At the beginning of his Gospel, John informs us of a major inflection point in human history when he writes that “the Word” who is God “became flesh and dwelt among us” (Jn. 1:1, 14).[1] More appropriately, we might say that the incarnation was the major inflection point of human history. It was nothing less than an invasion of what Fernando F. Segovia terms the “world ‘above’” into the “world ‘below.’” The former refers to the heavenly realm characterized by God’s reign, and the latter refers to the rebellious creation, “subjected to futility” and under the dominion of Satan (cf. Rom. 8:20; Eph. 2:1–3). While the world below owes its existence to the world above, the two worlds are in a state of “estrangement” or “alienation.”[2] Polarization is the normal state of affairs between the two worlds; but the incarnation upends the norm as God graciously enters into the world below with an eye towards reconciliation—liberating humans from their bondage to the world below and giving them a home in the world above.
Nevertheless, even in the prologue to his Gospel, John explains that not all were willing to be reconciled to the Creator. “He came to his own,” writes John, “and his own people did not receive him. But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become the children of God” (1:11–12). Some were willing to accept the God revealed in Jesus Christ (1:18), while others rejected Him in favor of gods fashioned after their own minds. Simply put, the incarnation radically divided people.
Indeed, a crisis moment is evident in the lives of all people confronted by the incarnate Word in the Gospel of John: will they accept or reject Jesus as the incarnation of God? Some hailed Jesus as God’s chosen King who would overturn the existing socio-political structures (12:12–15) while others, such as the religious leaders, rejected Jesus because they viewed Him as a threat to their own power and way of life (12:19). Some announced their radical loyalty to Jesus at the very same time that “many of his disciples turned back and no longer walked with him” because His words were hard to stomach (6:66–69). Other instances of such division abound throughout the Gospel (cf. 8:40–52; 10:19–21; 11:45–53; 12:36–43).
By the time we get to John 13, the evangelist has made us well aware of the divided opinions concerning the incarnate Word. When we consider Jesus’ washing of the disciples’ feet within this context, we understand that John is re-presenting all the controversy concerning the incarnation in this one scene. As J. Matthew Pinson wonderfully articulates, Christ’s washing the disciples’ feet is a symbol of the incarnation in itself:
In that feet washing ceremony, Jesus rises up from supper and He takes off His cloak. He is laying aside the splendor of deity—the glory of heaven (verse 6). He is removing that as one would a cloak. Then He takes upon Himself the form of a servant (verse 7). He takes the towel and He girds Himself with the towel as though girding Himself with our humanity (verse 8a). He kneels to serve us (verse 8b). Disrobed of all His heavenly dress, the God of the universe kneels to serve me. . . .[3]
Here is a “sharp, albeit implicit, commentary on power” as the one in whose hands the Father has placed “all things” disrobes Himself to wash the feet of others (Jn. 13:3).[4] Jesus has the full power of divinity, and what does He do with it but wash feet?
Sinful humans, however, have a difficult time squaring the sort of humility and service practiced by the incarnate Word with preconceived notions about God and what God’s power must be like. Such is revealed when Simon Peter, often the spokesman for the whole group of disciples, initially refuses to let Jesus wash his feet: “[Jesus] came to Simon Peter, who said to him, ‘Lord, do you wash my feet?’ Jesus answered him, ‘What I am doing you do not understand now, but afterward you will understand.’ Peter said to him, ‘You shall never wash my feet’” (Jn. 13:6–8a). On these verses, Rudolf Bultmann comments:
One thing is immediately clear from Peter’s opposition: he does not understand that Jesus humbles himself to serve his own. And just how much this goes against the instinct of natural man is shown by his repeated and increasingly vehement resistance. . . . We are not of course, to interpret this psychologically, but as a matter of fact: the natural man simply does not want this kind of service. Why not? The service in question is not just any personal act of kindness—for why should this not be acceptable to the natural man?—but it is service performed by the incarnate Son of God. And even if man can reject it out of pride, Peter’s words do not just express this kind of pride, but rather the basic way men think, the refusal to see the act of salvation in what is lowly, or God in the form of a slave.[5]
God in the form of a slave is an apt way to describe what is taking place in John 13. As Bruce J. Malina and Richard L. Rohrbaugh explain, “the common practice of washing the feet of guests at a meal” was “usually performed by slaves or low-status servants. It was an onerous and demeaning task because it meant washing off human and animal waste.”[6] By no means, then, was Jesus’ action commonplace. Rather, explains John Christopher Thomas, “Jesus’ action is unparalleled in ancient literature, for no other master (superior) condescends to perform this act for his subordinate.”[7]
Ultimately, to accept Jesus’ act of feet washing is to accept a whole new way of thinking about God, power, and the world. There is no God besides the One who becomes human, assumes the form of a slave, and washes the dirty feet of dirty people. To receive Jesus’ act of feet washing, then, is to receive the God who washes feet; and it is only those who accept this God who are accepted by God (cf. Jn. 13:8; 1:12).
There is more to the story, though, for, the one who is accepted by the God Who washes feet, will invariably wash the feet of others. Jesus says, “If I then, your Lord and teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet. For I have given you an example that you should do just as I have done to you” (Jn. 13:14–15). The one who accepts and is accepted by the God revealed in Jesus Christ is unashamed to take the form of a slave and humbly wash the feet of others. Feet washing is, indeed, a concrete practice of Jesus’ commandment later in the chapter to “love one another” in the same way that he loved them (Jn. 13:34–35).
Today, when Christians wash feet, they declare that they have accepted and been accepted by the God revealed in Jesus Christ. They demonstrate that the Way of Jesus is the way of “love for others” that “does not sit idly” but “kneels humbly to serve.”[8] They are living proof that “Our relationship with God breaks out into every area of our lives” and “manifests itself publicly and profoundly in our love for one another.”[9]
Yet there remains a warning for disciples of Jesus. Of course Jesus warns that those who refuse his feet washing “have no share with me” (Jn. 13:8). But there is a still more pressing warning in the Johannine narrative when Judas is said to have “lifted his heel against” Jesus (13:18). Thomas notes that this idiomatic expression was, already, “quite an insult in antiquity.” However, the phrase takes added meaning in this narrative where “the very heel that had been washed by Jesus was raised against him in contempt.”[10]
While Judas physically received Jesus’ act of feet washing, he ultimately rejected the sort of God who washes feet, casting his lot, instead, with the religious leaders. Judas did not continue in the way of Jesus, but chose to pursue his own plans and powerplays. The warning is not to let our feet tread the same path as Judas. Instead, we are to walk with washed feet the path of Jesus. We are to sacrifice our plans, our pride, and our pining for power to take up the basin and the towel and “in humility count others more significant than ourselves” (Phil. 2:3).
[1] All Scripture references will be from the English Standard Version unless otherwise noted.
[2] Fernando F. Segovia, “The Gospel of John,” in A Postcolonial Commentary on the New Testament, ed. Fernando Segovia and R.S. Sugirtharajah (London: T&T Clark, 2009), 165–66.
[3] J. Matthew Pinson, The Washing of the Saints’ Feet (Nashville: Randall House, 2006), 56.
[4] Segovia, “The Gospel of John,” 183.
[5] Rudolf Karl Bultmann, The Gospel of John: A Commentary, ed. G.R. Beasley-Murray, trans. R.W.N. Hoare and J. K. Riches (Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock, 1971/2014), 468.
[6] Bruce J. Molina and Richard L. Rohrbaugh, Social-Science Commentary on the Gospel of John (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1998), 191–92. Google Book.
[7] John Christopher Thomas, “Footwashing in John 13 and the Johannine Community” (D.Phil. diss., University of Sheffield, 1990), 109–10. Similarly, Pinson firmly rejects any notion that Jesus’ “washing of the disciple’s feet was a mere act of civility” (Washing of the Saints’ Feet, 35).
[8] Pinson, Washing of the Saints’ Feet, 50
[9] Pinson, Washing of the Saints’ Feet, 53.
[10] Thomas, “Footwashing,” 145.
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