The Backwards Foot-Washing King

Jesus loves to turn things upside down.

 

Remember how in the Sermon on the Mount (Matt. 5ff) Jesus declared blessings on the poor, the meek, the persecuted?

 

The world considers the wealthy blessed. We admire the confident and proud. We cancel people because we think people who disagree with us are evil.

 

But Jesus flip-flops all of that.

 

This is never more clear than during Holy Week.

 

I think that's one reason why the crowds that praised him on Palm Sunday turned against him so quickly. It also might be one of the reasons why Judas turned against him (see yesterday's e-mail on the "Archive" if you missed my message about why Judas betrayed Jesus).

 

The examples come one after another.

 

When Jesus saw what was going on in the temple grounds, he literally sat down and wove together a bull whip. The text is clear about this. Jesus didn't just fly off the handle in a fit of rage. When he blasted into the temple courts and chased all the money changers away, it was a thought-out and calculated move. You don't sit down and weave together a whip if you're just "triggered" and having a fit.

 

This confused the people who thought that Jesus would be uniting the Jewish people, all of them, against the Romans. Why is he attacking our own?

 

Then there's the whole foot washing business. I mean, ew, Jesus. Feet? Gag, gag, gag...

 

In a world where people wore sandals everywhere they went, it was impossible to have clean feet. That's why it was customary for a servant to wash the people's feet when they came to dine. Or, at the very least, a host would provide a basin so people could wash their own feet.

 

But Jesus girds himself with a towel, kneels down, and washed dirty, nasty, staaaaaanky feet.

 

He washed Peter's feet... who would later deny him three times.

 

He even washed Judas's feet, when Jesus knew even then what Judas was about to do.

 

We don't know what Judas said or did when Jesus washed his feet. The text doesn't tell us. It does say, though, that Jesus washed his disciples feet, and it doesn't leave any of them out. It stands to reason, Judas was among them. It also says multiple times in this very text how it was already in Judas' heart to betray him.

 

But that doesn't stop Jesus.

 

Peter objects, of course. He goes, "Naaaahhhhh Jesus, Ew! You will never wash my feet!" (my modern-paraphrase translation).

 

When Jesus says, though, that "If I do not wash you, you have no share with me" (John 13:8), Peter (clearly still clueless as to what's going on) invites Jesus to give him a whole bath, head to toe! As if the foot washing thing wasn't awkward enough?

 

Thankfully, Jesus doesn't take Peter up on the sponge bath offer. He tells Peter, rather, that only that which is dirty must be cleaned. Then, Jesus points out that there's one among them who is dirty to the core. Judas, of course. I think Jesus was trying to give Judas a chance, here, to repent. Again, though (as we explored yesterday) Judas misses every opportunity.

 

Finally, Jesus explains the backwards kind of reign he's bringing into the world. He's telling us the way His kingdom works. "Do you understand what I have done to you? 13 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).

 

The greatest of those in the Kingdom of God become servants to others. In this way, even the lowest of low (in our human schemes of power/status) are brought to the level of kings. But Jesus doesn't just raise us up to the level of His kingship, he also descends to the lowest part of our servitude. The goes where it's nastiest, where it's dirtiest.

 

Even to the level of our stinky feet. Ew, ew, ew. But Jesus doesn't leave a single part of us unwashed. He doesn't let us get away with following him, while we keep a little "gunk" built up here and there in our lives. He goes to exactly where it's the grossest, the nastiest, the evilest... and he washes us there.

 

The imagery of the backwards king continues all the way to the cross where the soldiers mock Jesus for being "King of the Jews," forcing a crown, a cap of thorns over his head, and enthroning him on a criminal's cursed execution device.

 

For our Lord isn't just a king for the holy and the righteous. He's a king for sinners. And he's the kind of king who condescends to the level of his subjects, he goes as deep--even deeper and lower--as we go. He endures the worst death imaginable so that we can be absolutely, 100% sure, that we have a God who isn't just a God of the good times, of health, and wealth, and prosperity...

 

But so that we'd know we have a King who rules, a God who reigns, even in sorrow, in poverty, in despair, in suffering, in death... and through the grave.

 

Earthly kings don't do that. They demand their subjects kneel before them. Jesus willingly kneels before us.

 

Not because he's worshiping us... but so that He can lift us up. We are made in the image of God, after all. This image was fully restored in Jesus Christ (Col. 1:5; 2 Cor 4:4). He gets "on the level with us" so He can raise us with him. He girded himself with a servant's towel so that we might be clothed in His kingly robes. He took a position of shame so that we might sit with Him at the right hand of God the Father. He took all of our sin so that we could receive his holiness and righteousness.

 

That's the King we serve... the King who we best serve when we allow Him to do the most uncomfortable thing of all... when we let him serve us. But when we allow our Lord to also serve us in this way, to wash our feet, our nastiest parts, we become a part of Him. And nothing will ever separate us from His love.

 

In Jesus name,

Judah