WASH ONE ANOTHER’S FEET

This scene represents one of the most amazing object lessons that the Lord Jesus showed to His disciples. Supper now over, the Host became the slave and knelt before His men. It has been said that this scene would seem more understandable if it had been recorded in Mark’s gospel of the perfect Servant; that it is found in the gospel of the Son of God is simply astounding.

This act of the Lord Jesus, on the day before He was to die, showed just how much He loved His own, He loved them to the greatest possible extent. Peter was the disciple who spoke with the Lord Jesus in this scene. He simply did not understand the gesture, or the spiritual significance of it. Jesus patiently explained the meaning to Him. When Jesus said, ‘you are clean, but not all of you’, v. 10 ESV, He meant that the disciples had been washed clean by regeneration, all except Judas. The bath signified cleansing from the penalty of their sin; a one-time event. But the basin showed that those once cleaned needed daily cleansing from sin’s pollutions.

Later, Peter would learn this lesson in a very real and personal way. He denied the Saviour before the world! The bitter tears as the rooster crowed were to be followed by a personal message from the risen Lord on resurrection day, Mark 16. 7. Finally, a personal restoration on the banks of the Galilee.

Once restored, Peter was to strengthen his brethren, Luke 22. 32. No doubt, by the fire on the shore of Galilee, all of these memories and truths came back poignantly to Peter’s mind. This man, who had so desperately denied his Lord, was lovingly restored by Him and, within a few months, he was able to preach fearlessly the first two major gospel messages and see God bless the preaching with the salvation of 5,000 souls!

How are we to ‘wash one another’s feet?’ Not literally. The act was never commanded as a church ritual, and was never recorded as an assembly practice in the New Testament. But we can help cleanse the ‘dust’ of sin’s pollution from one another. By praying, exhorting, encouraging, strengthening, and restoring our fellow-saints; all of these and more, are examples of this loving service.