The King with a Towel

(John 13:1-17)

Jesus knew his hour had come, the way you know when a long day is folding into night. Soon he would go home to his Father. Soon there would be a cross. And on this last evening with his friends, he loved them all the way to the end. Every one of them. Even the one who would betray him. Even the ones who would run away.

That night, his friends were busy thinking about who was the greatest. Who would sit the highest. Who would be served first.

Their feet were dirty from the long dusty road. But nobody wanted to wash them. That was the lowest job in the whole house. That was the slave's job. And not one of them would stoop so low.

So Jesus stood up.

He took off his outer robe. He wrapped a towel around his waist, just the way the lowest servant would. He poured water into a basin. And then the King of everything knelt down on the floor. Long before, in the very beginning, these were the hands that had hung the stars in the dark and shaped the first man from the dust. Now they reached for dusty feet.

And he began to wash them.

Can you picture it? His hands, gentle in the cool water. One foot, and then another. The dirt of the long day rinsing away. The friends sat very still. They did not know what to say. The greatest One in the room was kneeling at the dirtiest part of them, and he was not ashamed. Not even a little.

When he came to Peter, Peter pulled his feet back. "No," he said. "You will never wash my feet." It felt too upside down, for kings do not kneel and masters do not scrub.

But Jesus looked up at him. "If I do not wash you," he said, "you cannot belong to me."

And oh, Peter wanted to belong. So he let the gentle hands come.

When the washing was done, Jesus wrapped his robe around himself again and sat back down. "Do you understand what I have done?" he asked them. "You call me Teacher. You call me Lord. And that is who I am. But look. I knelt down at your feet. So now you can kneel down for each other too."

The friends had thought greatness meant being lifted up high, with everyone hurrying to serve you. But Jesus showed them a kingdom turned all the way over. In his kingdom, the greatest one is the one who kneels the lowest. The King is the One with the towel.

And this washing was a small picture of a far bigger washing to come.

Because soon those same gentle hands would be stretched out on a cross. Soon he would kneel down lower than the floor, lower than the dust, to wash away not the dirt on our feet but the dirt deep inside our hearts. He would pour out everything he had to make us clean. To make us his.

That was the joy set before him: not a high throne with everyone bowing, but you, washed and brought home and belonging to him forever.

Then the King folded his towel and took his place at the table again, where the supper was still spread before them. There was bread yet to break, and a cup still to share, on this last night with his friends.