12When he had finished washing their feet, he put on his clothes and returned to his place. "Do you understand what I have done for you?" he asked them. 13"You call me 'Teacher' and 'Lord,' and rightly so, for that is what I am. 14Now that I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also should wash one another's feet. 15I have set you an example that you should do as I have done for you. 16I tell you the truth, no servant is greater than his master, nor is a messenger greater than the one who sent him. 17Now that you know these things, you will be blessed if you do them.
Dig Deeper
Anyone who knows me, knows that I am a true handyman that can fix almost anything. Okay, that’s not really true. If there is a handyman gene somewhere, I missed it. If it’s something that calls for more than a basic screwdriver or hammer, I have little chance of success. The funny thing is, I certainly did not get that lack of ability from my dad. He’s very handy. He can fix things around the house, build things, fix cars, and all of those other things that the man’s man can do. I simply cannot do those things. The main reason is that I just didn’t pay attention when he was fixing things around the house. I didn’t want that information. To me, that stuff was just information, it wasn’t who my dad really was. When I spent time with my dad, I think who he was rubbed off on me more than what he knew. I may not be able to fix a leaky sink, but I followed him closely and learned the things that made him who he is. I learned about having a hard work ethic, being responsible, taking care of other people, serving whenever there is a need, and the importance of being humble. From being close to him and being a witness to those aspects of his character, I didn’t just see that that was who he is, it became part of who I am. What I saw him do and be, I now carry on in my life and hopefully pass those things on to my sons.
The world of first century Judaism had a concept of the teacher and disciple relationship that was much like the relationship described between my dad and I. We tend to view teachers in our day as reserves of information that dispense that knowledge to their students. In Jesus’ day, however, disciples followed their teachers around with the goal of not so much just gleaning information from them but to become like them. They wanted to see what their teachers did, be like they were, and learn to live life and be the kind of person that their teacher was. This concept is behind much of Jesus’ teaching of his disciples, which is nowhere more clear than the powerful scene of his foot washing. Jesus humbled himself and showed the disciples what God’s true character was all about. He also demonstrated for them the full extent of his love that was displayed in that act but that ultimately would be displayed on the cross. As Jesus calls his disciples, in this scene, to do for others what he has done for them, we must realize that he is not just calling them to do what he did or take some information away. Rather he is calling them to be what he was, which will cause them to act as he acted.
To truly understand Jesus in this solemn moment, we need to realize that he is far more concerned with the meaning of his actions than the actions himself. He has taken on the lowest possible task, the job of a servant or slave, but it’s not the act of washing feet that is the most important thing. It is the demonstration of his nature and the light that is shed on what he is about to do on the Cross and why he is doing that. He is the Good Shepherd that will lay down his life for his sheep (Jn. 10:11) because he is by his very nature a servant (Phil. 2:7). Perhaps passages like this one wouldn’t be so challenging if Jesus just left it at that. We could pretty easily accept a savior who came as a servant, performed the ultimate act of laying down his life in our place and the said, "Here, enjoy this wonderful gift. Go live your lives and enjoy the freedom I have provided. Don’t give it a second thought."
Of course we’d like that sort of thing, but Jesus’ actions here remind us that there’s more to it than that. He definitely wants us to have freedom and enjoy the gift of grace that he provided through the Cross, but the only way to do that is to become like him, to do what he did. He wasn’t just passing on some information about himself and his own character to the disciples so that they could stand back and marvel at what a good sport Jesus was. That’s why Jesus asks them if they understand what he has done for them. He’s not trying to tell them that in washing their feet he has performed some great physical act that they will only understand down the road. The great thing that he has done that they need to understand was not the foot washing but the example that that action has set. The word hypodeigma, which is translated here as example, was a common word in the Greco-Roman world that denoted a specific act of setting a pattern for future behavior.
This is what Jesus was up to. He was showing them his true nature in a symbolic fashion so that they could go and do likewise. He modeled a pattern that they could emulate. Although the word he uses (hypodeigma) was a common word, the nature of the pattern that he set would not have been so common at all. In a Greco-Roman world that valued things like power, courage, and wealth, Jesus set down a pattern of humility, self-sacrifice, and self-giving love. These were the things that they should pattern their lives after.
And don’t make the mistake of thinking that this was all just a suggestion or something that Jesus thought would be a nice idea if they followed. If they wanted to be his disciples in that world, then they must strive to be like him. He wasn’t passing along mere information, remember, he was showing them how to live. They called him Teacher and Lord (A word that could simply mean ‘sir’ but also was the term used in the Septuagint, the translation of the Old Testament that Jesus used, for God Himself), and that was a good thing. They weren’t mistaken in following him, in fact everyone who loves God will follow him. In reminding them, though, that he was their Teacher and Lord, he is reminding them of the principle that they adhered to when they answered the call to follow him. Their first reaction might have been to exempt themselves from such demeaning behavior and maybe they could have if he had just told them to serve others, but he went beyond that. He humbled himself to the level of a servant and served them in the most humble way available at that moment. That was a pattern that they could see and remember and not ignore. No servant was greater than his master, nor is a messenger greater than the one who sent him. They were not to go off and use the Gospel to create their own little kingdoms or accrue power, prestige, and attention for themselves. They were to do what Jesus was demonstrating to them. They were to be like him and lay down their lives for others.
This passage must stand as a stern reminder to those of us who would dare call ourselves his disciples today. There is always a temptation available to us to take the Gospel and use it as a tool of power rather than a call to death to self and service to others. We must beware of and at all costs avoid the siren’s call to shirk back from the demanding call of service, avoiding the things that we think are beneath us and hoping someone else will do them, and grasping onto the things which will bring us attention and praise. There seem to be endless possibilities in the human spirit that we have found to take the Gospel and somehow use it to our own personal advantage. We want to create little spheres of influence and power and conveniently forget that, above all, Christ has set a pattern of laying down our lives for others. Or we can even fall into a trap of being willing to serve as a way of demonstrating what a great servant we are and how humble we are. It is quite possible to become proud of our ‘humility’. The one thing that we must never forget is that when Jesus knelt down to wash their feet, taking him one step closer to his ultimate act of service on the Cross, he wasn’t thinking of himself at all. That’s the key to truly becoming a servant in nature. It’s easy to do acts of service all the while keeping an eye on ourselves. Someone who is a servant in their nature, someone who has followed Christ’s pattern and become like him, has taken their eyes off of themselves altogether and keeps them on the world that we are called to serve and lay down our lives for.
We must understand some things in our world today, though. We live in a world where acts of benevolence are lauded, not the one that Jesus lived in where those sorts of things were virtually unheard of. We must be realistic about the types of service and benevolence that we typically see in the world today, however. What happens in those cases, for the most part, is that people serve because they are desperately looking to find peace and happiness without God in their life. They are looking to fill a void. You see, their service, at its core, is still really about them. That’s not to say that we can’t enjoy serving others, but truly laying our lives down for others does not come from a desire to feel good, nor does it generate from wanting better for others. Truly laying down our lives for others is what we become in response to what Jesus did for us, not something we do to try to fill a void in our lives.
Becoming a true servant by following the pattern of Jesus will bring blessings, Jesus said, but when you’re really focused on dying to self and living his life for others, you probably won’t even notice, and that’s a good thing. It is only then that you will discover the true meaning of Paul’s words from Philippians 1:21: "For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain."
Devotional Thought
Can you really say that your life is characterized by self-giving love? Does your first thought go to how you can help, love, and serve others or does it usually go to how things will impact you? There is not one of us who does not need to grow in the pattern that Jesus laid down for us here. Spend some time praying today that God will help you to mature and grow in this area.
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