Tag: foot washing

John 13:1-17

On By Tim EhrhardtIn Daily Bible Reading Blog, Year BLeave a comment
            Feet are important.  An Illinois podiatrist, Dr. Paul Brezinski, says, “The health of your feet, despite their distance from your heart, can affect your overall health.”  Turns out we should not tip-toe around attention to feet – Jesus certainly didn’t.  Despite the fact that feet, especially in the first century, were perpetually dirty and stinky, Jesus took the posture of a servant and washed each and every gross foot – including Judas Iscariot’s.
 
            This act absolutely blew the minds of the disciples who could barely fathom that Jesus would do such a thing as wash feet.  What is more, Jesus went on to tell them, “If I, 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.”  I imagine the disciples’ jaws had to be picked up off the ground over that zinger from Jesus.
 
            Here’s the deal:  unhealthy Christians and churches do not pay attention to foot health; but healthy Christians and churches give intentional focus to serving in the lowest capacities to the lowliest in the Body of Christ and in society.  They even serve their enemies – the ones whom they know have it out for them.  Healthy disciples do such things because they have the distinguishing mark of their Lord pulsating through their lives:  love.  Love motivated Jesus to serve, and, as his followers, the same motivation exists to serve the church and the world.  Mother Teresa got it right when she once said, “Not all of us can do great things.  But we can do small things with great love.”
 

 

            Loving Lord Jesus, you are the perfect model of service.  Help me to pay attention to the all the people in my life and all the responsibilities I have with the love you give me, through the power of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.

John 13:1-17, 31-35

On By Tim EhrhardtIn Daily Bible Reading Blog, Year BLeave a comment
            Today is Maundy Thursday.  On this day the church remembers the last evening Jesus shared with his disciples in the upper room before his betrayal and arrest.  It is a day to particularly remember the key events of Christ’s washing of the disciples’ feet; the beginning of what we observe as the Lord’s Supper; and, Jesus’ giving of a “new” command to love one another.
 
            Loving one another is not new in the sense that it did not exist before Jesus.  Indeed, the command to love is permeated throughout the Old Testament (see especially Leviticus 19:18).  Yet, when Christ gave the new command, it was distinctive in four ways:  Jesus is a new model of how to love, demonstrated through the servant-oriented meeting of needs regardless of who the person is; we now have a new motive for love in that Jesus Christ first loved me, so I can now love others as he has done (1 John 4:19-21); we now possess a new motivator, the Holy Spirit, who energizes us for the service of love; and, finally, we have been given a new mission in which the church exists not for itself, but to evangelize the entire world using the highest of spiritual tools, love.
 
            A true, genuine, and authentic follower of Jesus Christ will be deeply and profoundly characterized by love in all his/her words and actions.  We are called to put love where love is not.  The cross of Christ stands as the supreme sacrifice of love on our behalf.  We remember it this Maundy Thursday with humility and eternal gratitude.
            Holy God, your Son, the Lord Jesus, came as a servant not seeking to be served but to give his life as a ransom for many.  He came to wash away our sinful pride and feed us with the bread of life.  We praise you for inviting us to serve one another in love, to forgive one another as we have been forgiven, and to feast at his Table as members of one household of faith.  Amen.