Washing the Feet
of the Disciples
By Henry Ossawa Tanner
Jesus knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands, and that he was come from God, and went to God; He rose from supper, and laid aside his garments; and took a towel, and girded himself. After that he poured water into a basin, and began to wash the disciples’ feet, and to wipe them with the towel with which he was girded.
John 13:3-5
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Matthew Henry called it “an action of a singular nature; no miracle, unless we call it a miracle of humility.” No lame man walked. No blind man saw. No storm was stilled. Jesus simply knelt on the floor with a basin of water and a towel, and began to wash tired and dirty feet.
To grasp the weight of this moment, it helps to feel the scene. In the ancient world, people wore open sandals and walked on dirt roads shared with animals. Feet were filthy — and washing them was a task reserved for the lowest servant in the household. No rabbi or teacher would ever do it. Not even one’s peers would do it. It was, by every social measure, beneath the dignity of anyone who mattered.
And yet, as Alexander Maclaren marveled: “Knowing that He came from God, and went to God,” and that even as He knelt before these men, “the Father had given all things into His hands,” what did He do? “Triumph? Show His majesty? Flash His power? Demand service?” No. He “girded Himself with a towel and washed His disciples’ feet.”
Jeffrey R. Holland captured the tenderness of this act. Recognizing that His small circle of believers were about to pass through their severest trial, Jesus “set aside his own increasing anguish in order that he might yet once more serve and strengthen them. It does not matter that no one washed his feet. In transcendent humility he would continue to teach and to cleanse them. He would to the final hour—and beyond—be their sustaining servant. As John wrote, who
was there and watched the wonder of it all, ‘Having loved his own which were in the world, he loved them unto the end.’ (John 13:1)”
This is what love does. It doesn’t calculate. It doesn’t keep score. It kneels and humbly serves.
Henry Ward Beecher once observed that for four thousand years the strong had been rushing upward in pursuit of greatness, until Christ stepped into the path and reversed the direction entirely: “Ye seek greatness. Ye are not even in the way to it. Ye are going up, but the way to greatness is down. Let him who would be great be the love-servant of all.”
The disciples in that upper room had argued about who among them was greatest in God's kingdom. Jesus answered their argument without a word — He simply picked up the basin. And in doing so, He showed us that the things the world overlooks are the things heaven prizes most. As Oswald Chambers wrote, “The real test of the saint is in washing disciples’ feet — that is, doing the things that do not count in the actual estimate of men, but count everything in the estimate of God.”
The basin and towel are still waiting for us. In every home, every congregation, every ordinary day, there are feet to be washed — and the One who holds all things in His hands still kneels to show us how.
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