Feet in Clay

"You will never wash my feet — ever!" Peter said.

Jesus replied, "If I don't wash you, you have no part with Me."

Simon Peter said to Him, "Lord, not only my feet, but also my hands and my head."

"One who has bathed," Jesus told him, "doesn't need to wash anything except his feet, but he is completely clean. You are clean, but not all of you." — John 13:8-11

The scene of Jesus washing the feet of His disciples is a well-known one. Usually we think of the lesson in servanthood demonstrated and the nature of leadership in the Body of Christ. I have attended Holy Week services at a Catholic Church, and I remember the priest's re-enactment of Christ's self-humbling as being an extremely powerful moment. To think that God-in-the-flesh knelt before unworthy humans performing the most menial of task is a poignant depiction of His willingness to be available to us in a relationship.

I want to look at a different aspect, though. While we are in this world, we are not to be of it, not overwhelmed by the day-to-day necessities of functioning in a material world. It's not an easy task for some of us to keep focused on what is real and what is important. It is not unlike an outdoor wedding being invaded by a swarm of hungry mosquitoes. They may not be what the day is about, but they can be awfully distracting. It is not for nothing that one of the chief devils is called Beelzebub, i.e., "lord of the flies". God calls us, enables us, and desires for us to live holy lives, lives set apart to Him. How do we do that in a fallen world?

First we do it by understanding who we are in reality. This is a subject I bring up often -- to remind myself mostly. I am not who my family and friends say that I am — for better or worse. I am not who advertisers want me to believe that I am or that I could be. I am not who the government says I am. I am not who science says I am. I came into this world from God for some purpose, and when I leave it I will return to God with, I hope, that purpose fulfilled. Though I enter as a fallen son of Adam, I will exit as an adopted son of God through my elder brother Jesus, washed clean in the blood of the Cross.

But I still have a problem, that of the insidious and clinging nature of my relationship to the world system. I seek to throw it off, but the accusation that I give in to sin far too often cannot be dismissed as false. I may say it doesn't matter and recall that, after all, I "live by faith", but that misses the point.

When my wife picked out the carpet for our house, for the main part of it — not my office, thank God — she chose a white berber. It's not pure white, but it's pretty close. I might be the "man of the house" and have every right to walk right in the front door with my boots on, but having the right, and it being right are two different things. She might let me slide if I just need to enter the kitchen with its tile floor, but if I want to watch my big television in the living room, or if I plan on sleeping in the bedroom, I'd better get my boots off and make sure I'm not "tracking in dirt".

On a daily basis, having right-standing with God is a wonderful thing, but if we are going to relate to Him in a more personal way as Father, we don't want to "track in dirt" when entering the sanctuary. The priests of the earthly temple had a big bronze basin filled with water that they used for ritual cleansing before entering even into the first chamber of the sanctuary. They could physically wash off the common dust of the profane world. But how do I do it?

Jesus didn't tell Peter and the rest to take a bucket and wash their own feet. He took it upon Himself to make them clean enough to commune with Him. He will do the same for us. We just need to give Him the time and the opportunity to cleanse us of that everyday stuff that gets on us and clings to us as we walk through this world. A few minutes of opening our hearts to Him in confessing prayer, a moment of meditation, reading a scripture verse or two, singing a few words of praise — that's all it takes for Him to freshen us up and usher us into His presence.