Master story-teller Dr. Fred Craddock tells about something that happened many years ago while he was driving cross‑country. He had stopped at a small diner somewhere in the South to refresh himself with an early breakfast and some coffee. He had been driving through the night and now it was getting close to dawn. And he was sleepy.
As he waited for his breakfast order to come, Craddock spied a black man who had just come in and had sat down on a stool up by the lunch counter. The diner’s manager then began to treat the black man with a contempt that was clearly borne of deep‑seated racism. The manager was rude, insulting, demeaning toward his black guest. As he sat in his booth a little ways away from the counter, Craddock wrestled with whether to say something to chide this manager for his shameful, racist conduct.
Meanwhile the black man quickly slurped down some coffee and fled into the darkness. Craddock remained silent. “I didn’t say anything,” he confessed. “I quietly paid my bill, left the diner, and headed back to my car. But as I walked through the parking lot, somewhere in the distance, I heard a rooster crow.”
One Sunday Fred Craddock was a guest preacher at a church and he preached a sermon with that story in it. After the service, a man came up to him in the narthex, shook Craddock’s hand vigorously, and said, “Thank you, pastor, for that powerful sermon. That really hit home! Oh, but by the way, what was that business with the rooster?” (1)
You and I know about that business with the rooster, don’t we? The story’s told in chapter 13 of John’s Gospel and again in chapter 18. Simon Peter hears a rooster crow and he remembers Christ’s words, “I tell you the truth, before the rooster crows, you will disown me three times!” (13:38) And Simon Peter wept.
Nothing that happened that evening had gone as Simon Peter expected. It was just before the Passover Feast. The disciples had gathered with their Master for a meal. They did not know it would be the last meal they would share before his crucifixion.
Suddenly, without warning the Master got up from the meal, took off his outer clothing, and wrapped a towel around his waist. After that, he poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples’ feet, drying them with the towel that was wrapped around his waist.
He came to Simon Peter. Simon expressed bewilderment. “Lord, are you going to wash my feet?”
Jesus replied, “You do not realize now what I am doing, but later you will understand.”
“No,” Peter protested, “you shall never wash my feet.”
Jesus answered, “Unless I wash you, you have no part with me.”
“Then, Lord,” Simon Peter replied with his customary bravado, “not just my feet but my hands and my head as well!”
That was typical Simon Peter-speak. Later in the evening Jesus announced that one of them would betray him. Judas fled from the room. Then Jesus said to them, “My children, I will be with you only a little longer. You will look for me, and just as I told the Jews, so I tell you now: Where I am going, you cannot come.
“A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”
Simon Peter asked him, “Lord, where are you going?”
Jesus replied, “Where I am going, you cannot follow now, but you will follow later.”
Peter asked, “Lord, why can’t I follow you now? I will lay down my life for you.” That’s Simon Peter, all right.
It was then that Jesus gave his sad prophecy, “Will you really lay down your life for me? I tell you the truth, before the rooster crows, you will disown me three times!”
Simon Peter. No one experienced more of the ups and downs of being a disciple of Jesus Christ than Simon Peter. It was he of whom the Master said, “On this rock will I build my church . . .” (Mt. 16:18) Yet it was he who denied the Master. This night and the week that followed would change Simon Peter forever.
I wonder if Simon Peter grasped the full significance of what was happening when Christ began washing the feet of his disciples. In no other religion could such an event even be imagined. Later the writer of Philippians would try to do justice to the event:
“Your attitude,” he wrote, “should be the same as that of Christ Jesus: Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness.
And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death--even death on a cross! Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”
God with a towel around His waist. God with a basin of water kneeling in front of humble fishermen, tax collectors and other common ordinary folk. God doing the work of a servant. God washing feet.
I’ve read that in the early days of Christianity kings and emperors used to copy Jesus’ actions on Maundy Thursday. They would wash the feet of poor people, sometimes of beggars. The Kings of England would have homeless people brought to them, one for each year of their reign, and would wash their feet before giving them clothing and food. This ended in 1685 when King James II decided that this was beneath his dignity. He decided instead to give money to poor people who were less scruffy and more deserving. This custom has survived until today. (2)
That sounds like us, doesn’t it? It’s easier to give money than it is to humble ourselves in personal service to the least and lowest. But listen to Christ’s words:
When he had finished washing their feet, he put on his clothes and returned to his place.
“Do you understand what I have done for you?” he asked them. “You call me ‘Teacher’ and ‘Lord,’ and rightly so, for that is what I am. Now that I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also should wash one another’s feet. I have set you an example that you should do as I have done for you.”
Does this mean we should have regular foot-washing ceremonies? Some groups do. And many report that it is a most meaningful experience.
David L. McKenna, President of Asbury Theological Seminary, tells of his first foot‑washing service: “Stripping off the proud colors of my academic hood, the prerogatives of my presidential robe and the pious vestments of my clerical status, I took a towel, wrapped it around my waist, knelt on the floor and poured water in a basin. Sliding the bowl ahead of me, I moved on my knees to wash the feet of people who represented different roles, status and segments of our campus community. Slipping off a shoe at a time, I washed and dried:
- a narrow, yellow‑skinned foot that characterized an Asian ancestry,
- a perspiring foot that betrayed discomfort in a public setting,
- an alabaster foot so dainty that it snuggled neatly into the palm of my hand,
- an outsized foot so big that I almost chuckled as it overran the borders of the bowl,
- a trembling foot of a prominent scholar that caught me completely by surprise,
- a heavily veined foot that showed the sign of advancing age.
“In those feet I saw the whole world come together. I knelt before a microcosm of the world, its people and their needs--without regard to race, sex, age or status, including the brilliant and the troubled, the old and the young, the clumsy and the dainty, the calm and the anxious, the secure and the fearful. I knew all of the people face‑to‑face as their president, but until that moment I didn’t know them hand‑to‑foot as their servant. The lesson will never be forgotten: When we kneel as servants at the foot of the cross, the whole world comes together.”
A ceremony of feet washing can be a powerful experience. But that is not the real focus of Christ’s teaching. The real focus is that we should be one another’s servants. This is Christ’s will for us, that we should love one another and serve one another as he served us.
Sometime ago there appeared a scathing article in a theological magazine about the late Albert Schweitzer, the great missionary. The author attacked Schweitzer's theology as dated and obsolete and the man himself as muddle‑headed, misguided, and off center concerning the fundamental teachings of the New Testament. Toward the end of the article, however, he paused to say, “Perhaps we should not judge Schweitzer by his word, but by his deeds; not by his books, but by his Christian discipleship; not by his theological conceptions, but by the fact that he took up Christ's cross and carried it to Africa and did not laid it down.” (3)
Simon Peter did not always say the right thing, or do the right thing. But he took up Christ’s cross, the cross of servanthood. As we break the bread and take the cup in remembrance of Christ, we remember how he humbled himself and became a servant. And we remember his words:
“Do you understand what I have done for you?” he asked them. “You call me ‘Teacher’ and ‘Lord,’ and rightly so, for that is what I am. Now that I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also should wash one another’s feet. I have set you an example that you should do as I have done for you.”
1. Cited by Pastor Scott Hoezee, http://www.calvincrc.org/sermons/2002/mark13Advent02.html.
2. Rev’d Jim Pye, http://www.sermonsplus.co.uk/John%2013.1‑17,31‑35.htm.
3. Source unknown.