"You do not realise now what I am doing, but later you will understand" (John 13 : 7). The disciples had spent three years in the company of Jesus. He had taught them and trained them, both by what He said, and by what He did. And yet they still didn't understand. When Jesus warned of what was coming when they reached Jerusalem, they were unable or unwilling to accept the awful reality for which He was preparing them. They wanted to walk with Jesus on a victorious road to fame and glory - not journey with Him on the shameful way of the cross.
No wonder, then, they did not realise what He was doing. He was giving them a pattern of service, in the Spirit of love. And nowhere is this more evident than on the evening when they gathered together for that memorable meal with Jesus. John tells us that Jesus "got up from the meal, took off his outer clothing, and wrapped a towel round his waist. After that, he poured water into a basin and began to wash his disciples' feet, drying them with the towel that was wrapped round him."
The full power of this symbolism is not easy for us to appreciate, as our feet stay reasonably clean in shoes. People in Jesus' day despised feet: dusty, grimy, smelly, and filthy as they inevitably were. This sort of service was the lowest of the low, the task that only slaves would undertake. But that is what Jesus did for His disciples. No wonder they didn't understand. No wonder Peter objected, just as he had objected when Jesus warned the disciples that He was on His way to the cross.
Yet the washing of feet was to be the pattern for service that all the followers of Jesus are called to: "Do you understand what I have done for you?" He asked them. … "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."
As Bishop John - the new Bishop of Worcester - reminded us at his enthronement sermon, "Jesus teaches of service in word and in action, but also by who He is, through His incarnation, His life, and His death. The footwashing is an acting out of that magnificent hymn from the letter to the Philippians where we read that Jesus, though He was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant. In the account of the footwashing from John's Gospel, the 'table' can be seen to represent heaven which Jesus leaves; the 'outer clothing' to represent the trappings of divinity of which he strips himself, and the towel which He dons a symbol of both human nature and of service."
Jesus, then, does not only give us a pattern of service. He is the God-given pattern of service. And all who would follow Him are also called to follow this footwashing pattern. Some, like a former Bishop of Worcester St Wulfstan, took the footwashing injunction literally. Apparently Wulfstan washed the feet of twelve poor people everyday, and he actually died while doing it. Bishop John also re-enacted the footwashing during his own enthronement service, and I gather that some Bishops are bringing this symbolism up to date, by shoeshining the feet of business people on this Maundy Thursday.
How do you and I feel about footwashing? Perhaps we find the washing of feet embarrassing, something that doesn't chime with our 21st century western culture. Perhaps we feel that in some way it isn't 'proper', an intimate down to earth act which is fine in the privacy of one's home, but not appropriate in the setting of a church or in a public act of worship. It's interesting that when the footwashing ceremony happens, it tends to be the church leader or senior minister who does it. As Tom Wright points out in his commentary on John's Gospel, "It has become a sign of leadership. When Jesus did it, he was doing what normally a slave would do; but when we do it, we're doing what Jesus did."
We need to remember, then, that the acting out of the foot-washing symbol is only the tip of the iceberg. As Tom Wright goes on to point out: "The test that matters is whether the same leader is ready, without a word of either complaint or boasting, to stay behind after the meeting and do the washing-up or put out the garbage." And that Christ-like pattern is hard to follow in practice - well, at least I find it so! Last Saturday, there were still a few bundles of the Easter leaflets left at the back of church. Mary and I agreed that we'd deliver them that afternoon, so that folk in the parish had the details of our Holy Week and Easter services. So we set out - on a wet, miserable afternoon. I have to confess that I wasn't full of the joy of the Lord, and didn't feel like praying for everyone's house that I dropped a leaflet into. In fact I started complaining to Mary, bemoaning the fact that someone else hadn't done it instead.
Why is the Christ-like pattern of service so hard? Because its sheer un-self-conscious humility goes against the grain of our all too self-conscious human pride. No wonder we find it hard to live out - whether in the doing, or in the receiving. And yet to all who would follow Him, Jesus says "I have set you an example that you should do as I have done for you. … Now that you know these things, you will be blessed if you do them."
Jesus has given us a pattern of service. But how are we to go about it? Are we to serve others out of a sense of Christian duty? Not according to Jesus. Let's hear again from Chapter 13 of John's Gospel: "Jesus knew that the time had come for him to leave this world and go to the Father. Having loved his own who were in the world, he now showed them the full extent of his love." He washed His disciples' feet - including the feet of those who would betray, or deny Him - out of the Spirit of love, God's love for them. And it is that Spirit of love which motivates any genuinely Christ-like service of others.
Love isn't an optional extra. Love is at the heart of what it is to follow Jesus. The same Jesus who said to His disciples: "A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another." Yes, of course, they knew about love. After all, in the book of Leviticus, the Israelites were commanded to love their neighbours as themselves. But the newness of which Jesus spoke was about the depth and type of this love : "As I have loved you, so you must love one another."
Reflecting on these words of Jesus, Tom Wright notes : "It has been hard for the disciples up to this point even to appreciate what Jesus has been doing on their behalf; now he's telling them to copy him! As with the footwashing, they are to look back at his whole life, his whole way and manner of life, and to find in it a pattern, a shape, an example, a power. … (Love) is to be the badge that the Christian community wears before the watching world."
Loving service, then, is the way in which God makes His love for us, and this world, known in Jesus Christ. And loving service is also the way in which we are to proclaim the Gospel. "By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another."
John Barr
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