Love on its Knees

Introduction: The Connection Between Love and Humility

The Ultimate Description of Love - 1 Corinthians 13

The Ultimate Example of Love - Philippians 2:8-9

To love genuinely is to love humbly.

Jesus Knew His Hour Had Come (v. 1, 2)

Context: Before the Feast of the Passover

The Feast of the Passover was an annual Jewish celebration of God’s deliverance of Israel from Egyptian bondage.

It gets its name from the final plague suffered in Egypt when the angel of death passed over the houses of those Hebrews who applied blood to their door posts as instructed.

Those homes without the application of blood suffered the loss of their first born.

This Passover would be the last divinely required one. From this day forward there would be another deliverance that surpasses Israel’s deliverance from Egypt. From this point on a new memorial would be remembered. A memorial not of lambs blood on a door post but of the Lamb of God’s blood shed on a cross. This blood was poured out not just for a single individual but to save the world not from Egyptians or Romans but from our own sinful hearts.

John 12–21: The MacArthur New Testament Commentary The Sublime Riches of Christ’s Love

The Last Supper celebrated by the Lord with His disciples gave Him opportunity to use the elements of the Passover meal to form a transition from the old covenant Passover to the new covenant Lord’s Supper

The hour had come.

What does Jesus choose to do with His final hours on earth?

He washes the disciples feet (13:1-17)

He comforts them (14:1-15)

He introduces them to the Holy Spirit (14:16-31; 15:26, 27; 16:5-15)

He teaches them about Himself and the Father (15:1-11)

He exhorts them to love one another (15:12-25)

He prays for them (17)

If you knew you were going to die in four or five days how would you spend your time?

Righting previous wrongs

A bucket list

Partying

Perhaps we should consider the example of Christ and make our final hours all about others.

He loved His own, He loved them to the end.

All the things Jesus said and did with His final hours proved His special love for His disciples and all those that are His own.

However, Jesus’ greatest act of love came not during these final hours of His life but in the final moments of His life and ultimately His death.

In chapter 15 we find Jesus saying these words “Greater love hath no man than this that he lay down his life for his friends.”

There are two things that drove Jesus to the cross

Chiefly the glory of God

and His love for you.

We must notice the connection between what Jesus knows and what He does.

He knows His hour had come

He loves them to the end.

Jesus Knew the Outcome (v.3-10)

This is really a combination of three things that Jesus knows. (v. 3)

The Father had given all things into His hands - complete authority

He had come from God

He was going back to God

What did Jesus do with this knowledge? - He washed their feet! (v. 4, 5)

He did not consider equality with God something to be grasped.

He did not have to grasp for it because He already had it.

From a human perspective what is most surprising about Jesus is that He did not wield His divinity like a club to get what He wanted.

No instead He humbled Himself even to the point of dying even the dying the death of a criminal on a cross.

Jesus’ Three Greatest Acts of Humility

His Death

His Birth

Washing the disciples feet

Jesus once again reject societal expectations and norms.

He takes off His outer robe (not something you would do at a formal dinner.)

He equips Himself with the tools of a servant.

Towel

Basin with water

This was work reserved for only the most menial servants.

In many cases Jewish slaves were not even given this task

It was reserved for Gentile slaves.

What did the disciples do? (v. 6-10)

Some of them sat in stunned silence.

Until Jesus gets to Peter

Peter as he so often does, says what they were all thinking.

“Lord do you wash my feet?”

The Greek construction of the question suggests that Peter’s tone is indignant or incredulous.

Jesus responds by reminding Peter that he does not always understand everything in the moment.

As the disciples cannot yet understand how the one whom they venerate as the Messiah must go to the cross, so they cannot understand the symbol-laden acts that anticipate it.

Even after the resurrection they still anticipated that Jesus would set up a political kingdom.

Acts 1:6 So when they had come together, they were asking Him, saying, “Lord, is it at this time You are restoring the kingdom to Israel?”

Jesus’ words in verse 7 obviously refer not only to the foot washing but to the cross to which this act of humility pointed. Peter and all of the disciples for that matter would come to understand Jesus’ actions with clarity once they are looking back on them with the illumination of the Holy Spirit.

“Never shall you wash my feet!”

This isn’t the first time Peter had attempted to rebuke Jesus: Matthew 16:21-23 Then He warned the disciples that they should tell no one that He was the Christ. From that time Jesus began to show His disciples that He must go to Jerusalem, and suffer many things from the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and be raised up on the third day. Peter took Him aside and began to rebuke Him, saying, “God forbid it, Lord! This shall never happen to You.” But He turned and said to Peter, “Get behind Me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to Me; for you are not setting your mind on God’s interests, but man’s.”

Peter’s motivation may have been good but God desires obedience more than anything else.

Peter is allowing society to define what he thinks is right.

Jesus! You can’t do that it’s embarrassing!

I appreciate what D.A. Carson had to say about Jesus’ words in verse 8.

If there were nothing more at stake then the naked act of footwashing, Jesus’ response would seem petty, unbearably rigid. It would sound like fake humility: ‘I command you to let me be humble and let me wash your feet—or you’re fired!’

But once the symbolism is seen, Jesus’ words are almost inevitable: Unless I wash you, you have no part with me. That is always true: unless the Lamb of God has taken away a person’s sin, has washed that person, he or she can have no part with him

“Lord, then wash not only my feet, but also my hands and my head!”

Peter didn’t understand everything that was going on here, but he understood enough to know that this was important.

So Peter again response with reckless abandon.

Jesus responds with a heavily theological way of say “calm down Peter.”

“He who is bathed needs only to wash his feet, but is completely clean; and you are clean.”

While initially the washing of the disciples feet pictured being washed by the blood of Christ and being cleansed of all unrighteousness, Peter’s exuberance gives Jesus another opportunity to use this object less for another application.

Once you have been washed you do not need to be washed again.

When you go to a home for a formal dinner you certainly arrive clean. However, on the trip over your feet would have become dirty. Hence the cultural practice of foot washing when you entered a house.

Jesus, point to Peter is that he is clean and will always be clean, and from time to time he needs to remember to wash his feet.

Here in this second application foot washing represents the daily sanctification that all believers must strive toward.

Jesus Knew Who Would Betray Him (v. 10b -11)

John first reminds us of Judas in verse 2

Jesus gave to the disciples assurance of their salvation with the words “you are clean”. However, there was an exception. “but not all of you.”

John explains what Jesus meant by that short phrase in verse 11. Jesus knew that Judas would betray Him. So what did He do with this knowledge?

He could have:

Annihilated Judas

Called down angels to execute Judas

At the very least He could have exposed Judas to the other disciples.

Jesus was not surprised by Judas’ betrayal

John 6:70 Jesus answered them, “Did I Myself not choose you, the twelve, and yet one of you is a devil?”

God knew exactly what Judas did and like He does so often He used the failings of men to accomplish His plan. Acts 2:23 this Man, delivered over by the predetermined plan and foreknowledge of God, you nailed to a cross by the hands of godless men and put Him to death.

We all love that moment in a movie when the good guy turns on the light and bad guy has been found out. Jesus didn’t do that. He let it play out even as He hung on the cross.

Jesus Asks “Do You Know...” (v.12-17)

Here Jesus brings out His third point of application for the disciples.

The first point was about Himself. How He humbled Himself and became a suffering servant.

The second point was about the disciples. That once they have been made clean that can never be undone. He also reminded them of the daily need for sanctification.

The third point is the importance of humble and loving service.

If I your Teacher and Lord am willing to stoop down and wash your feet you ought to do the same for one another.

This is the same group of people who had bickered about who would be the greatest in the kingdom

Whose feet has God called you to wash?