The feet. Their feet. Underneath the sandals. The road-weary, callous-soled, cracked-toenailed, blister-ridden, dirt-caked feet of the disciples. Foul-smelling of sweat, dust, garbage puddles, creaky leather and roadside animal waste.
Those dirty, smelly feet are the feet our Lord takes tenderly in his hands and lovingly washes.
As the familiar Maundy Thursday scene unfolds in John 13, with its many spiritual wonders and mystical teachings, we wrinkle our noses and close our eyes when we think about Jesus washing the disciples’ feet.
It takes place in an ethereal context. Jesus knows that his hour has come, the sand in his hourglass is running out, and the culmination of his earthly ministry is fast approaching. In that room, surrounded by his disciples, as the minutes tick by, each moment weighs heavy, drips with eternal significance.
Jesus’ heart brims with love for his disciples, and his thoughts flow with infinite clarity about his identity, his purpose, his destiny and his mission. His hour is here. At last! Surging through his body and soul is the supernatural, timeless, holy energy that created earth, space and time. The power that holds all things together. Jesus realizes, perhaps more fully than ever, that God has “given all things into his hands” (John 13:3).
And those holy hands! What is the first thing Jesus does with those hands? The hands that carry all things, that are full of all power, laden with the universe’s creativity and strength?
Those hands gently take his disciple’s feet and wash them. Performing the unsavory task of the lowliest house servant, Jesus’ holy hands caress the dirt from their arches, massage the grime from their heels and dig out the dust from the hollows of their ankles. Jesus’ holy fingers reach between their toes to rub out the accumulated dust, pollen, caked-up dirt. Then his holy hands dry their feet with the towel around his waist.
“You do not know what I am doing, but later you will understand,” Jesus tells a reluctant and skeptical Peter (7). But does Peter know? Do we, 2,000 years on?
By washing their feet, Jesus models what loving one another looks like. Wash their feet? Scrub their toes? Rub moisturizer on their rough skin? Well, yes. But Jesus is talking more than feet. Much more.
His foot-washing duty completed, dressed once again in his robe, now reclining and at rest, the Rabbi asks his disciples, “Do you know what I have done to you?” (12). They are silent, so he continues: “If I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet. For I have set you an example, that you should do as I have done to you” (14-15).
Jesus later gives the disciples a new commandment, the one for which Maundy Thursday takes its name (“maundy” being a shortened form of the Latin mandatum, which means “command”).
“I give you a new commandment, that you love one another,” Jesus tells them. “Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another” (34-35).
And how did Jesus love them that evening?
By washing their feet, Jesus models what loving one another looks like. Wash their feet? Scrub their toes? Rub moisturizer on their rough skin? Well, yes. But Jesus is talking more than feet. Much more.
In our world that conditions us to look out for No. 1, to avert our eyes and keep walking, to isolate, sanitize and anesthetize ourselves from the problems of others, Jesus commands us to wash our neighbors’ feet. To encounter the messiness and problems of others. To get our hands dirty.
To love our neighbor is to spend time with them, look them in the eye, open our hearts to them, listen to their stories and attend to the dirty feet of their lives—where lies accumulated detritus, evidence of the hard roads they’ve traveled. We take stock of the scars and scabs of their lifelong journey, the caked dust of their sorrows, the hard callouses protecting their hearts, the blisters and sores, the stench of the messes they’ve stepped in. And to help.
Jesus shows us not only how we should love one another but also how our Almighty God relates to us and loves us.
God’s holy hands don’t hesitate to reach into the dirtiest, smelliest parts of our soul, where lie all our despair, woundedness, hopelessness, loneliness, pain, disappointments, neediness and sorrow. Also festering there are our anger, our sinfulness, our resentments, our bitterness, our ignorance, our hatred and our self-loathing.
“Do you know what I have done?” Jesus asks the disciples. The more we contemplate it, the clearer the picture becomes. More than simply washing their feet and modeling neighborly love, Jesus tangibly demonstrates the depth of God’s love and the infinite mercy of God’s grace. God’s holiness infiltrates the dirtiest, nastiest parts of our souls and scours them, removing our sinfulness and washing away the world’s dirt, grime and dust.
Jesus’ holy hands wash his disciples’ feet. We hear the Scripture and should not grimace. Knowing the depth of God’s love and mercy for us, we rejoice.
