DEVOTIONAL FROM PASTOR DAVE APRIL 5, 2023

Wash one another’s feet. Jesus told us to do it (John 13:14). But like a lot of other things Jesus told us to do, we don’t always do it. At least, we don’t do it very often. But whenever I have done it, it has been very meaningful and memorable.

The first foot-washing I experienced was my first year in seminary. I had come to chapel on that Maundy Thursday in Holy Week, and when I saw in the bulletin that there would be foot-washing, I immediately considered sneaking out and just skipping chapel. I had never experienced foot-washing, and I really don’t like anything (or anyone) touching my feet. But somehow I found myself standing in line for one of the foot-washing stations.

When the time came, I took my turn sitting in the chair, while another student, whom I didn’t really know, gently palmed some of the warm water over my feet and then lifted and dried them with a fresh towel. We stood and embraced. Then I knelt at the chair while the next student in line took their turn as I turned some water over their feet and dried them. We both stood and embraced, and then I found my way back to my seat.

But I found myself overcome with emotion. It was as if the love and gentleness and welcoming presence of Jesus had literally washed over me. You see, I was living very much in my head at the time–reading, writing, studying, and thinking very heady thoughts about things like theories of the atonement. Plus I was exhausted. It was nearly the end of the semester, and I was under a lot of stress to wrap everything up. But it’s as if Jesus found a way to get through to me what this is all about–what he is all about. I came to discover the truth of what Jesus said to Peter, “You do not know now what I am doing, but later you will understand” (John 13:7). Likewise, I have come to understand that one of the ways Jesus likes to get through to us is not so much through our heads as through our feet.

Since then, I have experienced other foot-washings. One was twenty years ago at a wedding at which I presided. The young bride and groom wanted their first act as a married couple to be to wash each other’s feet. At another church, we offered foot-washing at our Maundy Thursday service. Afterwards, an older woman came up to me with tears in her eyes and told them that she hadn’t held her middle-aged daughter’s feet in her hands since her daughter was a little girl and it was bath time. The daughter had tears in her eyes, too. She had never touched her mom’s feet.

Now, it may seem “corny,” but I believe foot-washing is good for the “sole!”

Don’t worry; we won’t be washing each other’s feet at our Maundy Thursday service this week. But I invite you to read and to prayerfully ponder John 13:1-17 this week, and to try to find a way to let someone else wash your feet, and wash someone else’s feet in turn, whether literally or metaphorically in some act of tender loving service. Jesus said it’s how we share in him and his loving service (John 13:8). And he also promised that we will be blessed if we do (John 13:17).