Foot Washing, Humility, Betrayal, and Faith

Foot washing and humility as elements of faith go together in my mind.

Along with Maundy Thursday’s remembrance of the Last Supper.

It also makes me think about forgiveness and choosing to do what is right–to love–over pragmatic personal concerns.

But where did the idea come from?

Foot washing, historically

Foot washing began as a practical gesture in Middle Eastern homes long ago.

According to the Encyclopedia Brittanica:

The practice of foot washing was originally an act of hospitality in Palestinian homes, performed for guests (who wore sandals and walked on dusty roads) by a servant or the wife of the host.

Britannica.com

People had dirty feet. Their feet may have hurt. Why not wash them off before hosting them in your house?

Offering water, whether to wash or to drink, symbolized proper hosting or greeting.

Think how lovely it feels to wash your feet after a long hard day.

When we lived in Hawai’i, people seldom wore shoes or sandals in the house. Many times we’d visit friends to find a pile of footwear outside the door.

(No one ever volunteered to wash our feet!)

Biblical examples of humility

The first mention of foot washing is in 1 Samuel 25:41 when Abigail approached David.

He’d come to kill her foolish husband Nabal who refused to pay David and his men for their work.

When Abigail heard the news, she quickly rounded up servants and food, then rode to meet the angry men. As soon as she reached David, she slipped off her mount.

Richly dressed, she “bowed with her face to the ground and said, “Behold, your handmaid is a servant to wash the feet of the servants of my lord.”

It worked. First her her humility, humble offer, and then her gifts.

Many will remember Luke 7:37-40:

A woman . . . brought an alabaster flask of ointment, and weeping, she began to wet his [Jesus’s] feet with her tears and wiped them with the hair of her head and kissed his feet and anointed them with the ointment.

Luke 7:37-40 ESV

Humility and honor again.

And, of course, Jesus’ example prior to eating the Last Supper.

Did Jesus wash Judas’ feet?

Yes.

When we read John 13 on Maundy Thursday, we usually pay attention to Jesus’s exchange with a reluctant Simon Peter.

Jesus told him, “If I do not wash you, you have no share with me.”

Peter immediately suggested Jesus pour water all over him!

But to get there, we read past this:

having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end.  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.

John 13:1-6 ESV

Jesus knew Judas would report his location to Jerusalem’s Sanhedrin.

Judas left to do so shortly before dinner ended.

I thought about this exchange during Holy Week, enlightened by Dr. Eugenia Constantinou’s The Crucifixion and the King of Glory.

Jesus knew Judas was working with those who planned to have him crucified, yet, Jesus “loved him to the end.”

Even when Jesus handed Judas the dipped bread at dinner, he still loved him.

When Jesus saw Judas’s greed overcome his love, Jesus bid him go quickly.

Judas did.

In examining the Scriptures, we can see that while Judas has always received the bad press, the real “villains” were the Sanhedrin who had determined “it is better for you that one man should die for the people, not that the whole nation should perish.” (John 11:30, ESV).

Judas simply made it easier for them to arrest Jesus far from the Passover crowds.

I kept thinking about how Jesus knew and yet loved Judas anyway.

Parenthood often has similar mixed emotions.

Humility and faith in Romania

Which reminded me of a different setting–without foot washing.

In her memoir The Pastor’s Wife, Sabina Wurmbrand recounted how Jesus’s treatment of Judas applied to her small Bucharest home church.

“The clergy of the official church were under constant pressure to inform on congregations,” she wrote.

It soon became clear informers infiltrated the small group who met at her home.

I saw that there was spiritual significance even in this. Informers taught us that while we live we are constantly surveyed. Angels watch all we do and say; but they are invisible, so we do not care.

These informers reminded us that our every action counts.

The Pastor’s Wife, p 199.

So, how did she live knowing she might be turned in at any moment–and by people she tried to help?

Long before he went to prison, Richard Wurmbrand taught his wife a simple truth:

You can’t accept Jesus without accepting His disciples. He would not leave them to come to you. And you can’t accept the disciples without calling even Judas a friend, as Jesus did.

The Pastor’s Wife, p. 76.

Sabina Wurmbrand struggled with bitterness toward those who betrayed others in Romania and in particular those who betrayed her husband.

Peace about how to treat those who would betray her didn’t make sense until she remembered betrayers later thirsted for forgiveness.

Which I would not give them, which in my bitterness I witheld.

And with that thought something changed in me. I knew that even for saints a time may come when self-love is stronger than love of God . . . I resolved to give love and expect nothing in return.

The Pastor’s Wife, p. 222-223

Elsewhere, she commented,

I saw that in the original Greek of the gospel, Christ is “Christos,” which is almost identical with the word chrestos, meaning gracious. We cannot think of Him in any other way. Grace and forgiveness are in His very title.

The Pastor’s Wife, p. 114.

Sabrina Wurmbrand washed feet with her mind, not her hands.

Washing feet, forgiving, choosing not to be offended

It’s hard to follow Jesus in all things.

It’s hard to forgive.

Washing feet, choosing to be humble, deciding not to be offended, forgiving–all are hallmarks of Jesus’s followers.

He showed us how when he loved Judas.

It’s humbling to realize Jesus knows our souls to their depths and loves us the same way he loved Judas.

And we don’t even have to hand him a towel.

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