Completely Cleansed

He Loved them to the End – Six Sermons

Part 3: “An Uncomfortable Love”

(John 13:6-10, Preaching: Pastor Stephen Magee, September 13, 2009)

⁶ He came to Simon Peter, who said to him, "Lord, do you wash my feet?" ⁷ Jesus answered him, "What I am doing you do not understand now, but afterward you will understand." ⁸ Peter said to him, "You shall never wash my feet." Jesus answered him, "If I do not wash you, you have no share with me." ⁹ Simon Peter said to him, "Lord, not my feet only but also my hands and my head!" ¹⁰ Jesus said to him, "The one who has bathed does not need to wash, except for his feet,¹ but is completely clean. And you² are clean, but not every one of you." ¹¹ For he knew who was to betray him; that was why he said, "Not all of you are clean."

Were the disciples comfortable with this display of suffering love?

A: “Peter said to Him, ‘You shall never wash my feet.’” (John 13:8)

Do You wash my feet? (6-8a)

The Son of God, Jesus Christ, came from heaven to save us. He has power and authority far above every king ever known to man. But in John 13, this great Jesus has taken off His outer garment and is down on His hands and knees before a fisherman named Peter, and He is about to wash Peter’s feet as if Peter were the great man and Jesus was a lowly servant. And Peter is uncomfortable.

Peter’s reaction is understandable. Jesus is the Master. We should be the servants. How could it be right that the great Son of the living God should be doing this? Peter is unwilling to go along with this. That is understandable, but it is still wrong. If Jesus is so great, and He is, if He is the One through whom the world was made, if He is the One who holds everything together, if He is the One who is to be the eternal King over heaven and earth, than Peter needs to trust that He knows whether or not He should be doing what He is doing here. It is understandable that Peter feels uncomfortable when Jesus serves Him, but it is not alright to refuse Jesus.

Peter wants to insist that Jesus needs to be in the highest position of honor, but then He refuses to obey Him, imagining that he, Peter, can be the judge of the Lord’s intentions. As a matter of kingdom authority, Jesus needs to be the One who determines what will be done or not done to teach us about who He is and what He is doing. Again, it is alright for us to have trouble understanding this ceremony of lowliness, but it is not alright to refuse the love of the highest Leader when He comes to us as the lowest Servant. He must know what He is doing.

Jesus understands Peter’s confusion. He knows that this is more than Peter can understand at the moment. The answer is not to speak or to act against the Lord of glory as He makes His way to the cross. The solution here is for Peter to be patient, and to obey. "What I am doing you do not understand now, but afterward you will understand." The general rule for all those who would follow Jesus is very plain: Don’t be smarter than the Lord of glory.

If I do not wash you… (8b-9)

This is something of a pattern with Peter. He confessed in Matthew 16 that Jesus was the Messiah, the Son of the living God. But then when Jesus tried to teach His disciples that He would soon have to die on a cross, Peter was quick to decide how inappropriate such an idea was. He contradicts the Son of God. He says, “May it never be!” Later when Jesus instructs His disciples that all of them will fall away from Him in fulfillment of Zechariah 13:7 “Strike the Shepherd, and the sheep will be scattered,” Peter contradicts the Master: “Though they all fall away because of you, I will never fall away.” But then he denies His Lord more than once. They do all fall away.

You have to love Peter, but he is ignorant and obstinate. He is ignorant of the plans of God concerning what the Messiah will do for us, and he is stubborn enough in his ignorance to insist many times that he is right, trying to defend the greatness of Jesus every time, and yet disagreeing with the One he insists is so great. He is still seeing things through the eyes of what makes sense to Peter. Do you still prefer your own understanding of the way things ought to be above the plain instruction of the Bible? Are you ignorant of the ways of God, and obstinate about it?

This great apostle would change, and would write two inspired letters in the New Testament that have much to say about the benefit of godly suffering. He was changed by the work of the Holy Spirit, and we too can be changed by that same Spirit. Even before the great gift of the pouring out of the Holy Spirit on the church after Jesus’ resurrection, Peter seems to have a strange change of heart within moments of his protest. Soon he is insisting that Jesus wash him from head to toe. What brought about this great change? After Peter had objected to Jesus saying, “You shall never wash my feet,” Jesus answered him, “If I do not wash you, you have no share with me.” At least at this moment, Peter knows that he wants to be closely associated with Christ and His followers. This warning by Jesus was enough for him. Peter wants to have a part in whoever Jesus is and in whatever Jesus is doing.

Still, in his new insistence that Jesus wash him from head to toe, Peter continues to instruct Jesus. Peter still thinks that he knows of a better way to honor Jesus, something better than hearing His Word and obeying. Why is Jesus right about foot-washing? It is the symbol that He has chosen to give testimony to his suffering love for his disciples before He goes to the cross for their sins. It is a cultural appropriate action, but only for a lowly servant.

The love of Christ for us is a necessary love. We could not have safe fellowship and communion with God without the singular ransom for our lives that comes to us in the death of Jesus. This is God’s decision, and it is not subject to our assessment. The cross is necessary, and therefore this foot-washing symbol of the cross s necessary.

This shocking display of love in Jesus taking the place of a household slave was still only a small symbol. He only cleaned their feet. What was the fullness of cleaning represented in that symbol? It meant more than the cleaning of their bodies from head to toe. It was the complete cleansing of their entire selves, their entire beings. If we are to live with God in the new life that will come at the return of the Lord, then we must be judged to be clean in body and in soul, in everything that we are. This can only happen through the record of Christ’s righteousness being credited to us. That is how you and I, who have sinned against God, can be found to be completely cleansed.

You are clean… (10-11)

This was what we needed, to be completely cleansed. And if God tells us that we are completely cleansed through the blood of His Son, we best not argue with Him like Peter did about the foot-washing. We have full pardon for all of our sins. We have the full gift of a fresh new life today through faith in Jesus Christ.

There was a biblical rite that the Jews used that had to do with the ceremonial cleansing of someone who was healed from leprosy. The leper was considered unclean. When a leper had been cleansed through healing, he still needed to go to the Old Testament priest for this special cleansing ritual involving the use of two birds. (Read Leviticus 14:2-7.) One bird had to die. The second bird lived, but only after being dipped in the blood of the bird that died. The live bird was blood-bought. But there was someone else who was sprinkled with blood, the man who was cleansed from the leprosy. That man was like a dead man in his disease, but now because of the sprinkling of blood, he was free to live, free to fly away from all the ugliness of what used to be. He was a blood-bought man.

This ritual is not ultimately about skin diseases. It is a symbol. The leprosy stands for our deep disease of sin. The blood is the blood of Christ. We are blood-bought people. But now through the blood of Jesus, we are free. We are clean. But not everyone is clean. Peter is clean, though what he did here was wrong. He is clean despite the evidence of his stubborn ignorance, despite his repeated contradiction of the Son of God. Despite the fact that he is strangely suggesting that he is smarter than Jesus about heavenly matters, he is totally clean by the blood of Jesus. But Judas… he is not clean, and there is not a lot for us to say about that.

Let’s not talk anymore about Peter, or about Judas. What about you? Do you want to be clean? Do you want forgiveness for all your sins and a new life by the power of the Holy Spirit? Perhaps the idea of the particular love of Jesus for an individual person like you is new to your heart. I remember when it was new to me. Do you want to be loved by God? Do you want to be alive? Do you want to have joy? Are you willing to do it all God’s way? Are you willing to do everything that Jesus commands, as long as you can know that He will be with you always? Are you willing to receive the goodness, the service, the love of God in a way that might make you feel uncomfortable?

His way really is the best way, and the only way. If you want to be a part of what Jesus is all about, you must allow him to serve you. If he cannot be the One that cleanses you through his blood, than, like Judas, you are not cleansed, and you have no part in him.

This is how the Christian life begins, with Jesus as our Servant, and this is how it must continue. We will not be able to grow in our service of Christ and others unless we are willing to continue to receive the embarrassing love of Jesus. I am not asking you today to embarrass yourself by proclaiming your love for Jesus to others. We’ll save that idea for another day. There is something more fundamental here. Are will you willing to receive His love for you, though it seems like too much? Are you willing to put aside your objections to a love that is somewhat uncomfortable because it is more love than you deserve.

Here is something for us: You and I need stop thinking about the love that Jesus has for you as embarrassing. He is not embarrassed. He is not embarrassed to love you.

1. Why was Peter uncomfortable with what was happening?

2. Why did Jesus insist that this was necessary?

3. What does it mean to be clean?

4. What does it mean to be not clean?