SLIDE: He who loves his dream of a community more than the Christian community itself

becomes a destroyer of the latter, even though his personal intentions may be ever so
honest and earnest and sacrificial. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Life Together

SLIDE: John 13, pg. 900

As one reads through the Gospel of John, the shadow of the cross grows longer and darker until now the
reader stands at the foot of the cross on the evening before the Crucifixion. In just a few short hours
(somewhere between fifteen and eighteen hours) our Lord would be suspended between the sky and earth
as the sin-bearer of mankind. Before the sun set again he would breathe his last tortured breath.

With the conclusion of chapter 12, there would be more public discourses. Chapters 13–17 record what
we have come to know as the Upper Room Discourse. In these five chapters we see intimate teaching
about service, love, the Holy Spirit, Heaven, our union with Christ, and prayer.

When these verses are examined with proper reverential excitement, they will accomplish great good in
our lives.

The Upper Room Discourse begins with a dramatic call to follow Christ’s example as a servant—to be
people of the towel. He tells us, if we are to be his followers, where we must begin, what qualities must
be in our lives, and what we must do. John introduces this new section with a few short sentences that
form a masterful introduction to the heady atmosphere of the upper room.

THE HEART OF THE SERVANT (vv. 1–3) 1

The final sentence gives us his heart: ―having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them
to the end.‖ The servant’s heart is a heart of love.

The tenses at the end of verse 1, ―having loved his own who were in the world, he now showed them the
full extent of his love,‖ means that in the whole range of Christ’s contact with his disciples, he loved
them! In the Upper Room he consciously made that the overriding issue.

SLIDE: ―A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love
one another. By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one
another.‖ (vv. 34–35)

And in 17:26 the Savior tells the Father,

SLIDE: ―I made known to them your name, and I will continue to make it known, that the love
with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them.‖

Teaching his people to love was one of Jesus’ overall purposes in the Upper Room Discourse.
Specifically, Jesus was saying to his people, ―If you want to be my servants, if you want to grow in this
authentic aspect of discipleship, if that is what you really desire, you must allow your hearts to deepen in
love.‖ Are we willing to do that? Are we willing to grow in love?

Another aspect of the Savior’s heart is that Jesus knew exactly who he was. Notice the beginning of verse
1: ―It was just before the Passover Feast. Jesus knew that the time had come for him to leave this world
and go to the Father.‖ Also, ―Jesus knew that the Father had put all things under his power, and that he
had come from God and was returning to God‖ (v. 3). Jesus did not forget he was God and yet humbled
himself. Being fully conscious of his supremacy and coming super-exaltation, he became the Lord of the
towel! Here is the heart of our foot-washing Lord and Savior—a heart that is aware of its royalty while
overflowing with a love that loves to the uttermost.

THE EXAMPLE OF THE SERVANT (vv. 4–11)

The disciples were alone with Jesus in the Upper Room. The world was locked out. Only a handful of
mortals and honored angels would see what happened there. Because it was a Passover meal, the disciples
were reclining in the traditional posture, each with his left arm to support his head and his right arm to
reach dishes on the table. Their feet were stretched out behind them away from the table. The Savior rose
from the table and performed the last labor of his life.

Considering the self-conscious, purposeful drama and the natural intensity it certainly evoked, there were
probably a few murmurs and whispers and then silence. Our modern translations use the past tense, but
the Greek uses the present.

 Jesus rises from supper just as in the Incarnation he rose from his place of perfect fellowship with
God the Father and the Holy Spirit.
 He lays aside his garments just as he had temporarily set aside his glorious existence. He takes a
towel just as he took upon himself the form of a servant.
 He wraps a towel around his waist, for he had come to serve.
 He pours water into the basin, just as he was about to pour out his blood in order to wash away
human sin.
2
 He washes his disciples’ feet just as he cleanses his children.

On this remarkable occasion Jesus perfectly staged a portrayal of his whole life from birth to death to
resurrection! It was a dramatization of Philippians 2:5–9:

READ: Philippians 2:5 – 9

Jesus’ whole life was dominated by service! As Christ said of himself, ―The Son of Man did not come to
be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many‖ (Matthew 20:28).

POUR OUT WATER: With the uncomfortable quiet in that upper room, undoubtedly all could easily
hear the gentle pouring of the water and the Master’s breathing as he moved from disciple to disciple. I
wonder what he thought.

 Perhaps as he dried the feet of Thomas and Mark, ―These feet will be beautiful on the
mountains.‖
 And when he came to Judas, ―These will soon steal away in the dark.‖
 Then he came to a pair of 13Ds—Peter’s!

Peter said, ―Lord, are you going to wash my feet?‖ Jesus answered and said to him, ―You do not realize
now what I am doing, but later you will understand.‖ Peter said to him, ―No, you shall never wash my
feet‖ (vv. 6b–8a).
Good old Peter. Sometimes the only time he opened his mouth was to change feet! The Greek here is
even more forceful! ―Lord, You, my feet do You wash! No, never shall You wash my feet until eternity.‖
Foot-washing was a servant’s task and not something to be done by the Master! The Midrash specified
that foot-washing could not be required of a Hebrew slave.4 The Master dressed in a servant’s towel?
Absurd! Never!

Jesus answered in verse 8, ―Unless I wash you, you have no part with me.‖ Peter replied, ―Then, Lord, not
just my feet but my hands and my head as well!‖ (v. 9). I like Peter. ―All of me, Jesus!‖ But now the
impetuous disciple was swinging too far in the other direction, as our Lord explained in verses 10–11:

READ: John 13:10 – 11

When one had bathed and then walked to another’s house, he only needed his feet washed in order to be
clean. As justified believers, the disciples did not need a radical new cleansing, but rather a daily
cleansing from the contaminating effects of sin. Jesus went on to finish washing their feet, and when he
had finished, he rose again, put on his garments, and again reclined at the table.

THE CHALLENGE OF THE SERVANT (vv. 12–17)

Jesus then asked them, ―Do you understand what I have done for you?‖ (v. 12). I believe they knew! In
Luke’s account of the last meal we read (22:24): ―Also a dispute arose among them as to which of them
was considered to be the greatest.‖ When the cross was only a few hours away, the disciples were still
arguing about matters of pride. Usually when there was no servant present to wash the guests’ feet, the
first one or two to arrive would perform the ceremony for the rest of the guests. But here the first arrivals 3
were not in the mood. Perhaps the ―who’s the greatest?‖ controversy had actually begun as they
journeyed there. They were willing to fight for the throne, but no one wanted the towel! Jesus’ act was a
powerful lesson in servanthood, and they were missing the point!

So Jesus issued a potent challenge in verses 13–16:

READ: John 13:13 – 16

Jesus employed the compelling logic of a lawyer’s argument: ―If it is true for the greater (me), how much
more for the lesser (you).‖

In 1970 at the Inter-Varsity’s Urbana convention, John Stott gave a masterful application of the truth of
this passage. He told a story about Samuel Logan Brengle:

In 1878 when William Booth’s Salvation Army had just been so named, men from all over
the world began to enlist. One man, who had once dreamed of himself as a bishop,
crossed the Atlantic from America to England to enlist. He was a Methodist minister,
Samuel Logan Brengle. And he now turned from a fine pastorate to join Booth’s
Salvation Army. Brengle later became the Army’s first American-born commissioner. But
at first Booth accepted his services reluctantly and grudgingly. Booth said to Brengle,
“You’ve been your own boss too long.” And in order to instill humility into Brengle, he

4
Midrash Mekilta on Exodus 21:2, quoted in Brown, Gospel According to John, p. 564.
 set him to work cleaning the boots of the other trainees. And Brengle said to himself,
“Have I followed my own fancy across the Atlantic in order to black boots?” And then as
in a vision he saw Jesus bending over the feet of rough, unlettered fishermen. “Lord,” he
whispered, “You washed their feet: I will black their boots.”5

If we are to count ourselves as followers of Christ, there must be humble service in our
lives. We must be people of the towel. More specifically, we are to wash one another’s
feet. While Christ does not exclude washing the feet of those outside the church, it is
meant primarily for brothers and sisters in the body of Christ. That is in some respects
more difficult. It is easier sometimes to humble ourselves and wash the feet of those we
do not know. But those in our own families? Or fellow believers whom we loathe, that we
have not spoken to for years? But Jesus’ instruction was clear: “Now that I, your Lord
and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also should wash one another’s feet.”

When we do this, it will have a cleansing effect upon other believers. Jesus is saying that the church has
received the essential cleansing by him in the forgiveness of sins, but we can help take away the day-by-
day dirt of the world by humbly serving one another. By doing this, we will encourage one another to
godliness.

CONCLUSION
―Now that you know these things, you will be blessed if you do them‖ (v. 17). Jesus did not say we will
be happy if we think about these things or learn about them or, as is so often thought, have them done to
us. ―Happy are you if you do them.‖ Happy are we if we wash our wives’ feet! Happy are we if we wash 4
our children’s feet! Happy are we if we wash our parents’ feet! Happy are we if we wash a detractor’s
feet! We do not need to learn more about this. We need to do it.

Like its physical counterpart, spiritual foot-washing is dirty work! We cannot make people clean by
scolding them or lecturing them or patronizing them. We must get our hands dirty if we are going to be
involved in a ministry of cleansing.

How do we become people of the towel?

1. First we must observe the marvelous example of our foot-washing Lord and Savior and then
listen to Jesus’ challenge: ―Now that I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also
should wash one another’s feet.‖
2. Perhaps most important, we must have the quality of Jesus’ heart. ―Having loved his own who
were in the world, he now showed them the full extent of his love.‖ We are to be overflowing
with love.
3. Finally, we become people of the towel by realizing who we are. The power, the impetus, and the
grace to wash one another’s feet is proportionate not only to how we see Jesus but to how we see
ourselves. Our Lord saw himself as King of kings, and he washed the disciples’ feet. Recovery of
a kingly consciousness will hallow and refine our entire lives. We are ―a royal priesthood‖ (1
Peter 2:9).

5
John Stott, Christ the Liberator (Downers Groove, IL: InterVarsity, 1971), p. 25.
“Now that you know these things, you will be blessed if you do them.”

This is just as much a mandate as his words ―This do in remembrance of me‖ were for the
practice of the Lord’s Supper. We celebrate communion, but foot washing is a lost art. Of course
we no longer walk along dusty roads in sandals, but it’s a basic and precious symbol of service.

To wash the feet of a brother or sister means that we must set aside our pride and any personal
agendas or grudges, and humbly stoop to minister to another person's needs. Would you take
time to minister to a person if you knew he would betray you for money? Our Lord did, and we
are not greater than our Master (v16).