Then, when He had washed their feet, and taken His garments and reclined at the table again, He said to them, “Do you know what I have done for you? You call Me ‘Teacher’ and ‘Lord’; and you are correct, for so I am. So if I, the Lord and the Teacher, washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet.”
The tasks no one wants to do but that need to be done are often referred to as dirty work. We avoid these jobs because they aren’t glamorous, cost us time, and are difficult to accomplish. In Jesus’s day, foot washing was one of those jobs. Walking was a primary method of transportation; the terrain they traveled was covered in dirt and dust; and people wore sandals. As you can probably imagine, their feet were often dirty. So, foot washing was customary, but it was also considered dirty work; it was servants’ work. Put simply: no one wanted this job, and yet, Jesus did it willingly—and He asked us to be willing to serve others with a similar humility.
Many roles or acts may come to us naturally in serving God and others, but we often avoid those less desirable jobs. However, pursuing and living for Jesus means we don’t get to serve only when it is convenient or comfortable—we serve when nobody notices because of the example that has been set before us. Mark 10:25 says, “For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life as a ransom for many.” This is the One whose life should be alive in us; the One who did the dirty work; the One who laid His life down for us. As our Lord goes, so should we: loving sacrificially, serving when its inconvenient, and laying our lives down to show others His life in us.
- When have you seen someone serve sacrificially? Why do you think that example stuck with you?
- When have you struggled with serving sacrificially? Why? What ways might God be calling you to serve sacrificially now?
- Pray for Christ’s life to reign in your heart to help you serve others.
