then he pours water into the washhand basin, and began to wash the feet of the disciples, and to wipe them with the linen towel with which he was girded.
Jesus stoops down and washes the feet of His twelve disciples. Commentators see two things at once: a real act of lowly service, and a picture of what He keeps doing for His people.
The details of the scene follow the custom of the day, and each step lowers Him further.
In that country, if a man invited you to his house, the first thing he did was provide water for the feet. In Genesis 18:3-4, Abraham did this; in Luke 7 the Lord reproaches Simon that he did not. The Lord takes here the place of host, and provides the water, and He also takes the slave's post, and washes their feet. The Lord of glory stoops down and washes the feet of these twelve men. It was perfect grace. He who was God stooped down and became a man. Then, as man, He stooped to do something few of us would have the grace to do.
He put water in the basin, not blood. That choice separates two works of Christ.
Notice carefully that the question here is water, not blood. Readers of John's Gospel will have seen how much he makes of "water" as well as "blood." His first letter also says the Lord came by water and blood — not by water only, but by water and blood (1 John 5:6). He purifies as well as atones. He uses the word to cleanse those who are washed from their sins in His blood.
That distinction matters most at the moment a believer fails.
And if we do fail, this is no question of putting away sin, and of blood. It is a question of water. Christ is then an advocate, pleading for us to restore our souls. In John 13 He did not put blood into the basin, but water... I have defiled my feet, and then I get water, and not blood. Water, as a figure, always signifies the application of the word by the power of the Holy Spirit.
He washed one part of them only, and the choice was deliberate.
The Lord washed the disciples' feet, not their hands. Hands are for work and the feet for walking. His action has a meaning in connection with our walk in the world. We pick up defilement as we pass through this world. And defilement cuts off communion with the Lord... We must come to Him with our failures, our stumbling, imperfect walk, our defilement. We place ourselves in His hands, as the disciples placed their soiled feet in His loving hands. His own perfect light then searches us to the core and shows what has defiled us. Once we are cleansed, we can enjoy His fellowship and have part with Him. This needs confession and self-judgment on our side.
So what does the washing gain for us? The answer is about now, not later.
Here we see the Lord putting us in contact with the Word — the water of purification. He Himself applies it by the Spirit to our consciences and our walk. His aim is to give us a present part with Him, not a future one. "If I do not wash you, you have no share with Me."
The towel finishes what the water begins.
There was something else to be learned in the selfless act of the Lord. The water He poured out and used removed the dirt and defilement. With the towel, it also set "His own" clean and at ease in His presence. There was to be no distracting element upon them. He would have them know comfort and rest.
Jesus told them to do for each other what He had done. One writer warns that we can copy the props and miss the point.
Our Lord said, "I have given you an example, that you also should do just as I have done to you." He certainly did not mean that we should copy Him in the mere preparations for that service — the girding with the towel, the pouring of water into the basin. Many show great skill at such preparations. But they break down at the act of feet washing, because they refuse to kneel down to reach the brother's feet... "If I do not first judge in myself the flesh I see active in my brother — for the same exists in me — I am not fit to wash his feet."
- Stoops — He takes both the host's place and the slave's place, providing the water and then kneeling to use it.
- Water — the basin holds water, not blood: He atones by blood, and goes on purifying by the word.
- Feet — hands are for work, feet for walking; He deals with the defilement our walk through the world picks up.
- Part — the share He gives is present, not future: no washing, no communion with Him now.
- Towel — He finishes the work. He wipes His own clean and at rest, then tells us to kneel and do the same for each other.
He comes therefore to Simon Peter; and *he* says to him, Lord, dost thou wash *my* feet?
The Lord moves round the table with basin and towel, and when He reaches Simon Peter the silence breaks. Peter is not asking for information. He is protesting — and the answers that correct him carry everything this chapter teaches about cleansing.
Washing feet was a job for slaves, so the shock lands in the two words Peter stresses — You, and my.
In the full awareness of His personal dignity He rose. He took a towel and a basin of water, and went on to wash the disciples' feet — a service usually done by slaves in wealthy homes. Peter expressed his astonishment: "Lord, do You wash my feet?" Both pronouns are emphatic. The Son of the living God doing menial service for a Galilean fisherman! Peter could not bear the thought.
Peter's objection sounds like devotion. One writer still counts it a failure.
Peter was too self-confident. He was ignorant not only of himself and of the defiling scene around him, but of the depth and constancy of Christ's love. So he says to Him, "Lord, do You wash my feet?" We grant that he could not know what had not yet been revealed. But was it fitting in him, was it reverent, to question what the Lord was doing? He may have thought it humility in himself, and honour to the Lord, to decline so menial a service at His hands. But Peter should never have forgotten this: Jesus never said a word and never did an act except what was worthy of God and showed the Father.
Peter speaks three times in this scene.
The others accept the Lord's service in wondering silence. Peter, driven by his forceful character, says everything he thinks. Three times he speaks, and each time he exposes his ignorance of the Lord's mind. His first words play down the Lord's lowly service. His second refuses it outright. His last impulsively accepts the service, but in a way that would strip it of all its deep meaning. Yet, as someone has said, "If the mistakes of the disciples warn us, the answers that correct them teach us far more."
One writer draws a whole argument out of the delay in the Lord's reply.
The Lord answers, "What I am doing you do not understand now, but afterward you will understand." So we learn that at that moment the disciples could not grasp the spiritual meaning of the Lord's act. Later, when the Spirit has come, He will make it all plain. Clearly then this service was not, as many say, a lesson in humility taught by the Lord's own act of supreme humility. There would be no need for Peter to wait for a later day to see the humility of the act. His very words show that the Lord's humility was uppermost in his thoughts at that moment.
If the meaning is not simply humility, what is it for? One writer starts from what we already have, and what we still need.
When we come to these communications (John 13), what is the first thing He brings out? Not salvation, for we already know we are saved for eternity. There is no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus. But we do need provision to keep us clean while on the journey, and the Lord gives this at the opening of the chapter.
Peter's question is about who decides what the Lord may do.
Now Peter should have said, "If the Lord stoops down to wash my feet, it must be because His love is at stake, His glory is at stake, the will of His God and Father is at stake, and, more than that, because I need it." All our needs only give occasion to bring out the Lord's grace and to display His glory. Who would want to be without that? So it is not a question of whether it suits me. I am sure I need it. The question is whether it suits Him.
The scene is not sealed off in the past.
We need not wonder at Peter's reluctance to let the Lord serve him in this way. The Master at the feet of the servant naturally seemed out of place. But what shall we say when we remember that He now, in glory, stoops to do that lowly service for the humblest believer on earth? It was love to the end. Love to the end it truly shows — love no creature could have predicted or even guessed at.
- He comes. The Lord moves down the line and reaches Peter. He offers the service before anyone understands it or asks for it.
- He is questioned. Peter's protest looks like reverence. In fact it puts his own sense of what is fitting above his Master's act.
- He explains later. "You do not understand now" points to a meaning deeper than humility — one the Spirit would open up later.
- He keeps us clean. This is not the washing that saves; it is provision for the defilement picked up on the journey.
- He still serves. The One now in glory still does this lowly work for the humblest believer. So the only wise answer to His hands at our feet is yes.