It's About More than Just Feet

I want to thank everyone for joining us for this unusual sounding service, Maundy Thursday. I had never heard the name before until I was in college and I thought that someone said Monday-Thursday. The word “maundy” comes from the Latin word for commandment, and this is a service in which we reflect on Christ’s love for us and the example He left for us to follow on the night on which He was betrayed.

Tonight we have enjoyed a meal and we are going to now feast on God’s Word together before we partake of the Lord’s Supper together. Maundy Thursday services sometimes also feature a unique practice that is not done too often anymore called footwashing. Now, let me settle your nerves and tell you that we will not be washing your feet tonight, and there is a reason for that, but I do want you to see by the time we leave tonight the importance of washing one another’s feet in the Spirit of Christ. To better understand that this practice is about more than just feet, let’s turn to tonight and get a better understanding.

Read Text. Pray.

Last night it felt strange not being here at the church. I worked in the garden with my family planting and harrowing up our garden to get things ready to grow before this rain comes in this weekend. When I got done, I almost didn’t want to come inside the house because my feet were so dirty. I immediately wanted to wash them.

In ancient Palestine, they often had dirty feet from their travels and would need to wash them when they came inside to eat and rest. The dirt that was on their feet was just as filthy as our dirt and their feet were just as nasty. Just like many of you may have cringed when I told you that footwashing was a regular part of many Maundy Thursday services and you probably were secretly praying that we would not touch your feet, the Jewish people did not exactly like feet either. In fact, even a Hebrew servant would not be required by the law to wash the feet of a person. This was the job for the lowest person in the house, the slave.

In just a moment, we are going to see why this matters, but for now keep that in mind.

Tonight we are going to see three things:

Jesus’ actions were motivated by love

Jesus actions were informed by His Perfect Knowledge

Jesus’ actions are an example for us to follow

Let’s look at each of these together.

1. Jesus’ Actions Were Motivated by Love (vv.1-2)

The Bible tells us in verse 1 that Jesus knew that His hour had come to depart out of this world to the Father. In other words, Jesus knew why He came and that the hour of His crucifixion was at hand. He knew that He would soon be leaving the Disciples and His Church on this earth and returning to the Father. With this great and heavy knowledge upon Him, Jesus loved his own to the end.

What we are about to see Jesus do was motivated by His love for His Disciples. I don’t think we have the time tonight to be able to go through the many passages in John where we see Jesus take this tender attitude towards those who followed Him, but if you read the Gospel of John, you will see a clear teaching that those who belong to Christ are kept and held there by Jesus’ love and that He cares for His sheep. In fact, He lays down His life for the sheep; He leaves the 99 and goes after the lost sheep; and there is rejoicing in heaven over one lost soul that returns to the Father. Jesus said later in the Gospel, “No greater love has a man than that he lay down his life for his friend ().”

The Bible says that Jesus loved His own, but particularly that He loved them to the end. What does this mean? Does it mean that He only loved them to the end? Does it mean He only loved them up until the cross? Obviously we know better than that! It means that Jesus loved them with a complete love. His love was perfect towards them. And His love is also perfect towards you!

But before we look at what Jesus did, we also need to see that:

2. Jesus’ Actions Were Informed By His Perfect Knowledge (vv. 2-4a, 10b-11)

If you knew that someone would hate you, would you love them anyway? That’s a tough question. We want to say yes, but in our humanity, I’m afraid we most likely all would say no! We want to be accepted and we have a hard time dealing with rejection.

Perhaps I should put it another way. If someone murdered your wife and children; if a drunk driver ran into your parents and killed them; if someone stole your identity and everything you had spent your life saving for retirement, would you be able to bow down at their feet and wash them? Would you serve them in the most menial way you could and love them despite the evil in their heart?

Jesus knew what was about to happen to Him. He knew that Satan had already put it into the heart of Judas Iscariot to betray Him. In fact, Jesus knew this from the day He chose Judas. He spent years pouring into a man that had a hard, unregenerate heart; a man that would stab Him in the back with betrayal for the price of a slave. Judas welcomed Satan into his heart. His plan and Satan’s were one. He was not a victim. And yet Jesus washed his feet.

The Bible says that Jesus got up from the table, took off His outer garment, and took a towel to wash the grime off the feet of the disciples. This is a task that is usually done at the beginning of the meal by the servants, but Jesus was no aristocrat. He had no servants to wait upon Him. And His disciples had been too busy arguing over who was the greatest among them.

I’m sure that as Jesus arose to perform this task it struck the disciples that not one of them had offered to perform it. And Peter spoke for all of the disciples when He said that Jesus should not be the one to wash His feet. But there was a deeper meaning to the foot washing that we will get to yet.

For now, we see that knowing that Judas would betray Him, Jesus humbled Himself and washed His feet. Judas is not alone in His treachery, for Jesus also knew that the disciples would desert Him. He knew that if you strike the Shepherd, the sheep will scatter. He told Peter later that he would deny Him three times before morning. He told the disciples that Satan had asked to sift them like wheat, but He had prayed for them. It is in this context that we see the perfect love of Jesus and the perfect knowledge of Jesus combine to lead Him to perform the perfect act of love and humility.

John is the master of symbolism and dual meanings. He mentions that Jesus laid aside His outer garment and picked it up again, which He did! But this is also symbolic of the fact that Jesus would lay down His life and take it up again. This act of footwashing is more than just washing the feat. It is symbolic of the washing of the heart that Jesus would do as He bled upon the cross for the sins of the world.

So let us now look at the last thing to consider tonight.

3. Jesus’ Actions Were an Example to Follow (vv.5-20)

There are four aspects of this act of humility that we need to follow. Jesus made it clear after washing the disciples’ feet that they were to do as they had seen their Master and Lord do. So for this reason, many smaller, Independent Baptist Churches and Mennonite congregations will often practice this act of footwashing as if it were an ordinance of the church. However, the act itself is not so important as what it represents.

A. Follow His Humility

First, we are to follow the humility of Christ. We must humble ourselves to get up from the table and be willing to serve one another. Even more so, we must humble ourselves in order to come to Christ. We have to recognize our unclean hearts and the need to be washed. Peter asked Jesus why He did what He did and said Jesus must not wash His feet. Jesus’ response was that if Peter did not let Christ wash Him, he could not have any part with Jesus in the Kingdom. Peter misunderstood what Jesus meant and offered to let Christ give him a bath.

We laugh, but really that is exactly what we need. We must come to the fountain in His blood and be plunged beneath the cleansing flood to loose all our guilty stains. Jesus humbled Himself as Paul says in Philippians,

Philippians 2:5–11 ESV

Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

It is our responsibility to confess the name of Jesus as our Lord and Master and be cleansed by Him now in this life and not to wait until we are conquered to do it in the life to come. We will have no part with Jesus if we wait.

But there is a second thing we must follow that is related to the first.

B. Follow Him to the Cross

We must follow Jesus all the way to the cross. Not only must we accept Him as our Passover Lamb for the sins we have committed against a holy God, but we must also take up our own cross daily and follow Him. We cannot be independent Christians! We belong to Christ, and as such we belong to one another as well!

When Jesus told Peter that one who has had a bath is clean and needs only wash His feet, He was referring to the fact that one who has accepted Christ as His Savior is completely clean. There is one act of justification and cleansing. The only reason the Feast of Passover and the Day of Atonement came year after year is because the blood of bulls and goats could never take away sin. Even the High Priest had to offer sacrifices for his own sin before he could represent the people. And even then he had to put on the holy garments, representative of Christ, in order to come before God so that God did not see him as he were, but rather saw Jesus in him.

We come to God as those who have been hidden in Christ Jesus. We live in the resurrection of Christ in us. And daily we must crucify the old man, but be sure that Jesus only had to die once for our sins and not over and over again. He is the perfect Lamb of God that takes away the sins of the whole world!

C. Follow Christ Daily

The third example we must follow is to realize that sacrificing ourselves is a daily occurence on this side of the celestial city. Jesus told Peter that the one who has bathed need not wash himself again, he is eternally secure. However, he needs only to wash his feet. A bath will cleanse you, but every time you travel the sod of this filthy land we live in, you are bound to get dirt on your feet. You are bound to get dusty from sin and battle daily with the old man that just won’t leave you alone. As Paul said,

Romans 7:24–25 ESV

Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin.

Jesus used the metaphor of washing the feet regularly to point out that we sin on a regular basis and though we are justified in Christ, we need to be washed regularly by the sanctification of the Holy Spirit.

Now, finally there is one last thing that we must remember to follow in Jesus example.

D. Follow His Love

We must remember to love like Jesus loved. Despite desertion and rejection by those closes to Him, Jesus loved his own to the end. With complete, self-abandonment He loved them to the cross; He loved them in the tomb; and He loved them in the resurrection.

Jesus said, “You call me Teacher and Lord, and rightly so for so I am! If then you have seen me do these things, you also ought to do them for one another.” So it seems clear then that we have violated some custom, some ordinance that Jesus would have us follow, like the Lord’s Supper itself! Why do we not also wash one another’s feet?

The reason is that footwashing was the object for the lesson, not the lesson itself. Jesus wasn’t concerned about the dirt on the disciples feet, but rather the dirt in their heart and the love they should have for one another to serve each other. They were not to battle over who was greatest, but rather to serve one another in the lowest.

Jesus gave this command to His disciples and to us.

John 13:31–35 ESV

When he had gone out, Jesus said, “Now is the Son of Man glorified, and God is glorified in him. If God is glorified in him, God will also glorify him in himself, and glorify him at once. Little children, yet a little while I am with you. You will seek me, and just as I said to the Jews, so now I also say to you, ‘Where I am going you cannot come.’ 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. By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”

Since we cannot see Jesus now, we are to demonstrate the love of Jesus towards one another and towards the world. We are to love those who hate us. We are to love our brothers and sisters. We are to do it so that we might demonstrate Jesus’ selfless, humility towards those who were His own and even that one who was a devil.

After all, what does the Scripture teach?

John 15:13 ESV

Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends.

Do you love Christ? Feed His Sheep. Do you love Jesus? Serve one another. Love those who hate you and be an example to follow.

Conclusion:

We are going to demonstrate this with an ordinance that Jesus gave us of the Lord’s Supper, which would follow this washing of the feet on that night when Christ was betrayed. In just a moment, we will come by and serve you. Let me remind you that though we may have different church homes, this is a meal for the church in Christ. This is a meal we can celebrate together, but it is not a meal for those who have no part in Christ.

If you are not a believer, I plead with you to accept Christ. But since this meal is a demonstration of that acceptance that has already happened, simply pass on the bread and juice, but do come and talk to us afterwards so that we can help you follow Christ and become a part of His body and receive His forgiveness for your sins.

It’s hard to imagine accepting this meal if we have hatred in our hearts towards our brothers. For this reason, if you need to make things right with someone, pray to the Father and wait to eat until you have made amends. But don’t delay in doing what needs to be done.