Let us pray. Lord our God, thank you again for your word. Thank you for the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. Thank you that We might have your word translated into so many languages and dialects. Let your word go forward in sermons, in printed page, so that your people might hear and understand the great things you have done. Illumine our own hearts, O Lord. Take away from us any cloudiness in our thinking. Enable us to focus upon the message of what Jesus Christ has done for the life of the world. And we ask this in his precious name, amen. The scripture reading this evening is from John chapter 13. We turn in the gospel according to St. John chapter 13, the account of Jesus washing the feet of his disciples. There we read verses 1 through 20. The focus in the context, however, will be verses 12 through 15. A reading from the Gospel according to St. John, chapter 13, beginning at 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. During supper, when the devil had already put into the heart of Judas Iscariot, Simon's son, to betray him, Jesus, knowing that the father had given all things into his hands, and that he had come from God and was going back to God, 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. He came to Simon Peter who said to him, Lord, do you wash my feet? Jesus answered him, what I am doing you do not understand now, but afterward you will understand. Peter said to him, you shall never wash my feet. Jesus answered him, if I do not wash you, you have no share with me. Simon Peter said to him, Lord, not my feet only, but also my hands and my head. Jesus said to him, the one who has bathed does not need to wash except for his feet, but is completely clean. And you are clean, but not every one of you. for he knew who was to betray him. That was why he said, not all of you are clean. When he had washed their feet and put on his outer garments and resumed his place, he said to them, do you understand what I have done to you? 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've given you an example that you should do just as I have done to you. Truly, truly I say to you, a servant is not greater than his master, nor is a messenger greater than the one who sent him. If you know these things, blessed are you if you do them. I'm not speaking of all of you. I know whom I have chosen, but the scripture will be fulfilled. He who ate bread has lifted his heel against me. I'm telling you this now before it takes place. that when it does take place you may believe that I am he. Truly, truly I say to you, whoever receives the one I send receives me, and whoever receives me receives the one who sent me." This is the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. Dear congregation of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, the story about Jesus washing his disciples' feet is deceptively simple. Almost charming, is it not? The Lord Jesus is having a meal with his 12 disciples, but their feet had not been washed when they entered that room. And so the Lord gets up at a certain point. He takes off his outer garments, finds a basin, fills it with water, grabs a towel, and begins to wash their feet. It's an awkward moment, but Jesus says, what I've done to you is an example that you should do to others. Charming story, isn't it? Simple point, right? Some groups have actually made the practice of foot washing a sacrament in their church. This coming week, you probably will hear the news report, and the cameras will be there, and the reporters of Roman priests, including the Pope, the Bishop of Rome, bringing together 12 poor men, and he will wash their feet. And once that ceremony is done, then they wait 12 more months before they do it again. An annual ceremony, a yearly ritual, is not what Jesus had in mind in John 13. So, just a charming story. Not so fast. Jesus is soon to die on the cross. In less than 24 hours, he will be dead. And he knows that, for he knows all things. And everything Jesus does in this account is controlled by his office. He doesn't act outside of his office. as prophet, priest, and king. He is working out God's plan to redeem his elect from all sin and death. That is his office. That is his calling. That is why he came. And so in the hours that are preceding his death on the cross, Jesus does not turn into the grand humanist of all history. What a great person, period. No. There is a powerful message here about the gospel of God, a message that each one of you listening to this message must reflect upon in the deep recesses of your own hearts. The Apostle Paul tells us that Christ did not consider his equality with God something to be held on for dear life, but instead he emptied himself. He took on the form of a servant. But he did more than just take on the form of a servant, he did the work of a servant. Getting down and dirty. Down and dirty by washing his disciples' feet at the Last Supper. But in doing so, he has given to the church a grand example of self-denying love and humility. In the incarnation, He lays aside his glory, and the word became flesh, and we beheld his glory. But he fleshes out his own office as mediator, when he laid aside his own clothing, stripped down, and did a servant's job. Do you understand this? That's the question he poses to his disciples. It's the question that really lingers in front of all the readers. Do you get it? Do you understand what he has done? Jesus actually puts that question before his disciples, a question which is a great one for you and for me to ponder, consider, and to mull over in our own hearts as well. And so I bring God's Word to you this evening from John 13, 12 to 15, but really that portion of the chapter in the context of the whole story. And I want you to see in this passage first the awkward The awkward problem that confronts the disciples. Secondly, the washing solution that Jesus provides. And then the deep example. The Lord Jesus Christ, the master of all the universe, washed his disciples' feet. First, then, the awkward problem. The problem about washing feet brings together several realities. In Middle Eastern culture, I am told that, well, I suppose in our culture too, the feet are not exactly the most attractive part of any person's body. But more than that, it would be considered very disrespectful, almost an insult, if you ever would lift your foot in such a way that people see the sole, the bottom of the feet. You never cross your legs in Middle Eastern culture in such a way that other people see the bottom of your feet. That would be a great disrespectful thing. You don't lift the heel against them. And one might use his shoes to show contempt. You remember when the statue of Saddam Hussein was toppled over in Baghdad, people took off their shoes to hit the statue, which would be a way to say, we really, really disrespect you, Mr. Hussein. And again, on another occasion, when President George Bush was in Iraq, A man tosses his shoes at President Bush just to show his great disrespect for the American president. But another problem with the feet is very obvious in that day and age. You might wear sandals to protect your feet from the sharp rocks and other sharp objects upon a road, but sandals did not protect your feet from the dirt and the dust that Palestinian roads would have. Furthermore, with all of the animals that would be on the highways and byways of Palestine, one would have to walk carefully around the animal droppings that would be upon the road. In other words, once you arrive at a friend's home, your feet need to be washed. There's just no getting around that. In fact, back in Genesis 18 and 19, when people come to visit Abraham or Lot, the first thing these guests experience when they enter the home of Abraham and Lot are the washing of their feet. They needed to be washed whenever you entered someone's home. Now the society of Jesus' day gave that task and that work to the lowest, lowest servant, the menial servant. People of equal social status did not wash each other's feet. Plus, there is no record from the ancient world of people who were ranked higher than others ever washing the feet of those who ranked lower. It just never, ever happened. Even today, the King of England does not wash the feet of his palace staff. And the president of the United States does not polish the shoes of the person who takes out his garbage. It just doesn't happen. And in Jesus' day, therefore, the washing of one's feet was given to the lowest servant. So here's the awkward problem. In John 13, the meal has begun, but no one apparently has washed the feet of these participating in this meal. No servant met them at the door to wash their feet, and no one of the disciples takes up the task either. It wasn't in their job description. And if it's not in my description, I'm not gonna do it. So, Jesus is the one, in our second point, who provides the washing solution. For the one person to make a move is the Lord Jesus Christ. During the meal, he got off his dinner mat, and he rose from the floor, for they reclined at dinner. He took off his outer clothes. He found a towel, which he wrapped around his waist, just as a servant would have done. He located water and placed enough in a basin, and there he went. First one disciple, then the next, then the next. Now do the math, 12 disciples, 24 feet. He applies the water, he washes the feet, he applies the towel, he dries the feet. And the text doesn't record any conversation. It must have been an awkward silence. And no one speaks apparently as the Lord makes his way from one man to the next man. Water applied, dirt and dust removed, feet dried, next disciple. Jesus says nothing. Now he could have berated them. He could have chided them. Why do I have to do this? Why don't you do this? Oh, all right, I'll do it. We don't hear that. We don't hear that at all. Now he's the Lord and teacher. And in the early verses of chapter 13, what do we read? This is the one who's washing their feet. Having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end. Verse three, Jesus knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands and that he had come from God and was going back to God. This is the one who's washing their feet. The master, Lord, king of the whole creation is putting water on their feet. He's washing those dirty feet. He's drying those feet. We hear nothing until he comes to Peter. Peter often has something to say and he has something to say again. He speaks out. Now in the original language what Peter says in verse 8 is very, very strong and very dramatic. He says something like this, there is absolutely no way that you will ever wash my feet. No way. The indignity of Jesus, the Lord and Teacher, the Son of God even, doing the work of a lowly slave? That's too much for Peter. No, no, Jesus, don't. You will never wash my feet, ever. Jesus responds and goes right to the heart of the matter, doesn't he? Verse 8, if I do not wash you, you have no share in me. Think of it. No share with Jesus? No part in the Lord? No spot at his side, no place in his kingdom, no mansion in the father's house, unless he cleans you, washes you. Now, washing has always been an important part of the Christian behavior in the presence of God. Now, it does not say anywhere in scripture, cleanliness is next to godliness. That's never said in the Bible. But there is no godliness without cleanliness. And I don't simply mean that you wash your hands before a meal or that you keep your room neat and tidy. I'm not referring to that. There is no godliness without cleanliness. Consider this, the priests in the Old Testament, we read in Exodus 30 and in Exodus 40 that that laver of water That big laver of water is placed there so that the priests, in entering the shrine and exiting the shrine, in approaching the altar and coming from the altar, were to wash their feet and their hands, the text says, lest they die. Really? If they don't wash their hands, they're gonna die? Yes. The penalty for entering God's house with dirty hands and dirty feet is death. To approach the house of God or approach the altar, the hands and the feet must be clean or these priests would die. In other words, without cleanliness, there is death. Jesus is saying to Peter essentially this, Peter, if I don't wash you, you're going to die. Wow. Well, once Jesus resumes his clothes and he takes his place, he asks them this question, do you understand what I have done to you? Now, at first glance, the answer to that question is pretty obvious. Okay, we started a meal, no one had washed our feet. You got up, you found the water, the basin, the towel, and you washed our feet. You did what a servant was supposed to do. Very nice, very fine. You washed our feet when it wasn't your job to do it. You washed our feet even while we felt this was a little bit awkward. But you did it. Now, congregation, the Bible does not waste words. It never does. And the first verses of this chapter put these events and words into a proper context. Jesus' hour is approaching. Well, what hour? Well, the hour of his own passion and death, his exodus. As I said, he is soon to be betrayed, he will be crucified, he will rise from the dead. His hour is coming, the great passion, the great sacrifice of his life on a cross. And yet he will not turn away from that hour. Not at all, he will love his own until the end. That's positive. What love from the Father and the Son really is comes out in the sacrifice, the self-sacrifice of Christ for sinners. Your guilt and your filth, your dirt, are placed on Christ as his righteousness is given, imputed, reckoned yours. The garments of righteousness that clothe us. Now notice what Jesus says in verse 10. You are clean, but not all of you. Not every one of you is clean. Now what cleansing does he mean, since he has washed the feet of all of his disciples? The text tells us the betrayer, Judas Iscariot, may have clean feet, but he is not clean. There are two cleansings, therefore, actually being referred to in the text. the shed blood of Christ on the cross, that essential blood of Christ's sacrifice was not poured out for the one who would betray Jesus. In other words, when Christ dies on the cross, he does not die for every human being head for head. But for everyone he does die for, they are clean. You are clean. But not all of you, he says. Judas is not clean. He was not cleansed at the cross. He was not plunged between that fountain filled with the blood of Christ. Blood and water. Thus, Judas remains filthy in his soul. in his sins. He stays spiritually dead even as Satan enters his heart and moves him to betray the Lord Jesus. Now what makes this example of our Lord so deep is not really therefore about the water that is applied, but the blood that Jesus shed. Now too many people accept Jesus washing their feet. Jesus does things for me. But they turn their back on the cross. They will not have it. They like, they enjoy the service that he provides. But they reject the cost, the price. Jesus' blood. Christ will never allow that, of course. For the price of real and deep cleansing will take more than water in a basin. It requires blood, Christ's blood, shed on a cross for you. If I don't wash you with my blood, you have no part in me. If I don't wash you with my blood, you will die. Do you understand this?" I remember when I was, it was an incident. I was in Israel with a seminary student in June of 2008, and in the evening you're sitting around, the sun has set, it's cooling off a little bit, and one of the fellow diggers, because we were on an archaeological dig at Bethsaida, He was Jewish, a young Jewish boy from New York City. And I don't even know how this came up in the conversation, but I made the comment. I said to the small group there, I said, without Jesus, you will not make it. Without Jesus Christ, you will not make it. And Joseph, the Jewish boy said, what, not even a nice Jewish boy like me? I wasn't going to tackle him to the ground in a big, long argument. I just said it again, without Jesus Christ, you're not going to make it. And then he said, I'll take my chances. I'll take my chances. In other words, I dare to appear before God without Jesus. Your heart grieves when you hear something like that, but he's not alone. He's not alone in thinking that. For to see ourselves as dirty with sin, covered with the dust of death, is too much for some people. A person may say, I'm a good person. I hear this all the time. I really do. I hear this all the time. I'm a good person. I even believe it myself, about myself, far too often. I deserve a better life than this. I deserve a better life than this. I don't deserve what I have now. I'm a good person. I'm not perfect. No, no, I'm not saying I'm perfect. I'm a good person though. The sad reality that you and I personally must face is that of sinful hearts, filthy lives in thoughts, words, deeds, motives, actions, the looks we sometimes give each other. Yes, looks can be dirty. And when Jesus switches from his necessary cleansing that he gives to the soul to the servant's tasks of cleansing the filthy feet, many balk. Many refuse to put on the apron of humility because it's not in my job description. And if it's not in my job description, I'm not gonna do it. Serve others, not me, not me. Let them figure it out for themselves. Let somebody else take care of it. I raise this issue Because of what I observe in many Christian circles, in Christian churches, and I stand far too guilty myself. You've heard sermons, many good sermons, about the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. Messages about the love that God the Father has for his children. Pointed addresses about the fellowship that we have in the Holy Spirit. That's good, that's excellent. May they increase in number. And yet far too often the word evaporates on us. All too quickly, our words, our conversations, our attitudes betray that in us lies a party spirit. That is to say, we like to huddle and cuddle only with those people who act, think, and believe as we do. And then stay there. And then stay there. Comfortable. Comfortable. in a comfort zone with people who are like-minded with us. I too am guilty of this. We don't feel comfortable at all with a lord, a master, an office bearer to get down, bear his soul, to open himself up to the dirty. Jesus, why are you having lunch with sinners? Jesus, what are you doing talking to that Samaritan woman? We're not comfortable when he does that, that he opens himself to the dirty, the tax collectors, the sinners, to a Samaritan woman, to a Syrophoenician dog, to the prostitutes, to the homosexuals, to the addicts, to the swindlers and the cheats. Because if Jesus does that, that means that I must minister in the same way. And by nature we don't want to do that. Christ must remain draped in the vestments of respectability and beauty and then he can remain distant. He must keep his dignity and his distance and our respect. And then I too can be draped and dignified and remain distant. Now remember the quality and the character of the men whose feet Jesus washed. I say nothing about Judas Iscariot because he's the obvious bad guy and we can easily dismiss him. And yet Jesus washed his feet also though he remained unclean, verse 11. And remember those other 11 men would be the ones who at the Last Supper would dispute, they would argue, they would talk with vigor and animation about this question, who of us is the greatest? Now during Jesus' ministry, you remember the mother of James and John come and say, Lord, can you find a place near the highest elements, the highest regions of your kingdom for my sons, James and John? And Jesus had turned that aside. The people of the world look for power and prestige, but it shall not be so among you. And yet at the Last Supper, according to Luke and Mark, they argued, who of us is the greatest? And I want to say, greatest in what? Piety? Greatest in scholarship? Orthodoxy? True doctrine? Zeal? Miracles? My miracles are better than your miracles. What are they arguing about? Three years with Jesus and they still don't get it. They all want to be a dominus, a Lord. At this point, legalism doesn't help us at all. Legalism will smother us and suffocate us. For the legalist looks at the situation and says, okay, feet are dirty, that's obvious, but whose job is it to clean those feet? Who's got that written into their job description? It's not me. Where is that slave? Where is that slave? Get over here and do it. But what if there is no slave to do it? Then we all sit down at the dinner table and our feet stink. They're all dirty. The greatest vestment of a Christian is the apron of humility. But you do not put on the apron of humility by trying harder, no. You learn it by going to the cross and spending time at the cross and thinking deep in your soul, what is going on here? A perfect mediator, the God-man, is dying for me. He's dying for me. He's shedding His blood so that I can be clean, that I can have a share with Him, that I can live with Him. You don't learn to put the apron of humility on just by trying harder. You've got to go back to the cross. You must realize it deeply in the recesses of your own heart when you look at your feet, your hands, your head, your heart, your past. your past, and you conclude this, I, I am the guilty one. I am the dirty one. I have fallen short of the glory of God in so many ways. The imaginations of my heart, the activities of my hands, the vanities of this life have left me dirty, unclean, and unfit to be present with God. There's no place for us to stand around and look and say, well, I'm not as bad as he is, or I'm not as unclean as she is. Stop it. We're all filthy. When Jesus shed his blood on the cross, it was for you. It was for you. There is a fountain filled with blood drawn from Emmanuel's veins. And sinners who plunge beneath that flood have all their sins and stains and iniquities washed away. Whiter than snow. Do you understand what he did? Do you get it? Jesus says to each of you personally this evening, unless I wash you, you have no part in me. The physical water that Jesus used in the upper room was able to remove Palestinian dust and dirt, yes, but his blood reaches the soul and it cleanses the soul supremely, effectively, and permanently. Only His blood. And therefore, in this life, you and I, walking that road of life, will keep picking up dirt. We have bathed in Christ's blood, but our feet keep getting dirty. This is why we minister one to another. When we fall, when we stumble, when we drift, when we get off the road, we minister to each other. Christ shed his blood to make you clean. You are clean in him, verse 10. You are. You must go back to the cross and to the resurrection to see that again and again. But then you learn what Jesus did for you. But in learning that truth, in learning the truth of what he did, you learn then how to put on the apron of humility. That truth is not learned by nagging others as a legalist would, do this, do this, do this. There's no power in that. There's no grace in that. There's no good news in that. And therefore, when we see what redeeming love is, when that reality finally dawns upon our souls, we learn that this shocking and unsettling truth The Lord who has universal authority in heaven and on earth, the one who has received all things from his father's hands, displays the glory of God, how? In servant form. That is his glorious calling, the beauty of grace in the operations of the great office bearer of history. With a towel that dried the wet feet, Jesus remains our high priest, our prophet and our majestic king. And if that's true, then we cannot, we may not turn him into the greatest humanist of history. That would be blasphemy. That would be blasphemy. At the same time, you and I cannot walk away from Christ and his cross unmoved, proud, and arrogant either. Do you understand what I have done for you? Do you get it? Look, if I don't wash you, you will have no part in me, but in washing you, I have given you a great example. One student once wrote this, and I've never forgotten it. Perhaps one of the greatest, clearest signs of a Christian is that he or she is the one who knows they have been forgiven. who are thus willing to forgive and also to be humble and serve others, even their enemies. Even their enemies. And once you understand that bath of blood, Christ's death, the washing that comes from the Lord, you then learn how to put on that apron of humility and to live as a servant of Jesus Christ. You are then prepared spiritually and many other ways to wash the feet of others around you. Amen. Let us pray.