Ex 12:1-8,11-14; Ps 115(116):12-13,15-18; 1 Cor 11:23-26; Jn 13:1-15
THEME: No Service Without Self Emptying and Denial.
From chapter 12:44 to chapter 18 where Jesus is betrayed and arrested, St. John shows Jesus approaching his last earthly days with his disciples. Hence, Jesus, now alone with the disciples, tries to give them the summary and the most important things regarding his teachings in the course of his ministry which they must always remember. He concludes this with his praying for them in John 17.
Those of us who are students know the importance of the last days of lectures because they are the moments when the teachers give the summary of all they have taught in the course of the semester, and bring to the attention of the students, the most important things they must always remember regarding the subject. This is what John presents Jesus to be doing for his disciples in these last chapters before his arrest in Jn 18.
The first thing Jesus wants his disciples never to forget is living a life of service. It is a call to be Christ-like, who, not minding his being God, abandoned his state as God, and became man, in order to serve and save mankind (Phil 2:5-11). One interesting thing to see in the life of Christ is that he teaches by doing. He uses himself to show the disciples what kind of persons he wants them to be. Today, he decides to wash their feet. In the Jewish custom, feet washing is one of the ways of welcoming a guest (Gen 18:4; 19:2; 24:32). And normally, it is one of the duties of the slaves in the house, to wash the feet of their masters, and the guests of the house of their masters.
So, it was a taboo for a master to wash the feet of his disciples. This is why,
when Jesus approached Peter, he refused that Jesus would wash his feet. Peter did not say “Master please you should not wash my feet”. No… rather he said: “Never shall you wash (Οὐ μὴ νίψῃς) my feet”. Peter could not withstand his master assuming the position of a slave. How many times have we told ourselves, or told other people, or even allow ourselves to be controlled by the conventional societal positions like: Do you know who you are? Please, sir, your level does not permit you to go so low in dealing with such people. They are below your class”? How many times have we told ourselves: “I am his/her senior. I am not the one to ask for the forgiveness/peace accord from my junior.” How many times have we told ourselves: “I am too high to associate with people of that low standard”? As God, Jesus took up our weak humanity…and as man, he went even lower to assume the position of a servant.
In v.4, we are told that Jesus, before he began washing the feet of the disciples, first got up from the table, removed his outer garment, took a towel, and tied round his waist. Clothes, in biblical world also symbolizes one’s identity and position. For instance, when it is said that Rebekah took the best garments of Esau her elder son, which were with her in the house, and put them on Jacob her younger son. (Gen. 27:15 NAS), it means that from that moment on, Jacob assumed the privileged position of Esau as the first born.
So, when John says that Jesus removed his outer garment, took a towel and tied round his waist, he is saying that Jesus striped himself of his position as a master, and then took upon himself the position of a servant, before he started washing the feet of the disciples. No one can render service unless he sees himself as a servant. In order to do this, one must always stripe himself off of his ego, pomposity, pride, exalted societal position, and mindset. No one can render service in a garment of pride and lordship. The first journey to living life of service begins with self-denial and abandonment.
After Jesus has finished rendering service to the disciples, he said to them: So if I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet. (Jn. 13:14 NRS). The command to life of service is the one which Jesus bases on what he himself has done for us. What should therefore be our motivation is not our convenience, our positions, the people, or the world, what we receive or what we expect from people, reactions from people or our egoistic desires, but the fact that God himself made and continues to make himself a servant just for our sake.
Christ knows that if our motivation for life of service to others should
be based on what we want or on worldly calculations, then it will be difficult to see why I should go out to help a sick and abandoned elderly woman/man in my neighborhood when I stand to gain nothing from no one. If God is not our motivation for a sacrificial life, it becomes difficult to see why I should keep helping those who do not even appreciate it but always see my forgiving spirit and desire for peace as weakness and foolery. ETC. Christ is our example,
which we must always follow (Jn 13:15). He suffered for us, even when no guile was found in him. Even when he was mocked by those he came to save, he did not open his mouth (1 Pet2:21-24).
So, Christ has every authority to show himself as our example because what he
commands us to do, is exactly what he made himself to be for us. He made himself our food and our salvation. In the Exodus, the people of Israel needed the blood of a goat on their
doorpost in order to be saved from the angel of death that struck the Egyptian first born. Now, God gave us his only begotten Son, so that his blood would not only keep us save from everlasting death, but also wash us of our defilements. Only the blood of Christ can do that (Heb 10:4,10) for there is no other name given for the salvation of men (Acts 4:12). The blood of Christ does not only keep us save from evil but also makes us partakers of the eternal heritage of Christ. This is why Jesus told Peter that unless he (Jesus) washes him (Peter), he does not have any share with him (Jn 13:8).
May we come to Christ, so that he washes us of our ego and defilement, and make us share in his heritage which is won through service to others (2:9).
Fr. Chukwuezugo Nnamah