Made Clean by the Savior Who Serves Us
John 13:1–10
“I Believe…in forgiveness of sins”
I recently finished teaching a 5-week class on the Apostle’s Creed, where we walked through this ancient creed which Christians from the second century onward, of various traditions, all around the world, have confessed, and still confess. It’s a statement of the core truths we, as Christians, believe. And at the climax of the creed comes this statement: “I believe in the forgiveness of sins.”
What an incredible statement. What an incredible thing. The forgiveness of sins. That’s what I want to think about together this morning. So turn in your Bibles to John 13, as we begin to prepare our hearts for the season leading up to Good Friday and Easter. John 13 is where we’ll be spending most of our time together, but to be true to character, before we get there, I’ve got to start us in Genesis—all roads lead from Genesis.
From No Shame to Shame in the Eden
I read an article that opened like this: “There was a time when shame didn’t exist.”[1] Can you imagine? Life without shame. I think that’s hard for many of us. Because most of us wrestle pretty significantly with shame. Shame tells us that our sin defines us—or that the sins of others define us. It tells us we’re not worth loving, that we better find some masks to cover up our sense of inadequacy. “You’re no good.” “You’re not loved.” “You’re a failure.” “Disgusting.” Shame.
The time—when there was no shame—that the article is talking about, was in Eden: “Man and woman walked freely with God and one another—perfectly vulnerable and without shame.”[2] Genesis 2:25 expresses it like this: “The man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed.” You might hear that and think, “Well they should put some clothes on.” But hear what God is communicating to us. There was complete safety in the perfect love of Eden. No reason to fear. No need to hide. No sin. No guilt. And no shame.
Sin shattered that experience. Just a few verses later, we find Adam and Eve believing the lie of the serpent that they can’t trust God, and they turn from God’s love, they turn to their own way. And guilt enters humanity for the first time—a sense that they had done wrong. And with that guilt comes shame: “You’re no good. You better hide yourself and cover this up.”
Genesis 3:10, “And the Lord god called to the man and said, ‘Where are you?’ And he said, ‘I heard the sound of you in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked, and I hid myself.’”
“Naked and unashamed” turns to “Naked and ashamed and dirty and I desperately have to cover this, or hide and not let God or anyone else know.” I have conversations with college students often—who carry a sense of guilt because of some struggle, some sin in their life they can’t overcome—and with it they carry shame deep within them. And so they begin to distance themselves from God. They can’t believe he loves them. Even likes them. Their life is too much of a mess for that. Those conversations play in my own head too.
Many of us carry shame—as a result of our own sins and failures, the ways we don’t measure up—in our eyes, in God’s eyes, in the eyes of others—or from sins committed against us, that have left us feeling a deep shame about ourselves. Is there a solution? Is there hope that we could know the perfect love and right-ness of Eden—life without shame—once more? Our own efforts to atone for our sins—to cover our shame—don’t get us very far.
And this is why the church, through the ages, has confessed, “I believe in the forgiveness of sins.” We have real guilt. We have done wrong. And because of it, we carry a deep sense of shame. In Genesis 3:21, God makes for Adam and Even garments of skin to clothe them. It’s as if he says, “Here, your leaves won’t get you very far, but let me kneel and show you my love and clothe you with adequate clothing.” Only he can cover our nakedness. Only he can deal with our guilt, and undo our shame.
What we need is to be served by God.
Foot Washing and the Deeper Clean
There are two layers of meaning in John 13, two ways to read and understand this story. The first is to see here an incredible act of humility in Jesus washing the disciples’ feet. What an example! We know that in Jesus’ day, Nike hadn’t come on the scene yet in Palestine and sandals were all the rage. Add to that a shortage of asphalt, and an abundance of dirt roads…with animal stuff, and you get some very dirty, smelly feet anytime you go anywhere. And who wants to wash someone else’s feet? In the Jewish culture, this was a job reserved only for the lowest of servants.
So you can imagine the surprise as Jesus takes this low position: their Lord, their teacher, the one they were pretty sure was the Messiah, stooping to wash their feet. What humility. What an example of the kind of King he is. And of how his servants are to be. We can read it that way, and that’s right. In verse 13, Jesus says he’s done this as an example, that we might follow him in humble, self-giving love for others. That’s what is to characterize his people, and what an example he gives here. That’s right. And it’s beautiful.
But if we only see that, we miss the heart of the passage. This foot washing is symbolic. This passage is not just about dirty feet and Jesus’ example and becoming a person who does the jobs no one else wants to do. There’s more going on here. That’s what I want us to see this morning. So let’s look at our text together.
The Scene: 13:1-5
13:1, “Now before the Feast of the Passover, when Jesus knew that his hour had come to depart out of this world to the Father, having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end.”
This all happens “before the Feast of the Passover,” which thrusts us into the middle of a Jewish celebration that had been happening every year since the time of Moses, a celebration that involved sacrificing a lamb, and of the lamb’s blood covering them so that they might be spared God’s judgment.
And Jesus knows that “his hour had come.” All throughout John’s gospel, we read, “Jesus hour had not yet come.” In John 2, to his mother at the wedding in Cana: “my hour has not yet come.” And in John 7, the Jews tried to arrest him, John tells us, but no one laid a hand on him “because his hour had not yet come.” The whole gospel, the whole life of Jesus is driving toward this moment. Not the foot washing, but what the foot washing is really about. Jesus hour has finally come. The focal point of his whole life. It’s all driving toward the Cross, where he becomes the Passover lamb whose blood is shed to save his people. And his triumph over sin and death, his return to the Father as the victorious king and ruler over all things, that hour is here.
And in this hour, Jesus loves his own—this group, those who had said yes to him. They were often confused, fumbling, failing, mostly clueless, but they were his. And he loved them “to the end.” It’s a Greek word that means completely, to the uttermost, or to the ultimate, to the finish. It’s the same word he speaks from the cross “it is finished.” He loved them to the finish, “to the last breath.”
So from the outset, we begin to see there’s more meaning embedded here than just a kind act meant to set an example of humility. It is that, but it’s also about Passover, about “the hour,” about Jesus’ ultimate expression of love…unto death.
13:2-5, “During supper, when the devil had 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 back to God, rose from supper. He laid aside his outer garments, and taking a towel, tied it around his waist. Then he poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples' feet and to wipe them with the towel that was wrapped around him.”
Get the scene. Have you ever sat on the floor around a low table for a meal? My wife and I went to Uganda for a couple weeks several years ago, where I taught at a class at a Bible college. And the director of the college took us into the city for dinner. For sushi at an authentic Asian restaurant in Africa. A cultural experience. And this Asian restaurant was the real deal. We had to take our shoes off at the door, then we were led into a room with a low table that we sat on the floor around. That’s the scene here. At meals, they would recline on the floor, at the table. And Jesus rises, de-robes, wraps a towel around himself and kneels with a water basin at the feet of his disciples and begins to wash them.
One of my favorite commentators on John’s Gospel, Fredrick Dale Bruner, says of this de-robing scene that it’s like a picture of Jesus’ entire life, as he strips himself to serve humanity (think Philippians 2).
“The Footwashing symbolizes…the deep descent of God to (even to the feet of) human beings—to serve and to rescue them.”[3]
So he proceeds around the table, washing the feet of his disciples. And you can imagine the discomfort, maybe some embarrassment, some confused glances at one another, maybe some whisperings, “He shouldn’t be doing that. It’s beneath him, it’s beneath all of us.”
And then there’s Peter
13:6-7, “He came to Simon Peter, who said to him, “Lord, do you wash my feet?” Jesus answered him, “What I am doing you do not understand now, but afterward you will understand.”
Peter, this is about more than you can begin to realize now, but later you’ll get it. Afterward, after the cross, you’ll know what this means.
13:8-9, “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.’”
“Never!” Peter says. And Jesus responds, “Unless I wash you, you have no share in me.” Jesus’ response to Peter would make no sense if this were just about washing dirty feet. It would be almost cruel. “You can’t be my follower if you have smelly feet.” That seems kind of petty, Jesus. No, this is about more than dirty feet.
Peter gets some sense of this. Somehow this washing is a picture—a pointer—to what is needed, what is necessary for being in relationship with Jesus. And Peter wants that more than anything. I love that. For all he gets wrong—and at the end of this chapter, Jesus tells him he’s about to fail big time—but he wants Jesus. His heart’s been captured by Jesus and to not have him would be to lose everything.
13:9. “Simon Peter said to him, ‘Lord, not my feet only but also my hands and my head!’
“If being washed is what it takes to be yours, then not just my feet, wash everything!”
What is this foot washing really about? The foot washing is about the cross, Jesus ultimate act of humility, where he serves our deepest need. It’s about forgiveness of sins, about him bearing our guilt and our shame, and washing them away with his blood shed for us, that we might be with him, reconciled to him.
Fredrick Dale Bruner writes,“The Footwashing is the classic parable of how—almost ‘incredibly’—Jesus wants to relate perpetually to his disciples: namely, to be at our service.”[4]
Adam and Eve—and all of us after them—have attempted to cover ourselves, to wash ourselves, or to ignore the dirt and filth on our feet. We’ve sought countless way, unsuccessfully, to deal with our own sin and guilt and shame.
And this is God coming to serve us.
Through this washing, we become his people. We are reconciled to God, guilt removed, shame taken away, restored to that relationship Adam and Eve experienced in the Garden of Eden. He does not come demanding our service and laying the burden of our sins heavy upon us. He comes to lift them, to remove them. “For God did send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him” (John 3:17).
“Unless I wash you, you have no share with me,” Jesus says. You can’t do it on your own. Give up your pride, your hiding, your self-effort to be enough or do enough, and let me serve you.
And Peter responds, “If that’s what it takes to know you, then wash all of me, every part, not just my feet, Lord.” In other words, “I know myself, I know my failure, my shame. It’s more than just my feet. Wash all of me.”
Already Clean
And here’s what Jesus says to Peter—I imagine him saying it with a smile, “Ah, Peter…”
13:10, “The one who has bathed does not need to wash, except for his feet,[a] but is completely clean. And you are clean…”
Here he adds another element to this foot washing lesson. When you’ve bathed—when you’ve been washed, you’re clean, at the core. And your feet may get dusted up as you live in the world. But the deep cleansing work is already done.
Peter says, “Wash all of me.” And Jesus says, “You’re already clean.”
Jesus says this exact same thing two chapters later—John 15:4—when he talks to his disciples about the vine and the branches metaphor. He says “You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you.” Because of their relationship with Jesus, because they had embraced his word, they were clean. It’s as if the work of the cross is already done, already applied. They’re his. They’re clean. And that defines them now. It defines all who are his, all who have embraced his word, who have trusted in him. “You’re already clean.”
Our feet get messy. Our daily struggles, our failures, the guilt and shame that grab ahold of us. Sometimes we feel dirty to the core. “I want you, Jesus, but I’m so dirty. Would you still want me? Would you be willing to wash me?” And he says, “You’re already clean.” Yeah, you stepped in some muck, but at the cross I served you. I took all your guilt and shame, and that’s more foundational, more definitive, than any failure. Your feet are messy, and I’ll gladly kneel to serve you once more, to reapply my grace, to remind you of my cross-work that has already made you clean to the core.
When I studied this passage several months ago, this statement gripped me. I see my sin as so big, and I want to run and hide and fix it. I grow tired of confessing the same things over and over. Like Peter, I want Jesus. I want to share in him. But sin and shame cling closely. Maybe you can relate
But to hear Jesus say, “You’re already clean!” This is just a little dust-up. My cross is more definitive. And I am glad to kneel and serve you again, o run to me, don’t hide from me. Come to me and confess your sins, and let me cleanse your feet. Let me assure you you’re already clean at the core. Already accepted. Already loved. Already forgiven. Already right with God.
This is a game-changer
I love that Jesus tells Peter this, “You’re already clean,” and then just a few verses later, Peter is saying, “I’ll follow you anywhere, I’ll lay down my life for you” (John 13:37). Jesus responds (John 13:38), “Will you? You’re about to have the biggest failure of your life, Peter. That will shake you to the core.” And that doesn’t change the fact, “You’re already clean.” The cross, my love is more powerful.
He has no illusions about us. He knows us. And he is glad to kneel and serve us again and again. And it’s as we believe that, and learn to run to him, earn to live in his love, to let him serve us, as we learn to trust him and open our broken, shame-filled places up to him, that we are transformed.
Response
Let me encourage us to respond to this word in a couple of ways.
1. If you’re a Christian who struggles with shame (and very few of us don’t), always feeling the burden of your sin, your failure: Look to the cross. Hear Jesus speak to you, “You’re already clean. Receive that word. Receive his grace and mercy and forgiveness and love for you.
2. And where there are areas of your life you know aren’t as God intended, sins you are clinging to and struggling with, or trying to cover or fix so you can be okay with God (and who of us doesn’t have these), hear the words John wrote in his first epistle:
“If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9).
So come to Jesus, with honesty, and open the areas of brokenness and shame up to him. Run to him, don’t hide from him. Trusting his love and mercy, trusting that what Christ has done for us on the cross is more powerful than our sin, and that because of him we have been forever made right with God, that’s what begins to reverse Adam’s fear. As Christopher West says,
“I was afraid, because I was naked, so I hid myself” becomes “I was at peace because I knew he loved me, so I exposed myself.”[5]
We can get honest instead of hiding, because we’re loved, because the cross has already settled that.
Richard Sibbes, a puritan minister in the early 17th century, famously said: "If we have this for a foundation truth, that there is more mercy in Christ than sin in us, there can be no danger in thorough dealing."[6]
More mercy in Christ than sin in us. “You are already clean.” That’s what makes it safe for us to come into the light, to run to Jesus instead of from him. “You are clean” doesn’t mean you are sinless. It means the verdict is already in. His mercy is deeper. His cross is more powerful. So it’s safe to get honest and open up those hidden places, those broken places to him and let him begin to heal and cover and cleanse and transform us.
3. For those who do not know Jesus, who haven’t received his forgiveness. Here his words: “Unless I wash you, you have no share with me.” He says this not as a condemning statement, but as an invitation. Come to me, and I will wash you. You can know his forgiveness, his mercy, his rest today. You can be made clean
Fredrick Dale Bruner again writes:
“Forgiveness of sins will be the foundation of our relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ—constantly—or there will never be a firm foundation or good relation with Jesus Christ or with his Father—ever or whatsoever. This is hard on our pride, but it is medicine for the submitting—and so, finally, relaxing—soul.”[7]
It is a glorious thing to confess: “We believe in the forgiveness of sins.” We have a God who serves us. Amen.
Donnie Berry is the College and Young Adult Pastor at Christian Fellowship Church in Columbia, MO. He holds a PhD in New Testament from the Amridge University. He is a member of the Fifth Fellowship of the Center for Pastor Theologians.
Notes:
[1] Heather Davis Nelson, “When Shame Haunts You,” July 30, 2016, The Gospel Coalition: https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/article/when-shame-haunts-you/
[2] Ibid.
[3] Frederick Dale Bruner, The Gospel of John: A Commentary (Eerdmans, 2012), 750.
[4] Ibid.
[5] Christopher West, “Three Bits of Advice for Those Getting Married This Year,” The Cor Project, April 25, 2017: http://corproject.com/christopher-west-three-bits-of-advice-for-those-getting-married-this-year/.
[6] Richard Sibbes, The Bruised Reed and Smoking Flax (Reprint: Banner of Truth, 1998), 13.
[7] Bruner, Gospel of John.
