Washing Feet

 In John 13 we have an account of when Jesus washed the feet of his disciples as part of the last supper narrative. The scriptures suggest that Jesus did this act as a symbol of how the disciples should humble themselves and serve each other "For I have given you an example, that ye should do as I have done to you. Verily Verily, I say unto you, The servant is not greater than the lord; neither he that is sent greater than he that sent him."  (v15-16).  This has always been my take-a-way from this scene until this week.  Two of my podcasts, "Follow Him" and "Unshaken" gave me new insight about the washing of the feet.

In "Follow Him" the guest speaker, Camille Olson, talked about a time when she decided to give some friends pedicures as a surprise.  Her friends were all pleased with the pedicure, but each one went away first and washed their feet before presenting them to Ms Olson for a pedicure.  She talked about how we want to hide our imperfections from the Lord, not wanting him to smell our dirty feet, as it were, just like Peter did (v. 8).  Jesus tells Peter that he must wash his feet, or "thou has no part with me."  Unless we own up to our dirty feet, and let Jesus wash them we cannot be saved.  It was, I am embarrassed to say, the first time I thought of this story in terms of repentance.  Jesus must wash us clean, even our stinky feet, or we have no part with him.

In "Unshaken" Jared Halverson elaborated on this idea.  He pointed out that when Jesus washed the feet of his disciples, he did so with a towel with which he was girded (v. 5).  As he washed their feet, their feet would have become cleaner, but the towel would have become more dirty. Mr Halverson saw this as a symbol of the atonement, Jesus taking upon himself our sins that we might become clean.  I think John includes this detail here, right before the great intercessory prayer (John 17) to give us a visual lesson about what the atonement means.

As a temple worker, every week I recite prayers about ritualistic cleaning.  This passage helped me understand and appreciate the idea of becoming clean through Jesus Christ more than I had before.