“It was just before the Passover Feast. Jesus knew that the time had come for Him to leave this world and go to the Father.
“Having loved his own who were in the world, He now showed them the full extent of His love” -John 13:1.
The passage begins with a parable in action rather than a discourse or a message.
It begins with Jesus’ washing the disciples’ feet. And in that remarkable event, simple as it was and yet strange in many ways, John sees some very deep and remarkable meanings.
There are two movements that John sees in this event, and he gathers them up in the preface to this account.
John sees first in this remarkable scene the evidence and the demonstration of the unchanging love of Jesus for His disciples.
Jesus remains considerate, compassionate, and thoughtful about His disciples, and that impresses John.
He is amazed by the fact that Jesus is not thinking of Himself, even though He knows that this is the dramatic hour.
Rather, His thoughts are still upon His disciples. He teaches them and manifests love, compassion, and concern for them to the end.
The second movement concerns Judas. John sees in the act of foot-washing a demonstration of the truth that is in Jesus; of the remarkable passion that strips away all pretense and hypocrisy, and reveals things exactly the way they are.
In this dramatic act in which Jesus stoops to wash the feet of Judas as well as those of the other disciples, John sees a manifestation of that honesty of God; that reality of God that exposes all hypocrisy, and through such revelation, seeks to lay hold of the traitor’s heart and show him what is happening to him.
Jesus is moved to do this, John says, by an awareness of His authority.
The Father gave all things into His hands. He knew that. He knew who He was, knew He had come from God, and knew He was going to God.
And, moved by this sense of His own identity and authority, Jesus begins to speak direct words to Judas, exposing what he was doing and where he was headed.
John sees all this as intertwined in this remarkable scene: the commitment of love that taught to the end and the passion of truth that fought to the end for the deliverance of Judas.
Lord, thank You for the love that stoops to serve me. Thank You for the honesty that seeks to deliver me from my hypocrisy.
Help me to surrender once again to the way You are working in my life.
Life application
Actions speak louder than words. How do we demonstrate the highest form of love, even to those who may not deserve it?
Apostle Paul reminded all of us that as Christians, we are a public letter read by everyone watching us.
The inscription of this letter is our acts (what we do and do not do).
People see what we do and that matters more than what we say.
In His most difficult hours, Jesus said several things, but what mattered most is what He did in those last hours of His life.
Imagine Jesus being under the pressure of death and still carrying the responsibility of taking care of His disciples.
Imagine if you knew when you were dying, what would you do to others?
How do we act under pressure? What kind of parable or letter are we to those who watch us?
Jesus, under the pressure of death, seemed to be more bothered by the state of His disciples than His death.
Most times, we find ourselves in situations that pressurise us and our excuse for not doing the right thing is the pressure.
However, to Jesus, pressure was not an excuse to not do the right thing. Have you ever said words you were not supposed to say and your excuse was: “I was angry”?
Jesus taught the world a lesson on hypocrisy. He did not shy away from telling Judas that he was wrong and that Judas’ plans were wrong.
Many people would criticise this public announcement as not being politically correct. But Jesus was a living parable to all of us about not just telling the truth, but saying it as it is.
You must graciously tell people the truth even when it concerns how wrong they are.
By telling Judas the truth about his mistake, Jesus was offering him a second chance to fix his life by changing the course of action.
Jesus wanted Judas to read from His life and change his own. Christ had a passion for the truth to the last minute of His Earthly life.
