“If I Do Not Wash You”

In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

“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.'” If you will not let Jesus serve you, then you will not receive the benefit of His service. It is that simple.

God comes to mankind to serve us. It has always been that way. Speaking to the Samaritan woman at the well, Jesus instructs her to ask Him for the living water that will well up in her unto salvation. She believes, albeit after some trepidation and some questioning. Therefore she receives the living water of salvation. The crowds come Jesus to be healed and cured and cleansed and taught. They believe, and their afflictions are taken away. The weary crowds come to Jesus for food, and He feeds them. “Whoever feeds on My flesh and drinks My blood has eternal life.” Our Lord serves His people not only with the bread and wine of the earth, the perishable stuff that preserves our perishable bodies for a time, but also His own true physical Body and Blood to preserve us now and unto life everlasting.

Our Lord Jesus Christ, on the night when He was betrayed, took a towel some water and, before they had eaten, washed the feet of His disciples gathered in the Upper Room. Our Lord, the Lord of Hosts, King of the Universe, stripped Himself so far of His divine dignity and majesty that He took on the form of a servant and washed the feet of His disciples. He washed them, so that they might truly be clean.

But Peter would not be served by our Lord. It is the same sort of reaction, in reverse, as John the Baptist at the Jordan: “I need to be baptized by You, and do You come to me?” What are you thinking, Jesus? You are the one who has all power, glory, might, and dominion. You are the Holy One of Israel, worthy to receive all honor and praise now and unto the ages of ages. And do you come to serve me, wretched man that I am?

This is the way of the world and your sinful flesh. You look around and see a job that needs to be done – the cleaning up – and you think you should be doing it, so that you gain the favor of someone who might see you and notice your work. You would serve God with your obedience, with your service, with your self-sacrifice and self-denial.

And to what does your work amount? The one who cleanses dirt from the presence of others becomes himself covered in another's mud. Who is it who may offer acceptable service to the Lord, that his sacrifice may be accepted in the eyes of God? Your works are always tainted by the desire for praise, for attention, for self-justification. You would not be served, because there is no such thing as a free lunch. Kings do not muck stalls while stable boys ride war-horses.

The devil, the world, and your own sinful flesh would like you to think that you can reach some sort of heaven by your own efforts. Mystics seek to reach heaven through the machinations of their own souls. They generate good feelings, close encounters with the “spirit of Christ” in the chambers of the heart. Moralists seek to reach heaven with a good and acceptable life. They demand moral rectitude, a society of Law-abiding Pharisees with scores of laws dictating every boundary of every action. Rationalists seek to pierce the boundaries of heaven by the power of their own intellect. They would have everything in the cosmos subjected to the rule of reason and empirical scientific methods of discovery. If it cannot be proved, poked, prodded, or pounded into a nice theoretical model, it cannot possibly be true.

Thus, you would not that the Lord stoop to serve you. Whether it be from pride – that you do not need to be served – or false humility – that you do not wish God to denigrate Himself in such a fashion – you would, like Peter, tell God “No way! You shall never wash my feet! You shall never bathe my dirty body! You shall never shove your food into my mouth! I can take it and eat it myself, thank you very much!”

But the Lord answers you in this matter just as He answered Peter: “If I do not wash you, you have no share with Me.” If the Lord does not wash you, you are not clean, and therefore you are not presentable before the throne of heaven. If the Lord does not give you the living waters which are about to flow in streams from His belly, you will thirst continually for eternity, and you will die of spiritual dehydration. If the Lord does not feed you with the Bread from heaven and the wine of immortality, then you will starve with a belly full of not-bread and a pot full of not-drink.

However, “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.” You have been bathed in the blessed waters sanctified by the entrance of our Lord Himself into them for you. You have been made clean from head to toe, inside and out, body and soul. You are clean, and you need now only to be washed of the filth of your daily life. You do not need to be crucified again with Christ, for you have already been raised by the fruits of His sacrifice. You only need to live in the daily contrition and repentance which washes off the filth of your sins and rests in a conscience continually cleansed by the living waters.

You do not need to sacrifice the Passover Lamb this week. The Paschal Lamb is sacrificed already, and His blood already marks your doors. The sacrificed Lamb is here, tonight, presented to you for you Christians to eat and to drink. The Body of Christ, given for you.

His Blood, shed on the cross, is poured out for the sins of the world. His blood is not flung over you or splashed against the altar or even painted on your doorframes. Rather, it is given for you Christians to drink. It is poured down your throat and into your body and soul, so that you may life the life of Christ. The Blood of Christ, shed for you, for the forgiveness of sins.

In this Holy Supper, Christ has given you the fruits of His sacrifice for your salvation. He is giving you the Lamb of God who bears the sins of the world. He is giving you the Bread that comes down from heaven. He is giving you the forgiveness of your sins, which grants you life and salvation. He is feeding your weary body and soul with a foretaste of the feast to come, so that you may be sustained along your dusty paths through this wilderness world.

This is an example for you. Jesus declares to the disciples that His washing their feet is to be an example to them of how to love one another, and also how to receive love from each other. The servants of Christ, the stewards of His mysteries, are charged with washing the bodies of the people of Christ both inside and out. The people of God are charged with receiving the fruits of His salvation given by the hands of His servants, wicked and fallible though those hands may be. “Love one another; just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another.”

Love one another, and your love will be evident in your service. Love one another, and your love will be evident in your gracious acceptance of the gifts of God, though they be delivered in humble means and by lowly couriers. In this is fulfilled what our Lord said: “Now is the Son of Man glorified, and God is glorified in Him.”

In the Name of Jesus. Amen.