Soaked and Soiled - the Joy of Serving

In first-century Palestine, it was courtesy to welcome guests to your home by washing their feet. Since most of the roads and laneways were unpaved, both in rainy seasons and dry, people’s feet would quickly be caked with dust or mud. Simple hospitality required a host to arrange for a servant to wash the feet of the guests when they arrived.

But as Jesus and his friends gathered to celebrate Passover, there were no servants to wait on them. And every disciple was jockeying for the right to sit closer to Jesus, acutely focused on his prestige in the group. No one moved to initiate this basic gesture of hospitality.

The meal was well-underway, when Jesus got up and stripped down to the waist. He took up a towel, filled a basin with water and began to wash the feet of his disciples. You can imagine their faces as Jesus made his way around the circle. Glances across the table – 'What should we do?', 'what should I say?', 'Why didn’t one of us do this?'

No one could pretend it wasn’t happening as Jesus went from one man to the next, bathing their feet, wiping them dry with the towel. And with each man, the water got just a little bit dirtier. The Great One who walked on water and silenced hurricanes was now humbly pouring water and bathing the feet of his status-obsessed disciples who had no idea how much they needed washing, how deeply pride had fouled their souls.

But eventually they got it – transformed by the Cross and the resurrection and the power of the Holy Spirit, they learned the self-giving way of life of Jesus. They went out and bathed the feet of the world.

They cared for lepers and widows, the homeless and the destitute; they rescued abandoned babies; they started hospitals and orphanages and asylums and schools.

Christian history is rich in the stories of people like St. Francis and Wilberforce, Mother Theresa and Jackie Pullinger who changed the world by applying the love of Christ to the world’s great need.

Water and dirt - Jesus didn’t back away from either. He got soaked and soiled; he washes us clean and teaches us the cost of leadership and the joy of making others feel at home.

Photo Credits:
Muddy feet – BBC News
Foot-washing and Mother Theresa – Unknown source