“Now that I, your Lord and Teacher, have
washed your feet, you also should wash one another’s feet. I have set you an example that you should do
as I have done for you. Very truly I
tell you, no servant is greater than his master, nor is a messenger greater
than the one who sent him” (John 13:15-16 NIV).
Is there in all of the writings of all
time, in all the recordings of events in all history … any account of someone in greater position, of
greater authority or of greater significance humbling themselves in a greater
way then at the feet of those whom he loved, than Jesus the Christ washing the feet of his
followers?
This paradoxical and amazing event precedes
the betrayal of Christ, the denials, the beatings, the mockery, the sham of a
trial, the condemnation, the humiliation, the pain, the suffering, the death
and the countless other abuses He suffered.
His exaltation to His proper place at the right hand of God after His
resurrection covers the unfathomable distance in the saving and empowering us
as followers.
Jesus kneeling to wash the feet of those
that He loved was nothing new. It was
not new direction or a new revelation but simply the position He had taken in
His coming to earth to save those that He loved. His washing and removal of the daily grime off
the feet of the Apostles was a simple physical act to show how God’s love looks
in deed and action. Love assumes the role of serving. At the feet of those who are loved is the
place that Jesus our Lord assumes in loving us completely. It shows how we love
one another with His love. To be at the
feet of those we love, is not an easy place to be but it is the position that
love humbly assumes and where the greatest needs are met.
“Who,
being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be
used to his own advantage; rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very
nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in
appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to
death— even death on a cross! Therefore God exalted him to the highest place
and gave him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every
knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue
acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father” (Philippians 2:6-11 NIV).
Suggested Bible Reading ... John 13 & Philippians 2
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