Jesus Washes Feet and Gives a New Commandment | S4 E10

Jesus has been saying, My hour has not yet come.

Today, he’ll say, My hour has arrived.

It is Holy Thursday.

And on this great and ominous night, filled with huge moments in salvation history, the first thing he chooses to do is wash the feet of his apostles.

Now, why did he do that?

And why is it significant that Judas left right after he did that?

And what does it mean for us when washing feet is no longer quite the thing it apparently was back then?

Let’s see just what it all means this week on The Extraordinary Story.

This is The Extraordinary Story, a podcast that tells the story of the life of Jesus Christ.

God himself entered the confusing maze that is our world to transform it into a path that leads to him today and always.

The Extraordinary Story is brought to you by Benedictine College in Atchison, Kansas.

I’m Tom Hoopes.

I’m writer in residence here at Benedictine College.

So here it is.

The big day has arrived.

Holy Thursday.

We marched with Jesus on his long journey as he set his face like flint for Jerusalem.

He has said things only God should say, and has done things only God can do.

Crowds have been grabbing at his robe and hanging on his every word.

He knew all along that this would lead to his death, and he has already survived several close scrapes.

They wanted to throw him off of the cliff of the temple and stone him to death in the temple.

He walked right through them each time.

At the beginning of his ministry at the wedding feast at Cana, his mother Mary asked him to turn water into wine by a miracle, and he said, My hour has not yet come.

But he did it anyway.

And now his hour has come.

Ever since that day he has been a hunted man.

He was too alarming to those with an interest in the status quo.

When his hour does come, he will lay down his life for his friends, but before that he has things to do.

He had the long road of cures and teaching, gradually revealing who he was until he put his apostles on the spot, asking them who they thought he was, and whether they would stay with him even after he insisted that they had to eat his flesh and drink his blood in the Eucharist.

Most recently, he raised Lazarus from the dead, and his opponents decided that he definitely has to die now.

It’s us or them, they figured.

So he finally entered Jerusalem on Palm Sunday, this time in the most provocative way possible, according to his opponents, on a donkey to shouts of Hosanna and people likening him to the conquering king, the successor of David.

And he looked like a king, because that’s what he is.

And his last piece of business was to describe what his kingdom would look like.

He wanted to transform the world into a place where man and God work together, laboring in the same vineyard as Adam and Eve had.

He wanted the nature logic of the Garden of Eden to apply to his kingdom.

He wanted marriage to be like what he made it to be, and he wanted God to be man’s first love again.

In other words, he wanted to reverse what Satan had done.

He wanted to undo the fall.

So he spelled it all out, being careful to stay in public places where his opponents couldn’t get at him because the crowds were on his side.

That’s what he did by day.

By night, he hid.

Then on Wednesday, he fell silent.

But a lot has been happening behind the silence.

The Sanhedrin, the High Council of Religious Leaders, met and were at a loss how they could hunt him down until Judas made his entry.

He walked in and said, How much will you give me to hand him over to you?

At the same time, Jesus spent silent Wednesday making arrangements of his own for the Last Supper.

He knew that that would be a prime time for the Sanhedrin to arrest him.

So he made his plans such that even his own apostles wouldn’t know where this meal was going to take place.

The Gospel of Mark describes it this way.

He sent two of his disciples and said to them, Go into the city, and a man carrying a jar of water will meet you.

Follow him, and wherever he enters, say to the householder, The teacher says, Where is my guest room, where I am to eat the Passover with my disciples?

And he will show you a large upper room, furnished and ready.

There, prepare for us.

That sounds like it took a lot of doing to set up.

And then at last, we get the gospel that we are going to talk about today.

It’s from the Gospel of John, and I love the way it starts.

Now, before the feast of Passover, when Jesus knew that his hour had come to depart out of this world to the Father, having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end.

And during supper, Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands, and that he had come from God and was going to God, rose from supper, laid aside his garments, and girded himself with a towel.

Then he poured water into a basin, and began to wash the disciples’ feet, and to wipe them with a towel with which he was girded.

So, this is a beautiful word picture of Jesus’ whole ministry.

This is his lesson about who he is, and who we are.

It’s an object lesson about how to live in his kingdom.

His action here sums up who he is, and what he means to do.

I’ll never forget a homily I heard from Father Arthur Swain in college.

He spoke about what St.

Paul says in his second letter to the Philippians.

And he says that these words sum up everything Jesus did, and everything he wants us to do.

And they happen to be words that are perfectly summed up in the image of Jesus with his towel, washing the Apostles’ feet.

St.

Paul said of Jesus, Though he was in the form of God, he did not count equality with God, something to be grasped, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men.

And being found in human form, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even death on a cross.

Even for Jesus Christ himself, humility and obedience are the two keys to life.

He took the form of a slave, or took the form of a servant, and we see that nowhere more literally than here, where he girds himself with a towel and goes to work washing feet.

This is an icon for us of what Jesus’ role in the maze will look like.

We are here, lost in time and space, unable to make heads or tails out of our own lives, and his response isn’t to demand that we figure it out, but to come down to where we are and serve us so that we will learn what the meaning of life truly is.

But please note that God has been humbly serving us in this way all along.

He sends his rain and sunshine to the just and the unjust, and fills our days with beauty, truth, goodness, and provision.

But seeing him dressed as a servant kneeling before us to wash our feet is something different.

Notice that this isn’t a normal washing before dinner kind of washing as the Church Father Origen likes to point out.

John writes, He rose from supper to wash their feet.

There is a lot of resonance in this action.

You will remember that John the Baptist said, I baptize with water, but there is one among you whom you do not recognize, the one who is coming after me, whose sandal strap I am not worthy to untie.

Well, now the great one is here and recognized, and the apostles are not worthy to untie his sandal strap, but he unties theirs, he washes their feet.

He wants to be very clear with us that in the new kingdom, the greatest people should see no work as beneath them.

In fact, this is a lesson parents learn.

We may think we are greater than our children, but we are precisely the people who wash them and clothe them and care for them.

Those in the church who are called father should learn the same lesson.

Parents are servants.

Others may lord it over others.

They must not.

But think of the significance of washing feet.

First, there is a biblical significance.

There is a prophecy in Isaiah that was very popular in Jesus’ time that predicted that the Messiah would come and save Israel.

It says, How beautiful on the mountains are the feet of him who brings good news, announcing salvation.

The fathers of the church associate the washing of the feet passage with Jesus here as he makes his apostles’ feet beautiful.

Also, our feet are associated with our choices.

When we make a choice, we say we take one road or another.

Maybe we take the high road or the low road.

We take the road less traveled by, or we take the broad path to the destruction.

People traffic in good or bad, and we vote with our feet for one thing or another.

Our feet carry us to one destination or another.

Jesus is here washing feet so that they can become more like his feet.

And remember Lazarus’ sister Mary sitting at his feet.

Or remember the woman from early on in the Gospel of Luke, who wet his feet with her tears and wiped them with the hair of her head and kissed his feet.

Now he is the one at their feet.

And what about his own feet?

They will be dirtied on the way of the cross, and no one will wash them until they are pierced and bathed in his blood.

But then John tells us more of the story.

He came to Simon Peter and Peter said to him, Lord, do you wash my feet?

Jesus answered him, What I am doing now you do not know, but afterward you will understand.

Peter said to him, You shall never wash my feet.

Jesus answered him, If I do not wash you, you have no part in me.

Simon Peter said to him, Lord, not my feet only, but also my hands and my head.

Jesus said to him, He who has bathed does not need to wash except for his feet.

But he is clean all over, and you are clean, but not all of you.

For he knew who was to betray him.

That was why he said, You are not all clean.

End quote.

Well, what is the meaning of this back and forth between Peter?

It’s pointing to the difference between ritual purity and actual purity, according to Pope Benedict.

He makes the point that the washing is a purification ritual, but that we misunderstand purity ever since 19th century piety identified purity only with sexual purity.

Pope John Paul II tried to correct that.

He identifies purity of heart with how truly we see things.

The more pure we are, the more we see the true worth of things.

We all know what this is like.

If you spend a long time shopping for clothes, you become hyper-focused on clothes, and then you find yourself focused on the clothing of the people you meet and you judge them by it.

If you spend your time watching media that objectifies other people, you start to objectify the people in your life.

Pornography addicts don’t see other people, they see body parts.

We all need to cleanse our sight, and that is what this washing is, a way of cleansing our sight, a way of seeing others for their true worth.

One of my favorite songs of the folk singer Greg Brown is called Wash My Eyes.

It isn’t exactly a religious song, but it sounds like one.

His father was a Pentecostal minister, so his religious background is something that is always with him.

And he sings, Wash my eyes that I may see yellow return to the willow tree.

Open my ears that I may hear the river running swift and clear.

And please, wash my eyes, and please, open my ears.

Here, Jesus washes their feet, but in so doing, he washes their eyes and opens the ears of the apostles by revealing their worth and purpose.

It’s easy to feel like a nobody compared to a great man, but it is impossible to feel like a nobody when the great man stoops down with a servant’s towel tucked into his belt and washes your feet.

But the Gospel of John goes on.

When he had washed their feet and taken his garments and resumed his place, he said to them, Do you know what I have done to you?

You call me teacher and Lord, and you are right, for so I am.

If I, then, your teacher and Lord, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet, for I have given you an example, and you also should do as I have done to you.

Truly, truly, I say to you, a servant is not greater than his master, nor is he who is sent greater than he who sent him.

If you know these things, blessed are you if you do them.

I am speaking of you all.

I know whom I have chosen.

It is that the scripture may be fulfilled.

He who ate my bread has lifted his heel against me.

I tell you this now, before it takes place, that when it does take place, you may believe that I am he.

Truly, truly, I say to you, he who receives anyone who I send receives me, and he who receives me receives him who sent me.

When Jesus had thus spoken, he was troubled in spirit and testified, truly, truly, I say to you, one of you will betray me.

The disciples looked at one another, uncertain of whom he spoke.

The apostles are told to do what he has done.

Does he mean he wants them to wash people’s feet?

Not exactly.

I think he means to serve people in a particular way.

Serve them first by baptizing, and then by washing them in smaller ways to renew that baptism.

In the seventh century, Saint Bede said, Jesus is giving clear notice that the washing of feet signifies the pardoning of sin, and not only that which is given once in baptism, but in addition, that by which the daily guilty actions of the faithful that everyone lives with in his life are cleaned by his daily grace.

In the 21st century, Pope Benedict said, Through confession we bring sin into the light.

We place it within Christ’s purifying love.

In confession, the Lord washes our soiled feet over and over again, and prepares us for the table of fellowship with him.

God doesn’t just forgive, he fixes.

He doesn’t just save, he salves.

And he wants us to do as he has done.

The sacrament of confession restores our ability to see the true worth of others and above all of him.

Also note that immediately after washing their feet, Jesus turns to the hour that is upon him and speaks of Judas.

He is the one who, though washed, is impure.

He is the one who doesn’t see the true worth of anybody, as evidenced by the fact that he looks at Mary anointing his feet and sees a waste of oil and looks at Jesus about to die and sees dollar signs or pieces of silver at any rate.

Jesus is quoting here from Psalm 41, which ominously describes exactly what is happening this week.

Quote, My foes are speaking evil against me, saying, How long before he dies and his name be forgotten?

When someone comes to visit me, he speaks empty words.

His heart stores up malice.

On leaving, he spreads lies.

All my foes whisper together against me.

They devise evil plots against me.

Even my friend in whom I trusted, who ate my bread, has lifted his heel against me.

And John tells us Jesus is troubled by all of this.

He uses that word troubled very rarely.

For instance, when Lazarus dies and also in the agony in the garden.

In losing Judas, Jesus is not losing a cartoon villain.

He’s losing a close friend.

And that’s an agonizing loss.

To lose a friend so close, they have shared everything together in a life on the road.

To have that friend turn against you is enough for most of us to simply believe that friendship is not possible, to become cynical and alone.

It troubles even Jesus.

Peter prompts John to ask Jesus who will betray him.

Think of the people reclining on their left arms, their feet pointing away from the table like diagonal spokes.

This is truly a circle of friends.

And John is to the right of Jesus, so close, his head is right by Jesus’ chest.

And John’s gospel continues.

One of his disciples whom Jesus loved was lying close to the breast of Jesus.

So Simon Peter beckoned to him and said, Tell us who it is of whom he speaks.

So lying thus close to the breast of Jesus, he said to him, Lord, who is it?

Jesus answered, It is he to whom I shall give this morsel when I have dipped it.

So when he had dipped the morsel, he gave it to Judas, the son of Simon Iscariot.

And after the morsel, Satan entered into him.

Jesus said to him, What you are going to do, do quickly.

Now, no one at the table knew why he said this to him.

Some thought that because Judas had the money box, Jesus was telling him, buy what you need for the feast, or that he should give something to the poor.

So after receiving the morsel, he immediately went out.

And it was night.

End quote.

Now, the accusation is often made that Judas was set up, that he was somehow fated to do evil in a way that is unfair to him.

But another way to look at it is that Jesus does with Judas exactly what Frodo did with Gollum.

In the story of the Lord of the Rings, it was Frodo’s pity on Gollum and the concern he had for Gollum that saved the day and the end.

In this story, by tolerating this man and even caring for him and nurturing him, Jesus has been more than fair.

He’s even been loving.

Searle of Alexandria put it this way, Christ chose Judas and associated him with the holy disciples.

Judas certainly possessed the capacity for discipleship.

It lay in the power of Judas to save himself from falling, namely by making the more excellent choice and transforming his whole heart and soul in such a way as to become a sincere follower of Christ.

Judas was lost through a number of small infidelities.

He cheated a little here, being easy on himself here and there, and soon he found himself in darkness, a prey to Satan himself.

Think of what he was doing.

We are told in Luke that women traveled with the apostles and contributed their money.

Jesus criticized the Pharisees who devour the house of widows.

But even as he was preaching this, Judas was helping himself to these women’s money.

He will later commit another sin of despairing that he can ever be made clean again.

But Jesus has even prepared him for that.

You can look at the whole foot washing sequence as Jesus telling the apostles, including Judas, that he provides a way to change course even if they make bad choices after baptism.

It’s also significant that Judas leaves after eating bread.

Did he receive the Eucharist?

There has been a little bit of debate about that.

We don’t know for sure.

What we do know is that Judas’ first decision to leave was after the proclamation of the Eucharist and it was a factor in his lack of faith.

This passage ends with Jesus walking away and then we get the ominous final four words.

And it was night.

Darkness was descending on the world, but despite the darkness, Jesus has one more thing to say.

The Gospel of John says, quote, when Judas had gone out, Jesus said, now is the son of man glorified and in him God is glorified.

If God is glorified in him, God will also glorify him in himself and glorify him at once.

Little children, yet a little while I am with you, you will seek me.

And as I said to the Jews, so I now say to you, where I am, you cannot come.

A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another, even as I have loved you, that you also love one another.

By this, all men will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.

End quote.

So after Judas leaves, Jesus says, now is the son of man glorified.

He means that his passion has begun and that this will be his glory.

But where is the glory in being handed over by one of his best friends, abandoned by others, and exposed to a shameful death?

Well, there is enormous glory in it.

The greatest glory possible.

The glory of unconditional love.

This is the context in which Jesus gives a last request.

I give you a new commandment.

Love one another.

As I have loved you, so you should love one another.

Think of what he’s asking.

This is the one who created us, humbled himself to live like us, tirelessly preached repentance, healed countless people, died for us and forgave us, and he did it all while owing us nothing.

The old commandment was to love one another as yourself.

The new one is to love one another as God loves you.

The old commandment was to give people the love that they are owed as fellow creatures.

The new commandment is to give them what they are not owed and what you cannot give as a fellow creature.

Jesus often asks the impossible.

He tells us to be perfect as your heavenly father is perfect and be merciful even as your father is merciful.

Now he commands us to love people like he does, far beyond what we owe or what we have.

Well, how can we love like Jesus?

There’s only one way it’s possible.

It is impossible to do this by imitations, says the Catechism, but it is possible to do it by participation.

Each step of our Christian life is meant to be a demonstration of how badly Jesus wants to be united with each of us.

We are baptized into Christ, many of us as infants.

We receive communion, the body, blood, soul and divinity of Jesus Christ as children.

We are confirmed and receive the fullness of the Holy Spirit.

We are married and become one in Christ, and we become the spouse of Christ or the church in a religious vocation.

Jesus wants us to be more than just passing acquaintances.

As St.

Athanasius puts it, we become communicants in the divine nature, and those in whom the Spirit dwells are divinized.

By participating in the life of Jesus, through liturgy, the sacraments, sincere prayer and reform of life, we are able to love as he does because we love with him.

St.

John Chrysostom said this kind of love is what spreads Christianity.

Miracles do not attract unbelievers as much as the way you live your life, and nothing brings about a proper life as much as love.

Jesus makes love the distinguishing mark of his followers.

That means, again, that what is needed isn’t great feelings and holy attributes, but real deeds done despite bad feelings and difficult circumstances.

And that means you can be commanded to love.

If you can be commanded to love, that means love is a matter of the will.

It’s something we choose or reject, not something we fall into or not.

Real love is shown by actions, not emotions.

That commandment to love like God requires a very significant response.

Jesus will soon say, No one has greater love than this to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.

The height of love right now is Jesus kneeling on the floor with a wash basin.

Soon, the highest expression of love will be Jesus with his arms outstretched on a cross.

Right now, he is the master who washes feet.

Soon, Jesus will be saying, I no longer call you slaves because a slave does not know what his master is doing.

I have called you friends.

He will say, It was not you who chose me, but I chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit that will remain.

Which is to say exactly what we said at the beginning.

Jesus here is revealing the meaning of life, and the meaning of life revealed by his extraordinary story is love.

The Extraordinary Story is written by Tom Hoopes and produced by Benedictine College in Atchison, Kansas.

Benedictine College is transforming culture in America through our mission of community, faith and scholarship.

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