Description
Understanding the True Meaning of Washing Feet
Have you ever seen church leaders wash the congregants’ feet and wondere… (visit YouTube for more)
Transcript
Have you ever been at a church where the elders or leaders have literally washed the feet of the congregation? I can understand why that might happen, but I wonder if we might be able to suck more meaning, more significance out of today’s verse as we meditate on John 13 verse 14, and this is Jesus speaking. If I then your Lord and teacher have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet.
Does Jesus mean that literally what we should be doing is washing feet? Or as so often is the case is he speaking in a metaphor? What does it mean for us to wash each other’s feet?
Clearly in a hot and dusty land where Jesus lived your feet, which would be wearing sandals, could get very, very dirty, and it would be maybe an unpleasant job to wash the feet of people for whom you are responsible.
But what is our modern equivalent? What are those jobs that nobody really wants to do? What are those jobs which feel humiliating? What are those actions that we can take that we naturally don’t want to take because they hurt our pride or we are in some way repelled by them? The answer is going to be different for every person.
Are we ready to serve one another with humility? Are we going to say to any other person, to my mind, you are more important than me and I’m going to serve you. Let me serve you now.
This is not us making ourselves into doormats. This is not us becoming excessively, unreasonably humble. This is more about us recognising all that God has done for us and us giving from that position of great grace.
Lord God, this is a difficult lesson for us to learn to do the things that we don’t want to do, to become messy when we don’t want to be messy. And I ask that you continue to train us and teach us. You have certainly led us. Please help us to follow you in your humble example as the Servant King. Amen.
