servant waiting to attend guests might have been of any ethnicity but never Jewish. Feet were unclean, literally and ritually, and touching another’s feet would have made you ceremonially unclean. Jesus came to serve and not to be served. He was the good teacher, the Apostles’ rabbi, and they recognized it was in appropriate for Jesus to be in the floor and doing this for them. But after redressing and returning to his place at the table, he asked them if they understood what he had. He instructed them they must be willing to do the same for one another. Later in v. 34 he says “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another.”

That sets the bar pretty high. Love like Jesus. Paul writes in Ephesians that wives are to submit themselves to their husbands, but he also instructions husbands to love their wives as Christ loved the church and gave himself for her. The goal for every Christian believer is to become like Christ. There is no halfway, small commitment, good enough for the girls we go with version of Christianity. At least not one that pleases God. It takes a full commitment, everything we have, to do it right. So much so that we cannot do it on our own and rely on the working of the Holy Spirit who dwells in us to make it possible. When some hear “Christian church” they think about a man in a suit standing in front of a crowd speaking. That is only once or twice a week for an hour or so. Most of the Christian life is lived in the trenches Monday through Saturday. Jesus demonstrated his willingness to “get down and dirty” and told his followers to do the same.