Love Stoops

“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.

. . .

“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 greater than he who sent him. If you know these things, blessed are you if you do them.’”

(John 13:1–5, 12–17)

Jesus is the perfect host. The night before He lay down His life for His friends, He prepared a place, he prepared a meal, and he planned for the entire evening. He broke bread with them, gave them wine to drink, and led them in the richest conversation imaginable. He did far more than this, however. The thing that makes Jesus the perfect host is that He gave Himself entirely to His guests. He gave Himself in the wine and the bread. He gave Himself as He gave them His Word and the promises of His Word. He gave Himself as He humbled Himself to perform the most menial of all tasks for them, to wash their feet. The following day, of course, He will give them—and us—the greatest example of this love and service and sacrifice and humility as He gives Himself away to us and for us as He hangs upon a cross paying for all of the sins and misery of the world.

Jesus gave Himself in all of these ways because it is in the character of the Trinity to do so. All that He is and has and has done has always been in the form of a gift to His Father, just as His Father has always loved and served and given to Him. He is a servant to His disciples because He is a servant to His Father and because this is what He has seen His Father do for Him.

And so now He teaches His disciples explicitly that this is what it will always be to be a disciple of Christ: not simply a “washer of feet”—that, yes—but rather a “giver-away-of-oneself.” No place left for pride here. No place left for self-serving or self-preservation. There is no thing too low to which love will not stoop. No reservations, no holding back in the service of Christ. If Christ who created all things and rules over all things and owns all the glory in the universe can stoop to clean out the gunk between my toes, how much more willing should I be to do that and anything else to which love calls me.

“Dear heavenly Father, thank You for giving Yourself away for us, for inviting us to be Your guests at Your great banqueting table, for feeding and nurturing us and serving us with the hand of God in Christ. Thank You again for Christ’s sacrifice for us. Make us like Him—make us His disciples indeed—and teach us to wash feet and serve and sacrifice and give ourselves away with the same joy that leads You to do all of this for us. We pray in Christ’s name. Amen.”