SCRIPTURE: John 13:1-20

…When he had washed their feet and put on his outer garments and resumed his place, he said to them, “Do you understand what I have done to you? You call me Teacher and Lord, and you are right, for so I am. If I then, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet. For I have given you an example, that you also should do just as I have done to you…” (John 13:12-15)

One of the most unique thing about our God is His loving service to His people. The epitome of this is revealed through Christ, who is God incarnate. That God would so lower Himself and become nothing by become a man. Not only that but that He further lowered Himself and died the most painful and shameful of deaths, death on the cross (Philippians 2:5-8). And while He lived, He reminded His disciples of why He came, “…even as the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve.” (Matthew 20:28). A God who serves is a thought that would be considered blasphemous in some quarters. Yet that is how God chose to reveal Himself to us.

This was best captured during His last meal with the disciples, before being crucified. As they reclined at the table, Jesus wrapped a towel around His waist, took a basin and filled it with water, and began to wash the feet of His disciples. For us to appreciate what He did, we must realise that this task was delegated to the lowest of servants in a home. That is why Peter, at first, refused to be washed. Yet Jesus was able to take up this lowly task because of the knowledge and assurance of what He had, who was He was and where He was going – “Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands, and that he had come from God and was going back to God, rose from supper.” (John 13:3-4)

There are two lessons we can pick from Jesus’s actions. One is that we must be so secure in who we are in God, what we have in Him, and that one day we will go to Him, that we don’t struggle to follow in the example of Christ’s humble service. Serving others and taking up even the most lowly of tasks and positions does not diminish us in any way. Our worth is in God and not in the positions nor tasks that we undertake. Secondly, each of us must have our feet washed by Jesus. The deeper spiritual significance of the act was spiritual cleansing. That is why when Peter refused to be washed, Jesus said, “If I do not wash you, you have no share with me.” (John 13:8). We must all be washed in the blood of the Lamb if we are to sit at the table with Him. And those whom He has washed, He demands that they follow in His footsteps and serve others.

REFLECTION:
1. Are your feet washed by Christ? In other words, have you been cleansed from your sins?

2. What aspects of service do you consider way beneath you? How does today’s devotion challenge you regarding that?