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When I was a child, my dad would on occasion say to my siblings and me, “Do you understand me?” I can hear his voice in my head as clear as a bell. “Do you understand me?” He said it in what were usually situations where we kids had messed up royally and he had had to explain what was so wrong about what we had done and what would happen if we ever did it again. “If you ever pick a skunk up by the tail again, I’ll duct tape your hand to your nose and you’ll be smelling skunk for the next 15 years. Do you understand me?” “Do you understand me?” was always the last word for life’s greatest lessons.
It is hard for me not to hear Jesus in the same way here saying to his disciples after washing their feet, “Do you understand what I have done to you?” In essence, “Do you understand me?” “Do you know me?” Jesus, the Teacher, at the last meal he would share with his disciples…his last opportunity to teach them…his greatest lesson…he stood up from the table, stripped down to his undergarment, took a basin and a towel, and washed their road dirty and probably fungus and hookworm infected feet. They, the students, laid around on pillows while he silently worked his way around the table.
Only Peter spoke up and objected…and maybe rightly so. A teacher should never humiliate himself like that before students. “Are you going to wash my feet.” Jesus gently responds, “You don’t get what I’m doing, but you will soon understand?” That wasn’t a good enough answer for Peter so he objects all the more strongly with an answer that sounds more like the voice of his own pride rather than an effort to protect Jesus’ honour. "You will never wash my feet." Well, Jesus put him in his place, “Unless you let me wash you, you have no place in me!” This foot washing was apparently the pass or fail lesson. Do we understand this!?
Jesus finished up, reclined on his cushion, and began to explain, “Do you understand what I have done to you?...If I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet.” Humility is the lesson. Jesus finishes his last lesson by saying to them, “I give you a new Commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, so also you should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” Do we understand this!?
You may not have noticed that in John’s Gospel chapter 13 follows chapter 12. No duh, eh? Chapter 12 begins with Mary anointing or more like washing Jesus’ feet by wasting a bottle of very expensive perfume. She poured it on his feet and used her hair to scrub and dry them. The whole house was filled with the fragrance of that perfume, indeed, the beauty of the act. Mary got it. She understood who Jesus is and that he had to die. In an act of extravagant, wasteful love she modelled to the disciples the heart of God and the humble, unconditional love by which the disciples were to live their lives as followers of Jesus. Chapter 13 rolls in with Jesus humbling himself to wash his disciples’ feet also in an effort to model humble, unconditional love to them. Do we understand this!?
Between these two acts of foot washing lay Jesus triumphal entry into Jerusalem. Jesus the Messiah mounted on a young donkey like a king at his inauguration. The people threw their cloaks in front of him shouting, “Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord—the king of Israel.” Presumably he went to the Temple. Some Greeks came to him. For the first time in John's Gospel some Greeks, some non-Jews come seeking Jesus. They understand who he is or are at least curious. Oddly, after their visit Jesus began to talk about his death. The voice of God the Father speaks from heaven. Then Jesus noted how the Israelites, despite all his miracles and signs, despite the obvious, just didn’t believe in him. Do we understand him!?
King Jesus, the nature of his character and of the way he reigns is humble, unconditional, indiscriminate, even wasteful love, indeed sacrificial love. He laid his life on the line. He gave himself over to death, a horrible, horrible, horrible death that we may live and find our life when we share in his humility, in his love. Do we understand this!?
There’s an election coming up here in Canada in a couple of weeks, an opportunity for a new "king" to ride into town so to speak. In Canada, a candidate’s religious background doesn’t come up in the campaign and get scrutinized the way it does in the States. Up here, party platform and campaign promises (that have the shelf life of a New Year’s resolution) are what seem to matter most. As a minister, I can’t tell you who to vote for but I can suggest that if humility expressed through humbly serving by expressions of unconditional love is the nature of Jesus, the Lord of history, who will return to put things right; then, as this is Jesus’ nature, we should look for the light of it to shine through in the actions and moral character of those we elect to office. Humility and the courage to express unconditional, sacrificial love should top the list for why we vote for a candidate. If a candidate just seems to be seeking power, has difficulty being honest, only wants to make the wealthy wealthier, sees no need for feeding the poor, healing the sick, clothing the naked, giving shelter to the homeless, and does not have a heart for the refugee and the migrant or for the needs of those who have served their country particularly in war…well, maybe it is something else that is shining through them. Maybe they have no share in him. Do we understand this!?
Jesus modeled humility. In unconditional love he washed the dirty feet of those who deserted him, denied him, and betrayed him. The crowd who ushered Jesus into town as king just hours later were yelling…yelling “Crucify him!” One might be led to say that love has no place in politics, in the kingdoms of this world. Regardless, King Jesus said to us who do have a share in him, “I give you a new Commandment, that youlove one another. Just as I have loved you, so also you should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” Do we understand this!?