This is the first of seven core characteristics of Jesus we’ve been called to imitate and thus disciple our kids toward using the ACT Bible Study Method. Learn more about this family discipleship method here.
TLDR: Jesus loves us with a humble, sacrificial, scandalous love. It is a love without bounds. This is the love we have been given and the love we are to help our kids give to others.
The Passover meal Jesus shared with his disciples in the upper room just hours before his arrest began in a shocking way. God incarnate took off his outer clothing, tied a towel around himself, and washed his disciples’ feet (see John 13:1–20).
Washing someone’s feet was one of the lowliest acts of that day. We might recoil at the idea of washing another person’s feet because we don’t see feet as being that pleasant. They can smell less than ideal at times. But what we think of as unpleasant and aromatically challenging pales in comparison to what feet were like in ancient Israel. Remember people wore sandals then—or perhaps walked with bare feet. And they didn’t walk on paved sidewalks or plush grass, but rather on dirty streets and paths. It wasn’t just a matter of their feet getting muddy, though. There were animals around, too. Lots of animals. Doing what lots of animals do after eating and doing it wherever those animals needed to do it. You get the idea. Back then, feet weren’t just unpleasant; they were disgusting.
When you were invited to a gathering in that day, you would have likely bathed beforehand. You would have been sparklingly clean…at least for a moment. Once you left your home or the public bathing facility, you would have dirtied your feet on the walk. By the time you arrived where you were going, you would have been clean above the ankles or calves, but dirty—filthy maybe—beneath them.
Then, we have to account for the posture people assumed when eating. They didn’t sit at a raised table in chairs (sorry, da Vinci). They would have laid down on their left sides at an angle from a barely raised table on the ground. The result was that someone else’s feet could have been pretty close to your head while you ate. Thus, a good host would have provided for the washing of his guests’ feet when they arrived. The host, however, wouldn’t have washed them himself. That would have positioned him in a posture of dishonor before his guests. Nor would he have required his guests to wash their own feet or those of each other. Again, that was dishonoring. Instead, a slave would have been summoned to wash everyone’s feet. But not just any slave, the lowliest of slaves.
Getting back to Jesus’ supper with his disciples, it seems that no slave was around to wash anyone’s feet when they arrived. Instead, they all reclined at the table and began the meal with dirty feet. Until Jesus took care of it. For a higher-ranking servant to wash feet would have been noticeable. For one of the disciples to wash the feet of his peers would have been remarkable. But for Christ, the Master, to wash his servants’ feet…well, that was just unthinkable.
Humility…and More
An amazing act of humility, right? Without a doubt. But notice how John, one of those disciples who had his grubby feet washed by Jesus, introduces this account:
Having loved his own who were in the world, he now loved them to the very end.
John 13:1 (NET)
Something struck John even more than Christ’s humility. Another of Christ’s attributes resonated within John more profoundly: love. John saw Jesus’ kneeling down to wash his friends’ feet first and foremost as an act of love. Humility was surely present (see v. 16), but it wasn’t the driving force of Christ’s actions. Love was. Humility was love’s vehicle.
Any doubt of love’s emphasis in this account fades away when we see what Jesus says in the closing bookend of the action:
“I give you a new commandment—to love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. Everyone will know by this that you are my disciples—if you have love for one another.”
John 13:34–35 (NET)
Notice the parallelism between verses 14 and 34:
- “If I then, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you too ought to wash one another’s feet” (v. 14).
- “Just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another” (v. 34).
Humility progresses to love. Humility might be the muscle making the impact in the moment, but love is the skeleton upon which that muscle clings.
A New Command?
But what made Jesus’ commandment new? God’s people were always to love others. Jesus pointed this out to the Pharisees in what he considered the two greatest commandments undergirding the entire law (Matt. 22:34–40). In what way, then, was Jesus’ commandment new?
Some see the recipients of love as being what made this command new. Here, Jesus seemed to focus on his followers loving their fellow believers. Earlier, however, Jesus had told the parable of the Good Samaritan which emphasized that there is no “ingroup” or “outgroup” concerning who his followers are to love (Luke 10:25–37). Jesus’ followers are to love everyone, which certainly includes fellow disciples.
What was new about Jesus’ command wasn’t its recipients, but its standard. We are to love in a new, better way. For believers to love is for us to love as Jesus loves. We are to love with his love, not our own love. If we are right to connect the foot washing to the command to love, we see this clearly in how Jesus explains the foot washing: “For I have given you an example—you should do just as I have done for you” (v. 15). As I have served, you serve. As I have loved, you love.
Imitating Jesus’ Love
So how does Jesus love? Here, we see a call for a humble love, but we can’t miss sacrifice as the backdrop to the entire account. Sacrifice was the theme of the Passover they were celebrating (see Ex. 12–13). Just a few hours later the disciples would see the ultimate sacrifice on a Roman cross. Up to this point, even the most generous of loves had not yet reached this degree of absolute sacrifice. The love that Jesus would model is a love that is poured out completely. Nothing is withheld. This is the caliber of love Jesus has called us to imitate. We don’t love in part. We don’t even love abundantly. We love scandalously. We are to love so freely and to such an astonishing degree that it costs us. To love with Christ’s love is to put someone else’s needs above our own. Each and every time, whether that person “deserves” it or not. As the expression goes, “love hurts.” This was true of Jesus’ love, and it must be true of ours.
NEXT: The Humility of Jesus
brian dembowczyk 