Love without Limits
“He now showed the disciples the full extent of his love.” “Then he began to wash the disciples’ feet and to wash them with the towel he had around him.”
John 13: 1, 3 NIV
By an intentional act of service, Jesus demonstrated the “full extent of his love,” when he rose from the table as Master and stepped into the role of a servant. A few days earlier, James and John sought honor and prestige in God’s kingdom. Jesus used the encounter to teach them, “For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many." (Mark 10:45)
In the washing of feet, Jesus presented a beautiful picture of a servant of God. He knew his identity as Son of God and understood the authority in his possession. At this Passover supper, Jesus set forth a radically different idea of power and authority. Rather than setting himself up as the one to be served, he took upon himself the role of servant, by removing his outer garments as rabbi then humbly kneeling with a towel to wash the feet of his disciples.
Jesus served all twelve disciples equally, even the one preparing to betray him, Judas. God’s love is not exclusive, but limitless in his grace. Peter’s pride blinded him to the truth taught earlier, “Anyone who wants to be the first must take last place and be the servant of everyone else” (Mark 9:35). The idea of the Messiah as a servant was counterintuitive to Peter. Jesus was patient with Peter, for he knew he and the others did not yet fully understand the purpose of the cross before him. With kind honesty, Jesus told Peter that to be his disciple meant openly receiving His act of service, which truly was an act of love. By simply receiving the washing of his feet, Peter would experience God’s love in a new and profound way.
Peter, always the dramatic one, told Jesus to wash all of him. The focus, however, was not on the cleanliness of the body, but on the meaning of love in this simple act of service. As a symbol to all mankind, God himself was kneeling to take dirty, rough feet into his hands ,yet to be scarred. Lovingly, he held each foot pouring cool water over it to wash away the dirt. Then carefully, He took his own towel from around him and wiped the feet clean.
More important than the cleansing of dirty feet, is the cleansing of the heart, for not even all the disciples fully received the truth about Jesus as God. A person may have the cleanest, freshest of bodies, yet if sin dwells in the heart, she cannot fully receive the love of God as fulfilled by the words of Jesus that “God so loved all the world …..that He gave His one and only Son that they may have eternal life” (John 3:16).
Every day let us remember how Jesus “made himself nothing; but he took the humble position of a slave and appeared in human form and in human form he obediently humbled himself even further by dying a criminal’s death on a cross” (Philippians 2:7-8). At this last supper, Jesus rose from the Passover table, took off his robe of authority, wrapped a servant’s towel around his waist and poured water into a basin (John 13:4-5) as a representation of what was soon to be revealed to all the world.
For a moment shift your vision to heaven. Watch Jesus rise from his throne, take off his kingly robe, and in a flash be wrapped in swaddling clothes and laid in a manger. Then fast-forward thirty-three years, where with an unfettered love, Jesus holds the sins of the world on his shoulders as he carries the cross to his death. Nailed naked on that cross, He willingly gives up his life for the world that was, is and is to come in obedience to the Father. Jesus’ blood pours from his own body that the human heart may be cleansed of the filth of sin. In his sacrificial death, every living heart is offered a perfect love from the Father. The disciples experienced an unexpected form of love from Jesus at their Passover meal. Are our hearts and minds open to receive and fully experience the magnanimous love of God? Jesus, stripped off all outer garments, willingly took on the form of a slave and chose death upon the cross that the whole world may experience God’s love forevermore.
May we always remember.
