Ye call me Master and Lord: and ye say well; for so I am. If I then, your Lord and Master, have washed your feet; ye also ought to wash one another’s feet. For I have given you an example, that ye should do as I have done to you. Verily, verily, I say unto you, The servant is not greater than his Lord; neither he that is sent greater than he that sent him. If ye know these things, happy are ye if ye do them.
This incredible and humbling moment was done before His last passover. After being cheered into town because people believed that He was the political Messiah they had hoped to take them from under the oppression of the Romans. After Jesus cleansed the temple by flipping tables and allowing the gentiles back into their area of worship, he wanted to save the all Encompassing point for last. Thought Jesus ministry he desired to make one point known above all the others to love your neighbor as yourself. Putting their needs before yours and making sure others in your community are taken care of. Jesus was meeting their basic need in that moment. When you entered a house it was customary for the servant to wash your feet. The lowest servant who did not handle your food or take your outer robe but the one who touched your unclean feet covered in dirt from a journeys walk. They seen Jesus as their king not their servant. Jesus came also for this reason to destroy the hierarchy. To prove no one was greater than the other and so that night he showed no one was better than the one who washes the feet. My mother always taught me to treat the janitor as I would the C.E.O. Both make the operation work in different ways and both are very much needed. So in Jesus last hour he turned a mundane task into a teachable moment. There was three major points to Jesus message in these four verses.
The first being that no one is greater than the other. The Sense of superiority was deeply rooted in the Israelites. This is prevalent in the old testament. The need to conquer other people for challenging their status. The lack of social interaction and communication between the Jewish nation and Samaritans, Babylonians, and all other gentiles. They did not speak to each other or even worship in the same courts as the Jewish people because they were not “God’s chosen people” God loves us all equally and wants us to love one another as Jesus loved. He loved the outcast, the sinner, the sick, those who chose lucrative lines of work. Jesus did not call us to hate or despise others, He called us to show the redemptive love that He shares because of the love that the Father bestows upon us.
The second point is this verse 17 tells us to do these things gladly. That seems surprising as nothing we do in our society is gone gladly anymore. We as a nation always have something to argue about or be gloomy about. We are never satisfied with what we have because things are constantly changing or updating. If you are like the older members in my family, you complain because nothing is as it used to be. Products are not made with the same quality and people aren’t as nice as they used to be. But Jesus was filled with joy. It’s not just because He was filled with the spirit. It is always because He choose to see the best in people. In his disciples he did not just see fisherman, tax collectors or zelots, or see his female disciples that followed him as just women. He seen their kindness, the mental strength, their loyalty. He choose to look into the best of others and see the potential that could be unlocked by helping them inhance it. We should be glad that we have the message of God in our hearts and we should be filled with joy because we live in a country that allows us to share. Is it easy? Not always but we don’t have to hide in basements and in little forgotten buildings to share the word of God.
The third thing that Jesus shares with us in this story is that ministry is messy. The point of washing their feet is because they were dirty and it needed to be done. Ministry is dirty. It is very rare that you get to minister to the clean cut, the iron pressed neighbor next door. Its those who haven’t got to shower for days. Those who refuse help for their mental and physical limitations. Those who believe that you are evil for your beliefs and to the drunk girl crying in the bathroom stall. Jesus mentions those who are left out in the cold by the world. And if we are going to be like Jesus we have to reach out to them as well. Not just our wallets, or with our time, but with our hearts. This passover don’t pass over someone because you believe you are better than them.
ms. preacher lady 