The Washing of the Feet

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A Strange Ritual

In the Gospel of John, we get a detail about the Last Supper that none of the other evangelists relate for us. We’re told that on this last night with His friends, Jesus got down on his knees, and proceeded to wash the filth off his followers’ feet. It wasn’t enough for God to come down and keep company with the rest of us dirty, broken creatures. The Lord had to serve, had to take on the humblest of all roles.

The God of the Universe, the Lord of heaven and earth, cleaned the filth off the feet of his disciples, one by one

The incongruity was overwhelming, to see the highest stoop so low. You might get some idea of it if you imagined bringing your little toddler to work one day and your kid gets sick and vomits on the floor and the head of your company bends down to clean up the mess himself.

You might not be able to handle it. You might say, “No please, please, that’s my mess. I can clean it up. Please don’t. I’d really rather you didn’t.”

That’s exactly what Peter felt when Christ came to wash his feet. And that’s why he tried to stop it.

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Peter’s Protest

Peter couldn’t stand the idea of His Lord washing His feet. It didn’t make sense, why would someone so far above him act like someone below him? So he decided he wasn’t going to allow it. It just wasn’t right. And he said, “Lord, you will never wash my feet.”

He thought it was just a gesture. He thought it was meant simply as a symbol of Christ’s humility, or His love for them. So he must have been very surprised when Jesus said, “Unless I wash you, you have no inheritance with me.”

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Christ’s Answer

When Peter hears that the inheritance of salvation depends on letting Jesus wash his feet, he does an immediate one-eighty. He’s no fool. He does not want to lose that inheritance. He thinks to himself, shoot, if this washing-ritual has spiritual power, then give me the works! And he says, “Then master, not only my feet, but also my hands and head as well!”

Then Jesus seems to change gears. He says, “Whoever has bathed has no need to be washed except on his feet, for he is clean all over.”

So wait, when Jesus washed the feet of His apostles, was He doing something with a supernatural power, or was He just doing something hygienic?

It seems like it must be a supernatural thing, after all, He says Peter’s salvific inheritance depends on it. But then why does He care about whether or not they’ve taken a bath? What’s going on here?

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The Bath and the Spot-clean

When Our Lord talks about the Bath that makes you clean all over, He’s speaking of the Sacrament of Baptism.

Baptism is the sacrament that cleans us completely, it makes us a new creation. It forgives all our past sins, and makes us altogether pure. But then what happens?

What happens is we go out into the world, we start walking around, and we start to pick up sins here and there, dirt and filth in this place and that.

So Our Lord, in His wisdom and His mercy, has given us another sacrament.

We don’t get baptized again after every sin. We only take that bath once. Instead, we go to confession. We go receive a spot-clean, a cleansing process tailor-made to our own personal situation, our own particular sins. We go to one of the Priests, one of those who represents Christ, and who can trace his ordination back to one of those original apostles who was there at the last supper. And we ask that we receive a particular washing, that the filth we’ve accumulated might be washed away, so that we might not lose our Baptismal Inheritance with Christ.

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Letting Christ wash our feet

Of course, for most of us, confession is awkward and embarrassing.

It’s so strange that we should have to drag someone like a priest, a representative of Christ and the Church, a man who is ordained to a position of leadership and solemnity in sacred matters, into the nasty, petty, ugly, unattractive parts of our lives.

Most of us, honestly, would rather skip the whole deal like Peter wanted to. Peter felt it was inappropriate to present his dirty feet to Jesus and have Jesus clean him off. So He tried to get out of it. But the Lord wouldn’t let Peter wriggle his way out of it.

The Lord came to save us from sin, which means He has to go where the sin is. He has to go down to the soles of our feet, between the toes, and get the grime out.

And he told His apostles to do the same thing. He told them, “Whose sins you forgive they are forgiven, and whose sins you hold bound, they are held bound.”

He said, “If I, then, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet. For I have given you an example, that you also should do as I have done to you.”

That’s why we have priests, so they can act as Jesus to us. That’s why the priest, every Holy Thursday, washes the feet of twelve members of the congregation, so that he and we can remember what his role is.

The priest’s role is to listen through the confessional screen as we uncover our shameful dirt we’ve acquired since last time. And then his role is to purify us, wash our souls clean, through the words of absolution, so we can get our purity back. And we can be coheirs with Christ.

So go to the priest. Go to Christ. Endure the embarrassment. Accept his humility and yours. Go to confession. And be washed clean.