Would You Wash My Feet?

Jesus knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands, and that he was come from God, and went to God; He riseth from supper, and laid aside his garments; and took a towel, and girded himself. After that he poureth water into a bason, and began to wash the disciples' feet, and to wipe [them] with the towel wherewith he was girded...Ye call me Master and Lord: and ye say well; for [so] I am. If I then, [your] Lord and Master, have washed your feet; ye also ought to wash one another's feet. ~John 13:3-5, 13-15

Have you seen Him, our Lord and Master disrobing of all His majesty before you, clothing Himself in humanity to come and wash your feet? The Sovereign of heaven and earth has descended from His high throne to arise within the heart of a man, a woman, a child as the Servant of all, His Divine Nature now displayed within plain, unimpressive, paltry human frames. With an holy eye and eternal view our Lord Jesus Christ set aside His primal Glory in order to cleanse a people, dirt, depravity, sin, stench, filth, profaneness and all unto Himself. There is a washing of water with the word that takes place within the bride of Christ that He is calling to Himself, and it is a purifying that is manifested marvellously in the washing of His disciples' feet. For this cleansing reveals one so much deeper, so much grander, so much more than we could ever know without the deepest drawing of the Holy Spirit into its comprehension. The Son of God, knowing that all things were His and all things placed under Him, set aside His outer clothing, stripped Himself to the undergarments with which He was girded, wrapped Himself in a towel, and picked up the feet of His own creation to wash them, to handle their sullied skin in His creative hands which were soon to be pierced, to dry them with the towel that now covered His own bare humanity.

Think of this eternal drama unfolding before the eyes of James and John and the rest of the followers of the Son of God. Whom does our Lord approach in the midst of His sacrificial servitude? None other than the soon to be deserter and denier of His holy Name. The Master gently takes those feet of a foundation stone of the church founded upon Himself as its Chief Cornerstone and begins to scrape off the dirt, immerse them in the water, rub His fingers between the toes, leaving no trace of earth's stains behind. Peter's protests would not prevail, for our Lord knew what position he held in His kingdom, but cleansing was necessary for him to enter his beatified place in the bride of Christ. Our Lord moves from disciple to disciple, soon to find the feet of the man in whom Satan was soon to take residence, our Master's very betrayer. The Almighty breathed His warm breath upon the feet belonging to the cold heart bound to the devil's influence, whose deceitful kiss led to His own arrest. And those feet, those toes, that man the Son of God washed, knowing what was to come. God looked up from below into the eyes of the son of perdition and washed his feet. Such Divine condescension declares in very deed the Love Nature of God as Lord and Master more perfectly than any other act in Christ's earthly life preceding the Cross.

Jesus Christ washed the feet of a deserter and a devil, but you will not wash the feet of a rebel. Our Lord and Master undressed, exposing His human frame in frailty and weakness, a frame that was to be broken by the hands of His own creation, crushed by His Father's bruising, and crucified by the princes of this world. The Son of God bore the mockery, the shame, the nakedness, the nails, the scoffing, the silence from the Father, and breathed His last breath as a Faithful High Priest and Lamb of Sacrifice. This is the consummate cleansing that was prophesied in that humbling act of the Holy One, Who exemplified our duty as His disciples. But would you drop your pride, would you set aside your position of authority, would you unclothe yourself of all pretense and sink down before men to wash their feet? It is not merely the feet of the man before you that you wash, it is the Feet that were pierced for you that you take up in your hands. Can you see His Face marred more than any man mirrored behind the visage of the one before you now? Until you can gaze upon the Beauty of Holiness unto Whom you are beholden in the washing of His disciples' feet, no matter their state before the Father, you will never be the servant God is seeking, you will never be the priest of the King of kings, you will never be the slave of the Son of God. Until you wash His disciples' feet you will never know Him as Lord and Teacher.