This is a
typical question that arises when studying our passage from Sunday’s message,
John 13:2-17. After all, Jesus says in
v14, “If I then have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s
feet.” Jesus literally washed the
disciples’ feet, so shouldn’t we literally wash one another’s feet as a ritual,
similar to our regular observance of the Lord’s Supper?
There are
a number of reasons to hold that Jesus intended His disciples to understand
this command as a metaphor for broad, selfless service to one another, not
confined to the ritual of washing one another’s feet.
First,
washing of one’s feet was a real, cultural need for Jesus and His disciples. Their feet were truly filthy and needed to be
washed. Had the scene taken place in the
19th century, the command may have been, “shovel one another’s horse
stalls,” which would be very much out of place in the 21st
century. I would argue footwashing is
equally out of place today. We don’t
wash feet today because we don’t wash feet at all outside of our showers. It’s not a real need. The idea is to find what is a real need and
meet it.
Second and
more importantly, the scope of the Farewell Discourse (John 13-17) indicates that
footwashing is a metaphor for loving one another. In just a few short verses, after Judas is
removed from among them, Jesus will return to His teaching and give further
instruction regarding what He is calling the disciples to: “Just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another.” He’s explaining what He means by the metaphor
of washing feet.
Third and
related, it is generally accepted that Jesus’ act of washing the disciples’
feet was a prefiguring of His humbly laying down His life for the
disciples. In accordance with the new
command to love one another, Jesus calls the disciples in John 15:12-13 to the
same kind of love: “This is my commandment,
that you love one another as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than
this, that someone lay down his life for his friends.” It appears that Jesus is adding another
layer to their understanding of the new commandment – to love one another as
Jesus does is to lay down one’s life for the brothers. Just as Jesus’ washing of their feet was a
metaphor for His greater service on the cross, so also His call to the
disciples was a metaphorical call to lay down their lives for one another.
To this,
some may object that though it was a metaphor, Jesus literally washed their
feet. So shouldn’t we literally wash
each other’s feet, simply understanding it as a metaphor for broader service? In answer to this I would add a fourth reason
why it is unlikely Jesus intended this to be a normal ritual or ordinance of
the church:
There is
no biblical or early church historical evidence that the church washed one
another’s feet as regular ritual on par with the Lord’s Supper. Consider the difference between the call to
wash feet and the call to observe Communion. The Lord’s Supper is depicted in
all three of the Synoptic Gospels (Matthew, Mark, and Luke), in which the Lord
gave to the disciples and they ate and drank right there and then. We would expect that if washing feet was to
be a ritual similar to Communion, the disciples would have been expected to
wash one another’s feet that night immediately after Jesus commanded them. However, that did not happen. (If one were to say, “they didn’t need to wash
each other’s feet – their feet were already clean,” it would support the first
argument above!) Further, the only
mention of footwashing in the rest of the NT is in 1 Tim 5:10, where it is not
indicated to be an ordinance of the church, but an example of humble service by
a widow. All of this makes footwashing
as a ritual highly unlikely, compared to the universally accepted ordinances of baptism
and the Lord’s Supper, which are repeatedly attested in the NT and early church
history.
So, is there anything
wrong with literally washing feet?
Certainly not. I’ve participated
in footwashing services and found it to be very meaningful. It can be a way to express to one another our intent to serve each other with our lives. But it simply should not be understood to be a
mandated, ongoing ritual for the church.
Rather, we should understand the Lord’s command to be a call to adopt
His heart and His love for one another, laying down our lives in broad, humble
service.
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