Jesus is not proud

 JESUS IS NOT PROUD

“The Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve.”

MATTHEW 20.28

“Now that I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also should wash one another’s feet.”

JOHN 13.14

Based on JOHN 13:1–17

There’s always that one job around the house that nobody wants to do. For some, it’s scrubbing toilets. For others, it’s emptying the dishwasher.

In first-century Palestine, it was washing feet.

Nobody wanted to wash feet.

Imagine the stench of sweat, dust, and dung, picture the callouses and ingrown toenails, feel the humility of doing what no one else wanted to do.

In fact, this job was considered so demeaning that it was reserved for the lowest of servants in a household. On this holy Passover night, Jesus and His disciples had already begun eating with their feet unwashed. No one wanted to do that job.

So in the middle of their meal, Jesus gets up, takes off His outer robe, and dons a towel. Every eye is watching His every move. Surely not! This cannot be happening. Out of everyone in the room, Jesus should have been the last person to wash anyone’s feet.

For those of us who have grown up hearing this story again and again, the wrongness of the situation may have become lost on us. It’s Peter’s visceral reaction that helps establish the absurdity of the moment: “No, you shall never wash my feet,” he tells Jesus.

Never.

This is wrong.

Maybe John should be washing feet since he’s the youngest. Or perhaps Philip or Andrew should run to fetch the servant girl. But not You.

It’s understandable why the disciples hesitated to volunteer for this task, even though disciples were expected to serve their rabbis, washing their teachers’ feet was one service specifically not expected even of them. Let alone washing their peers’ feet!

But Jesus demonstrated that in His kingdom, no person is too high for the lowest of tasks, for He Himself took on the nature of a servant though He was in very nature God. And He served not only His best friends, but the one who would betray Him, the one who would deny Him, and the ones who would desert Him.

His greatest act of love was yet to come, but washing the disciples’ feet was a shocking expression of love that foretold just how low Jesus was willing to bow in order to love His own until the very end.

Prayer 

King Jesus, You who humbled Yourself to the lowest of servant tasks, You are exalted to the highest place in heaven. I’ll admit, Your example humbles me. It’s hard for me to follow Your lead, but I want to. Help me lay aside my pride and any concern for my image, and empower me to kneel before others in humble service, out of love. 

In Jesus’s name, Amen.

If you want to read more 

Mk 10.45, Jn 13.1–17, Phil 2.6–7