He 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.” Jesus answered him, “If I do not
wash you, you have no share with me.” Simon Peter said to him, “Lord, not my
feet only but also my hands and my head!” Jesus said to him, “The one who has
bathed does not need to wash, except for his feet, but is completely clean. And
you are clean, but not every one of you.” For he knew who was to betray him;
that was why he said, “Not all of you are clean” (John 13: 6-11).
The
Master set aside His position and ministered to His disciples. The Teacher set
aside His lesson plan and served His students. The King of Glory set aside His
robe and got His hands wet and dirty caring for His subjects. His passion and
humility covered and shined through this amazing moment as He taught His
disciples that servant leadership is leading the way by being the first to
serve. But not everyone got the message. Peter resisted. Jesus was undeterred.
The Master Teacher demonstrated flexibility and responsiveness by pausing to give
the extra attention necessary to help His special disciple Peter get the point
of the lesson. In the exchange that followed encouraging and precious truth is
revealed regarding the very special and privileged relationship between Jesus
and His disciples for all time. As He reached out to Peter’s heart, Jesus
touches our hearts too with an invitation to deeper intimacy through the promises
of perpetual purity.
Thirty
years of pastoral ministry have produced many lessons. One of them is that
people who go missing from church have usually already gone missing from other
important spiritual disciplines. Usually they have already withdrawn from
fellowship with other believers and dropped out of serving in Christian
ministries. Often the first habit to go is the daily sacred place, the time of
meeting with the Lord in His word and prayer. And one of the primary reasons we
stop meeting with the Savior is sin. Jesus knew His disciples would be continuing
His work in a hostile world… “If you were of the world, the world would
love you as its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out
of the world, therefore the world hates you” (John 15:19). Jesus knew
the world in which they lived and worked was in the grip of a relentless
adversary… “Be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls
around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour” (1 Peter 5:8). To
grasp and embrace today’s truth, we must understand a few terms used by Jesus
from His perspective. We must ask why Jesus used the words washed and
bathed, and why He intentionally chose to wash the feet
of His disciples.
The
Spirit inspired the apostle Paul to teach that washing is when disciples are
cleansed and sanctified or set apart from sin… “And such were some of
you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name
of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God” (1 Corinthians 6:11).
We are bathed when we are immersed or baptized into Christ by faith… “Do
you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were
baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him by baptism into
death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of
the Father, we too might walk in newness of life” (Romans 6:3-4).
After our whole life is bathed, we walk in a new life but through a dirty, old
world. Along the way our feet will get dirty as we are persistently tempted to
sin, but as we mature in the faith we will increasingly overcome sin if we stay
close to the Savior… “But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light,
we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us
from all sin” (1 John 1:7) and if we regularly invite Jesus to wash our
feet by confessing and repenting our sin… “If we confess our sins, he is
faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all
unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9). The promises of keeping our feet clean are
a growing intimacy with Jesus and increasing victory over temptation and sin.
That’s why true disciples do not run from Christ when they sin, rather we
should run quickly to Him!
As we grow
up into Christ we learn to run to Him when we sin that we might enjoy…
The Promises of Perpetual Purity.
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