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For the podcast, for some reason only the children's talk portion of this sermon got picked up. So this separate entry contains the link to the adult talk that follows, so the podcast will carry both parts of the sermon.
Listen to the reading of John 13:1-17, along with a children's talk, then listen to the other readings along with the sermon for adults.
Then Jehovah spoke to Moses, saying: “You shall also make a laver of bronze, with its base also of bronze, for washing. You shall put it between the tabernacle of meeting and the altar. And you shall put water in it, for Aaron and his sons shall wash their hands and their feet in water from it. When they go into the tabernacle of meeting, or when they come near the altar to minister, to burn an offering made by fire to Jehovah, they shall wash with water, lest they die. So they shall wash their hands and their feet, lest they die. And it shall be a statute forever to them—to him and his descendants throughout their generations.”
Now before the feast of the Passover, when Jesus knew that His hour had come that He should depart from this world to the Father, having loved His own who were in the world, He loved them to the end. And supper being ended, the devil having already put it 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 to God, rose from supper and laid aside His garments, took a towel and girded Himself. After that, He poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples’ feet, and to wipe [them] with the towel with which He was girded. Then He came to Simon Peter.
And [Peter] said to Him, “Lord, are You washing my feet?”
Jesus answered and said to him, “What I am doing you do not understand now, but you will know after this.”
Peter said to Him, “You shall never wash my feet!”
Jesus answered him, “If I do not wash you, you have no part with Me.”
Simon Peter said to Him, “Lord, not my feet only, but also [my] hands and [my] head!”
Jesus said to him, “He who is bathed needs only to wash [his] feet, but is completely clean; and you [pl.] are clean, but not all [i.e. ‘every one’] of you.” For He knew who would betray Him; therefore He said, ‘You are not all clean.’ So when He had washed their feet, taken His garments, and sat down again, He said to them, “Do you know what I have done to you? You call me Teacher and Lord, and you say well, 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 have given you an example, that you should do as I have done to you. Most assuredly, I say to you, a servant is not greater than his master; nor is he who is sent [or ‘apostle’] greater than he who sent him. If you know these things, blessed are you if you do them.”
10243. 'They shall wash with water' means purification effected by means of the truths of faith. This is clear from the meaning of 'washing' as purification from evils and falsities, dealt with above in 10237; and from the meaning of 'water' as the truths of faith, also dealt with above, in 10238. Anyone who does not know what 'washing' means, nor what 'feet' and 'hands' mean, cannot possibly know what is implied by the following words in John,
Jesus poured water into a basin, and began to wash the disciples' feet, and to wipe them with the linen towel with which He was girded. And He came to Simon Peter, who said to Him, Do you wash my feet? Jesus answered, What I am doing you do not know as yet; but you will know afterwards. Peter said to Him, You shall never wash my feet. Jesus answered him, If I do not wash you, you have no part with Me. Peter said to Him, Lord, not my feet only, but also my hands and head. Jesus said to Him, He who has been washed has no need except to wash his feet, but the whole person is clean. Already you are clean. John 13:5-10.
Is there anyone who can know what the real meaning is when the Lord said, 'What I am doing you do not know as yet, but you will know afterwards', also 'If I do not wash you, you have no part with Me', as well as 'He who has been washed has no need except to wash his feet', and 'the whole person is clean'?
These words refer to purification from evils and falsities, but no one can know of this except from the internal sense. From this sense it is evident that 'washing' is used to mean purification from evils and falsities; 'water in a basin' to mean the truth of faith within the natural; 'the linen towel' which the Lord was girded with, and which He used for wiping, to mean Divine Truth emanating from Him; 'feet' to mean the natural level in a person; and 'washing the head, hands, and feet' to mean regeneration, as is 'he who has been washed', so that 'washing the feet' is used to mean purifying the natural level in a person. Unless this level with a person is purified and cleansed while he is living in the world he cannot ever be purified after that. For whatever a person's natural level is like when he dies it remains the same; no improvement takes place afterwards, for it is the level into which interior things, that is, spiritual ones flow, and it is their receptacle. Consequently when it has been perverted the interior things are similarly perverted on flowing in. The situation is like that with the eye or any other sensory organ or a member of the body when it has been damaged; inner abilities to perceive or to act by means of that organ or member are conditioned by the state of reception there.
A person's inability therefore ever to be purified if his natural is not purified in the world is the meaning of the Lord's words, What I am doing you do not know as yet; but you will know afterwards. The fact that nothing except the natural needs to be purified in one who has been regenerated is the meaning of He who has washed has no need except to wash his feet, and of the whole person is clean. And the accomplishment of all purification by the Lord alone is the meaning of If I do not wash you, you have no part with Me. The accomplishment of it by means of the Divine Truth which emanates from the Lord is meant by His wiping with the linen towel with which He was girded.
'A linen towel' means truth from God, see 7601, so that 'the linen towel with which the Lord was girded' is Divine Truth from Himself.
'Water' means the truth of faith, 10238.
'A basin' or a laver with water in it means the natural, 10235.
'Washing the head, hands, and feet' - that is, the whole body - means regeneration, 10239, 'feet' being the natural within a person, 10241.
From all this it again becomes evident that the Lord spoke by means of correspondences, thus in accordance with the internal sense, since He spoke from heaven's point of view, where that sense exists. Consequently there is little understanding of the Lord's Word unless it is understood on that level of meaning.
Peter asked, “Lord, are You washing my feet?”
Let me ask a question: Have you ever confessed, to someone you cared for deeply, something you were ashamed of? Have you ever confessed to a loved one something that you really wanted to keep hidden?
Let me broaden the question a little bit: Have you ever wanted to, but couldn’t? Has there ever been something you really didn’t want your loved one to know about? Maybe you did want them to know, but at the same time you couldn’t bring yourself to share it with them? Are there things that we hold back from the people we respect—for fear of what they will think of us? We all have something. Sometimes it’s a small thing, sometimes in life we have something pretty big.
Here’s another question: Why is it hard to repent? Sometimes we’re told that repentance is easy, once you make a habit of examining yourself. But getting started—that first step—can be really, really hard. Do we want to think about the worst parts of ourselves? Not normally. And the idea of bringing the Lord close to some part of our life that is dirty, that is low, is not an appealing thought. This is pretty much what the story we read from the Gospel is about.
This story is about feet. We know, now, from what we just read, that feet represent “the natural” in our lives, the outermost part, “the external”. And feet get dirty. And that’s how our natural lives often are, isn’t it? Living life, we get into messes. We dirty things up, sometimes. We make mistakes. What’s more, we often don’t really want to think about the mess that we sometimes have in our lives. The Lord is telling us something important about this.
There are three big messages that the Lord is giving us. Yes, we have doctrine that tells us what all the particular parts of the story mean. We know that water signifies truths of faith. We know that the linen cloth is Divine Truth. We know that the basin is a natural vessel for the truth to be put into so it can be useful to us. We know our feet are the natural. These are all truths, this is all doctrine—but the Lord is about more than doctrine. The Lord solves problems. He addresses issues. And He gives commands. So what is the Lord saying to us? Why did He perform this unusual act? Why is this in the Word?
The Lord is telling us three things. First: “You have to let Me help you.” Second: “Don’t despair.” And finally, He is saying: “Help one another.” So let’s look at the story, where we see all three messages from the Lord.
Now, first of all, this is on the eve of the Passover. This is the very beginning of the long goodbye at the end of the Book of John, leading eventually up to the Lord’s trial, His crucifixion, and His resurrection. He knows He’s about to be betrayed, and He’s tying up loose ends—he’s giving the final lessons, perhaps some of the most important lessons.
And it starts out (in the very first verse of this story) by saying, “Having loved His own who were in the world, He loved them to the end.” And very often, in the Word, the very first thing said and the very last thing said need special attention. So keep this in mind. The story starts with us being told that the Lord loved His own—that He loves us—to the end. It sounds like He’s talking about loving us to the end of time, but as we’ll see, He’s also talking about loving us to the extremity of our lives, so to speak.
And then when supper ends, He gets up, and He takes off His outer robe, and He picks up what some translations call “a linen cloth” (some say “a towel”) and He puts it around Himself. At this point the disciples are probably a little puzzled. But maybe only a little; they had seen Him do other strange things in their time following Him. Regardless, it now appeared to them as if He was dressing Himself like a servant, or slave. And we are given no reaction from the disciples.
Then He takes a basin, and some water, and pours the water into the basin, and He begins to wash their feet. Again, we have no immediate reaction from the disciples. It seems almost as if they are stunned. Nobody says anything. It’s implied that He washes the feet of several disciples before finally He comes to Peter.
Now, a great thing about Peter, in the Word, is he often says foolish things. But, when corrected, he immediately takes the correction. This happens over and over again. Often the first thing that Peter says is not quite on target, but he’s willing to be corrected. And in the Word, Peter represents our faith. His name means “rock”, and he’s the son of Simon, which means (in Aramaic) the son of “obeying”, of “obedience”, and also the son of “hearing”. This is our faith.
And Peter says, “Lord, are You washing my feet??” He couldn’t conceive of what the Lord was doing. And very often this is how we react, when we are in a state of faith. When we are “booked up” on truths. When we know there are these ten commandments, this is what not to do, there are the great commandments, here’s how we are supposed to live our lives… We have all this—and our attention is brought to the natural, external, outermost parts of our lives, and we suddenly realize: these things don’t go together!
Our external lives are often extremely dirty, confused, tangled up, covered in dust—compared to the simple, shining truths we have in the Word. And we may not want the Lord near that. “Lord, are You washing my feet?”
And then Peter says, “Lord You will never wash my feet, never!” Which is a foolish thing to say, but we often say that about our feet—about our spiritual feet: “The Lord really has no place in that. I’ve made too much of a mess of my life. I can’t see how the Lord can possibly fit in, there.”
But the Lord says, “If I do not wash you, you have no part with Me.” That’s the first big message, here: we have to let the Lord help us, because we cannot spiritually wash ourselves on our own.
The Lord says, "If I do not wash you, you have no part with Me", and Peter immediately turns around. He goes from saying "You will never wash my feet," to saying, "Not just my feet...my hands! ...My head!" And everything in between! His whole body!
Now, we know that this image of washing the whole body represents the idea of regeneration, of being born again, of being transformed by the Lord. And we spend a lot of time (and effort) trying to help the Lord make that happen. We want to become better people. And the Lord tells us that this is done by obeying His Word. That’s the very last thing, by the way, jumping to the end of our text. This whole story finishes with the Lord saying, “Blessed are they who know and do these things.” So we learn these things. We try to do them.
But isn’t it true that year after year, decade after decade, we seem to make the same mistakes? Sometimes it feels like we are not making any progress. We want not just our feet clean, but we want everything clean! But when we look at the problems we get into, at the mistakes that we make, at the slips, sometimes we think, “There’s no progress going on! I need to be cleaned all the way.”
But the Lord says, “If you have bathed, you only have to wash your feet.” What He is saying to us is, “If you invited Me in, and if you’re trying to become a new person, and you’ve given Me permission to transform you, then I’m doing that. I am regenerating you. And as long as I am regenerating you, all you have to worry about is repeatedly cleaning your external life.” Just because we get into a problem, it doesn’t mean we’re doomed; it doesn’t mean we’re damned. “I’m helping you,” the Lord says.
The only thing that your dirty spiritual feet signify, is that you’ve been living life! You’ve been walking on the road! And you can’t go out on the road without getting your feet dirty. The Lord didn’t wash Peter’s feet and then say, “Okay, now, stay indoors. Keep your feet up. Don’t go out again.” No, He knew Peter was going to go out and get his feet dirty again. And this is what the Lord is saying to us. He’s saying, “Don’t despair just because you struggle with life.”
We live our life, spiritually speaking, below the knee. We know that the whole human form is an image of our mind. And we have high parts, which can be elevated into the light of heaven. We have low parts, like our feet, which live in the world. We spend most of our time thinking at about ankle level.
So here is our experience. We take truth in. Truth comes in physically. We have a book, we have ink on a page, we have a glow from a screen, or something chiseled into stone—one way or another we physically experience it. Light bounces to our eyes, or sound to our ears, and the very bottom part of our mind interprets it, and gives it some sense, so it can be lifted up to a higher part of our mind, where we can think about it. We can hypothesize about it. We can memorize, we can learn. And it can be brought up to an even higher part of our mind, where we can acknowledge that it is true. And we can bring it up even higher into ourselves—we can bring it up into our heart and up into our head—and we can decide, “This is from the Lord, and I am going to obey it.” And we can come to love the truth.
It is only when it gets all the way to the top that the Lord can start to do His work on us. And He starts there. And He works down.
Imagine getting out of a pool of terribly cold water, and stepping out into the sun. And you can turn you face upward, and first you feel the sun’s heat on your face. As you dry, you put your arms out, and you can feel your arms warm. Eventually your torso and your body will dry. And the last thing that’s going to get warm is your feet.
Well, we live in the feet. We’ve sent the truth up, and we wonder when it’s going to come down. The Lord is saying “Don’t despair!” He says, “If you’ve bathed, all that you need to do is wash your feet.”
Next, He says to the disciples, “Do you know what I have done to you?” Well at this point, we can say that they really didn’t fully comprehend and appreciate what He had done to them, because there was so much in this act. But we now know what He does for us. He transforms us, and if we let Him come into our lives—if we are willing to have the truths in the Word get close to the mess that we make of our external lives—we can be cleaned again.
He then says, “You call Me ‘Teacher’ and ‘Lord’, and you say well, for so I am.” He is God. He is the Creator of everything. But He came down to this earth and He washed these people’s feet! And if He can do that, then who are we to not do the same for each other?
Now, in the broader Christian world, and even among some New Christians, there has occasionally been a voice that says, “Hey, you know what? Maybe we should incorporate foot washing as a rite of the church, as a symbol.” It’s never really caught on. There are some theological reasons that most denominations (including our own) haven’t made it a central, regular practice. But there’s also a social, psychological, cultural one: washing somebody else’s feet is a little humiliating, and it’s “icky”. We don’t want to get near each other’s feet. It’s just not something you normally do, particularly for people that you don’t know really, really well. And this is true, spiritually, as well.
The Lord says, “Wash one another’s feet,” and He doesn’t mean physically. But spiritually washing somebody’s feet has the same problems.
Imagine you know somebody who has made a mess of their life, in some way, that is obvious to you. And imagine that they are reaching out for help. If you approach the situation without humility, you are not going to do any good.
You may say, “Wow, that person has almost completely destroyed their marriage. My marriage is just fine, I’ll help him out.” That attitude is not going to do much good.
Or you see someone else and say, “This person’s addicted to worse and worse things. I’ve seen it over the years. That’s not a problem I have. I’m glad I’m not her. I think, when I get around to it, I’ll give her a hand. I’ll give her some advice. I’ve got some good ideas.” That’s not approaching it with humility.
What we need to do is to pray to the Lord, and say, “This person’s spiritual feet are dirty—like mine are. Could you give me the strength, and the wisdom, to help them?”
And then there is the unpleasantness of dealing with other people’s natural lives. Now, the Lord doesn’t want us to do anything that we don’t have the strength to do. He’s reasonable. He is not insisting that we go out and find the most hurting, most messed up external life we can find in the world and engage it fully. We’re not all equally strong, we’re not all equally blessed with talents to deal with every single problem. You have to know yourself.
At the same time it is not enough to say, “Well, I don’t want to think about that. That’s a terrible problem, and I just don’t want to look at that.” If that is your only reason for not helping somebody, then it is not a good enough reason.
The Lord wants us to help clean each other’s feet. And He’s willing to do it; who are we not to? So that’s the third thing He’s saying to us: that we have to help one another. And we have to do it the way He showed us: with love, with humility, and with tolerance. Because we all have dirty feet.
So this is what the Lord is saying to us. (1) “Let me help you. I have to wash your feet. If I don’t do it, you won’t be clean all the way.” (2) “Don’t despair!” Just because we get into a mess—just because we make our external lives dirty, it doesn’t mean we’re doomed. It’s just a consequence of living life. He’s saying, “Let me help you clean it up, and we’ll move on.” And finally, (3) “Help one another, with love, with humility, and with tolerance.” We are to do for one another, as He has done for us.
Amen.