The Gospels provide scant details about Jesus Christ’s appearance, his education, his childhood in Nazareth, and various other matters. The Evangelists give representative, yet selective examples of his teaching and mighty works. Yet Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John each devote extended attention to the final days of Jesus’s ministry, which we often call “Holy Week.”
What a consequential week it was as the Lord Jesus set his face like flint towards Jerusalem to fulfill the divine plan of salvation. Jesus entered David’s city on a humble donkey. He turned over tables in the Temple. He amazed the crowds and confounded his adversaries. He feasted with his friends and predicted his betrayal. He suffered the greatest miscarriage of justice the world has ever seen as the Jews and Romans conspired to murder the Author of Life. And he broke out of the tomb on the third day and presented himself alive just as he promised. At every turn, Jesus Christ fulfilled biblical patterns and prophecies as the humble King, the authoritative Prophet, the new Temple, the rejected Cornerstone, the new covenant Sacrifice, the suffering Servant, the living Lord.
While all four Gospels provide detailed accounts of Christ’s suffering and crucifixion according to the Scriptures, only John recounts that our Lord laid aside his outer garments, took a towel and basin, and washed the feet of his disciples. John 13 reveals the consummate love, supreme authority, and stunning service of the Sovereign Son of God.
First, consider Christ’s consummate love according to verse 1: “Now before the Feast of the Passover, when Jesus knew that his hour had come to depart out of this world to the Father, having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end.”
Jesus loved all the time, all the way, and here he demonstrated the fullest extent of his love for his people. There was not a hint of reluctance in Jesus’s heart as he journeyed to the cross. Nor was there an ounce of hypocrisy or showmanship in his service. Celebrities, athletes, and politicians may serve holiday meals at local shelters or make appearances at children’s hospitals, but our Lord went so much further as he embodied love for his people. It was love that compelled our Savior to wash the disciples’ feet and then to die for their sins and ours.
Second, revel in the supreme authority of our Savior. He was not blindsided by Judas’s betrayal, he did not defend himself before the authorities, he did not revile those who reviled him. No, Christ knew that “his hour” had arrived (verse 1)—the time for him to be glorified as the long-awaited Savior of the world. He knew about the devil’s wiles and Judas’s greed (verse 2). He also knew “that the Father had given all things into his hands, and that he had come from God and was going back to God” (verse 3). Confident in his mission and in the wise plans of his Father, the King of Kings did not call for his subjects serve him—paradoxically, the greatest of all was the humblest servant. As Jesus declared in Luke 22:27, “For who is the greater, one who reclines at table or one who serves? Is it not the one who reclines at table? But I am among you as the one who serves.”
John 13:4–5 recounts the Son’s stunning service. He “rose from supper. He laid aside his outer garments, and taking a towel, tied it around his waist. Then he poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples’ feet and to wipe them with the towel that was wrapped around him.” D. A. Carson explains, “Doubtless the disciples would have been happy to wash his feet; they could not conceive of washing one another’s feet, since this was a task normally reserved for the lowliest of menial servants.” Thursday’s foot-washing was a prelude to Friday’s crucifixion, where the Lord of all revealed his glory as the Servant of all, who gave himself as a ransom for many.
Here is love, vast as the ocean,
Loving-kindness as the flood;
When the Prince of Life, my ransom,
Shed for me his precious blood.
Who his love will not remember?
Who can cease to sing his praise?
He shall never be forgotten,
Through Heav’n’s everlasting days.
Brian Tabb, Ph.D.
President and Professor of Biblical Studies
Prayer Requests:
- Praise the Lord for the gift of his son and the sacrifice of the Servant of all.
- Pray for our students as they begin final projects in these last four weeks of the semester.
- Pray for the full funding of the Serious Joy Scholarships yet needed by June 30.