Scripture: John 13:1-17, 31-35
Tonight we’re going to see three things: one, our need for cleansing; two, Christ’s complete cleansing; and three, Christ’s command to love.
But first, our need for cleansing…
There’s a great two-part episode of The Office in which Jim and Pam get married at Niagara Falls one weekend. The whole gang from the office are invited, and they all check into the same hotel—including Kevin Malone… who, as previous episodes make clear, suffers from a severe… um… foot odor problem.
This becomes relevant later, when Kevin inquires at the front desk about a pair of shoes he set out the night before in order to be shined and polished. The clerk goes and gets her manager, who breaks the news to Kevin: once the shoeshiner received Kevin’s shoes, he was “overwhelmed” by the smell. So the manager said that they decided to incinerate Kevin’s shoes.
“We had no choice,” the manager explained. “We considered it a safety hazard.”
Kevin, of course, is humiliated.
Speaking of dirty feet and humiliation, let’s look at this remarkable exchange between Jesus and Peter, after Jesus bends down to wash his feet. Verse 6: “Lord, do you wash my feet?” Peter acts surprised before saying, “You shall never wash my feet.”
I know that it’s easy for us present-day readers to pick on Peter—who often seems to put his foot in his mouth—but let’s give him some credit. At least he understands this truth: “I do not deserve to have someone as great as you, Lord, to perform this humiliating act of service for me.”
And he’s absolutely right! He doesn’t deserve to have Jesus do this! In the ancient world, only a slave would be asked to do this! Not someone that whom Peter has made Lord over his life—not to mention God incarnate!
So Peter’s objection sounds very humble… except…
Do you hear also a note of pride…? As if Peter were also saying, “Lord, my feet are not so disgusting that I can’t wash them myself. I’d much rather wash them myself than have you do it. Are my feet really so filthy that I require you—my King, my Savior, my Lord—even God-in-the-flesh—to wash them?” Like Kevin in The Office, Peter is humiliated at the thought!
To have Jesus do this would wound Peter’s pride!
But then Jesus tells him, “If I do not wash you, you have no share with me.”
Whoa! Suddenly it’s clear that Jesus is no longer talking about just a foot-washing. Rather, he’s talking about the kind of washing that this foot-washing symbolizes—which is, Jesus’ suffering and death on the cross for our sins.
Remember the apostle John’s words in Revelation? Referring to the saints in heaven, he says, “They have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.”[1]
Or Paul’s words in 1 Corinthians, referring to the kinds of sins that these Corinthians made a habit of committing before Christ got hold of them: “And such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.”[2]
So when Jesus says, “If I do not wash you, you have no share with me,” he’s talking about nothing less than heaven or hell, eternal life or eternal damnation. He’s saying, “Through my suffering and death on the cross I’m going to wash away your sins. If you won’t receive this washing—the first step of which is to admit that you are so helpless over your sins that you need the washing that only I can offer—then you can never be part of me—you can never be part of God’s family… and you can never have eternal life.”
I don’t know how much of this Peter understands at this point, but he understands enough to tell Jesus, “Lord, not my feet only but also my hands and my head!” He understands that he is in need of a deeper cleansing.
The first part of the good news of Jesus Christ sounds a lot like the bad news: We have a problem with sin over which we are powerless. Left to our own devices, apart from God’s grace, we will all face judgment, we will all be found guilty, and we will all be condemned to hell—that is, we will be separated from God for eternity.
So the first step to receiving the good news of the gospel of Jesus Christ is doing what Peter, at least at first, seemed unwilling to do: To confess that we have a problem that only Jesus can solve… to recognize the enormity of your problem with sin… and to desire to change. Granted, we don’t possess within ourselves the power to change, but repentance means bringing to Jesus your desire to change. That’s all he needs. He’ll do the rest. That’s repentance… the first thing we do to receive the good news.
And once we take that step, then we’re ready to hear the rest of the good news of the gospel: For instance, the words of John the Baptist in chapter 1, when he sees Jesus and says, “Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!”
Remember, the meal that Jesus and his disciples were eating on this night was intended to commemorate the Passover… That’s not a coincidence. What that first Passover lamb could only do temporarily—to atone for sins—and only then for people living in a certain place and time, thousands of years ago—the true Passover lamb, Jesus Christ, does once and for all time, eternally, for everyone who believes in him!
And this brings to Point Number Two: Christ’s Complete Cleansing…
When I say that Christ’s atoning death is once for all time, I mean it…
I mean that all of our sins—past, present, and future—are forgiven. I mean that when we trust in Jesus as our Savior and Lord, and are born again, we won’t commit any new sin that Jesus did not already pay for on the cross. I mean that nothing—“neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord”!
But don’t take my word for it. Jesus makes this same point in verse 10: “Jesus said to him, ‘The one who has bathed does not need to wash, except for his feet, but is completely clean.’” Did you hear that? Completely clean. “And you are clean, but not every one of you.’” The “not every one of you” refers, of course, to Judas, the disciple who proves that he is not already saved because, in just a couple of hours, he’s going to betray Jesus into the hands of his enemies.
Jesus is saying that only one of the Twelve is not already “completely clean,” and that’s Judas…
That means the other eleven are already “completely clean” and do not need to be washed by Jesus again. Through faith in Christ they’ve already received the once-for-all-time washing that they need.
And that includes… even Peter… even the one who, boastful assurances to the contrary, will deny even knowing Jesus three times this very night! Somehow, Jesus says, even Peter is already “completely clean.” Why? Because on the cross Jesus will pay the penalty for every single of one his sins—past, present, and future. The fact that same Peter would sin in the future—even committing the spectacularly large sin of denying knowing Jesus three times—did not change that fact.
I had a “frenemy” in my Baptist church youth group when I was a teenager. His name was Rick. He was popular, athletic, good-looking, girls liked him… So naturally I hated him. But also… he was very conceited, and he picked on me… a lot. Anyway, Rick was very predictable: because every time we went on a youth group retreat or church summer camp—a couple of times each year—you could count on Rick, responding to the youth pastor’s altar call, walking down the aisle… to receive Christ as Savior and Lord in tears… very emotional.
I mean, the poor guy must have gotten re-baptized four or five times! He must have prayed to receive Christ as his Savior and Lord about thirteen times!
And each time he walked down the aisle to to pray to receive Christ, I wanted to say, “Rick, didn’t you do this, like, six months ago? And six months before that? And six months before that? Besides, Rick… maybe you’re just feeling guilty for picking on me so much. Stop doing that, and you probably won’t need to repent so often!”
Seriously, if I could go back in time, I would tell him, as a pastor, “Rick, literally no part of your salvation depends on anything you can do or fail to do—other than trusting in Christ and continuing to trust in him. You don’t save yourself by your righteousness; you receive salvation as a gift through faith.”
You are completely clean because of what Christ has done for you in his death on the cross.
And by the way… when Jesus says in verse 10, “The one who has bathed does not need to wash, except for his feet,” the “except for his feet” part refers to the regular confession of sin that we do in our prayer life, and in church, and in the Lord’s Prayer… When we Christians pray for forgiveness, we are doing so confident that our Father has forgiven us… and that forgiveness is based on Christ’s death on the cross.
When we pray for forgiveness, we’re not hoping that the Father will forgive us, we’re confident that he has—because Christ has already paid for that sin on the cross!
And this brings us to Point Number Three: Christ’s Command to Love…
Now let’s turn our attention to verses 14 and 15: “If I then, 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.” Later, in verse 34, he even says he’s giving us a new commandment: “just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another.”
“Just as I have loved you”? Jesus loved us by dying on a cross! That’s a tall order if I’ve ever heard one!
How do we do that?
I’m reminded of one disciple who fulfilled this command in a literal way—Mary, the sister of Martha and Lazarus, in John chapter 12. About a week before the Last Supper, at a dinner celebrating Lazarus being raised from the dead, she poured expensive perfume on Jesus’ feet and wiped them with her hair.
This act of service was costly. For a young woman in that time, this ointment was likely a treasured family heirloom—the most valuable thing she owned. And she gave it to her Lord.
Judas objects: “Why was this ointment not sold for three hundred denarii”—about a year’s wages—“and given to the poor?” Judas spoke up, but Matthew and Mark tell us others were thinking the same thing.
So here she is—serving Jesus in a lowly, even humiliating way… being judged and criticized… and offering something of great personal cost.
So here’s the question: Was it hard for Mary to serve Jesus like this?
Hard? Are you kidding? Her attitude was, “Try and stop me! There’s nowhere else I’d rather be than right here, serving my Lord.”
We do things like that for the ones we love.
The singers of our favorite love songs get this… Remember that very popular Meat Loaf song from the ’90s, “I’d Do Anything for Love (But I Won’t Do That)”?
The song has been parodied and made fun of and misunderstood over the years… To be clear, when the singer says, “I won’t do that,” the thing that he won’t do is to forget her… or stop loving her… or betray her in any way… “No, he won’t do that,” he says.
The point is simple: he would do anything for the one he loves—it’s his joy to do it. That’s what love looks like.
And that’s how it works for us.
When we follow Jesus’ example… when we obey this “new commandment”… it’s not about gritting our teeth and saying, “I guess I have to do this.”
Of course not.
We do it out of love… and it becomes our joy.
Jesus says in verse 17, “If you know these things, blessed are you if you do them.” Blessed means real joy—deep, lasting happiness in God’s favor. Even when it’s hard, it’s worth it.
As Paul reminds us in Acts 20:35, quoting Jesus, “It is more blessed to give than to receive.”
To be “more blessed” is to know deeper joy.
So when Jesus commands us to love like this, he’s inviting us into joy.
That’s what I want for you. That’s what I want for me.
So don’t misunderstand him. Jesus is not laying a guilt trip on us—“Try harder… do better… I did all this for you…”
God forbid I ever preach that kind of message.
No—Jesus is saying, “I want you—my brothers and sisters, born again through faith in me—to experience more joy… more peace… more satisfaction.”
And let me show you how…
We can love like this because Jesus first loved us like this—
not just by washing feet, but by going to the cross.
That’s why he can say, “You are completely clean.”
Because through his cross, every sin has been paid for in full.
So we don’t serve out of guilt…
we serve out of love.
And that’s why we come to this Table tonight.
Not to become clean…
but because, in Christ, we already are.
So come… receive…
And remember:
If you are in Christ, you are completely clean.
[1] Revelation 7:14 ESV
[2] 1 Corinthians 6:11 ESV