What if the Foot Washing Jesus performed in John 13:1-17 was
completely misunderstood by later generations?
What if it was actually a commissioning rite for the Apostles
specifically and a lesson for them to perpetuate Apostolic Ministry into the
future?
Background
Christians around the world gather on Holy Thursday to commemorate
the events of the Night on which our Lord was betrayed.
In the Lutheran Church of my nurture, this day was called “Maundy
Thursday,” after the Latin word mandatum
(commandment)--“A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another”
(John 13:34).
This evening also recognizes the institution of the Eucharist (1 Cor 11:23-26; Matthew 26:26-30;
Mark 14: 22-24; Luke 22:14-23).
But many churches around the world will also practice a
reenactment of the foot washing that Jesus performed in John 13:1-17. And this
ritual is generally understood to a lesson in humility and mutual service.
As such, in 2013, on his first Holy Thursday as Bishop of Rome,
Pope Francis, famously washed the feet of a group of young men and women at ajuvenile detention center in Rome.
Ever pushing the envelope of the openness and humility that this
ritual is supposed to signify, the Pope last year included refugees in theceremony, including Hindus, Muslims, and Copts.
Foot Washing in the Early Church: Just Not There!
At face value, it looks as if Jesus intended Foot Washing to be a
regular observance by Christians. Indeed, after performing this ritual he
states:
“If I, therefore, the master and teacher, have washed your feet,
you ought to wash one another’s feet” (John 13:14).
“I have given you an example to follow, so that as I have done for
you, you should also do” (John 13:15).
But the problem is that there is no evidence that Foot Washing was
practiced ritually on any common level by the Early Church. To be sure, people
did wash each other’s feet in the course of general hospitality (1 Timothy
5:10).
Cryptic allusions to Foot Washing by Tertullian (De Corona 8) and St. Augustine (2nd Letter to Januarius 18.33) are
sometimes cited as proof that the practice was taking place.
But this needs to be compared to the clear and abundant references
to, for instance, the celebration of the Eucharist every Sunday in the Early
Church (Acts 20:7; 1 Cor 11:20; Didache 14.
If Foot Washing really was a thing, it should have been referred
to regularly in the earliest Christian literature. It’s just not there. It
seems that it may have been sporadically instituted here and there by well-intentioned people. But it was not continually practiced as an ordinance of the
Church.
And if we really choose to believe that Jesus intended it to be
practiced but the earliest Church dropped the ball, we are claiming a Great
Apostasy that is contradicted by Scripture itself, which states that the Church
is the “Pillar and Bulwark of the Truth” (1 Tim 3:15).
The Possible Point of the Foot Washing Ritual
Centuries and generations seem to have misunderstood the Foot
Washing in John 13 because they did not read the entire thing in light of
Jesus’ final statement in the account:
“Whoever receives the one I send receives me, and whoever receives
me receives the one who sent me” (John 13:20).
The Foot Washing, then, has something to do with the fact that the
Apostles have been officially sent by Jesus and represent him to the world.
This teaching--that the Apostles truly and fully represent Jesus
(who in turn represents God the Father)--is found also in Matthew 10:40:
“Whoever receives you receives me, and whoever receives me
receives the one who sent me.”
After the resurrection, Jesus repeats this statement and delegates
to the Apostles the forgiveness of sin itself:
“As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” And when he had said
this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit. Whose
sins you forgive are forgiven them, and whose sins you retain are retained”
(John 20:21-23).
Based on how the account ends, we would safely assume that this
Foot Washing somehow was a commissioning ceremony of Apostleship. But why would
washing their feet be a fitting ritual for that?
The Apostles and their Feet
A clue to the actual purpose of the Foot Washing Ritual can be
found in the curious connection between Feet and Apostleship elsewhere in the
New Testament.
In Acts 4:35, people sold their property and brought the proceeds
and “put them at the feet of the apostles” (παρα τους
ποδας των αποστολων).
When Jesus sent the Apostles out to preach in his name, he
instructed them, in the event that a house does not receive them or listen to
them, they were to:
“Shake off the dust from your feet.”
εκτιναξατε τον κονιορτον των ποδων υμων (Matthew
10:14)
The same verb which means “shake off” (εκτιναξατε/ektinaxate) is also used in the ancient
Greek translation (the Septuagint) of the Old Testament, in Isaiah 52:2:
“Shake off (εκτιναξαι/ektinaxai) the dust.”
And that makes it all the more intriguing that a few verses later
in that very same chapter of Isaiah, we find the following:
“How lovely on the mountains are the feet of him who brings good
news”
מַה-נָּאווּ עַל-הֶהָרִים רַגְלֵי מְבַשֵּׂר
(Isaiah 52:7)
The Septuagint translating here reads:
“feet of the one bringing good news/evangelizing”
ποδες ευαγγελιζομενου/podes euangelizomenou
Jesus washes their feet to “beautify” them, in
preparation for their upcoming mission as his official representatives bringing
the Gospel--the Good News.
The Apostles are to Repeat the Substance of the Ritual, Not its
Form
Jesus certainly had elsewhere and previously explained to his
Apostles that humility and mutual service were values:
“Whoever wishes to be great among you will be your servant
(diakonos). Whoever wishes to be first among you will be the slave of all. For
the Son of Man did not come to be served (diakonethenai) but to serve (diakonesai)
and to give his life as a ransom for many” (Mark 10:43-45)
And it will be no coincidence that when the Apostles decide they
need to enlist more people to assist them in Apostolic Ministry, the title for
this new minister will be “servant” (diakonos)--deacon (Acts 6:1-6).
Indeed, the rationale for instituting the diaconate was the fact
that:
“It is not proper for us to neglect the Word of God to serve
tables (διακονειν τραπεζαις/diakonein
trapezais).” (Acts 6:2)
After he had washed their feet, Jesus said:
“No Slave is Greater than his Master, nor any Apostle Greater than
the One who Sent him.” (John 13:16).
Why does Jesus state the obvious here? Of course no slave is
greater than his master. The answer to this question is found in what he says
immediately following:
“If you understand this, blessed are you if you do it” (John
13:17).
Do what exactly? The answer is not that they are supposed to ask a
few parishioners to get their feet washed on Holy Thursday once a year.
What they are supposed to do is precisely that thing that would
mean they, as Apostles, are not greater than the One who sent them--they are to
also designate official representatives who will perpetuate Apostolic
Authority.
Jesus was sent from the Father. And Jesus in turn sends the
Apostles. And they carry the fullness of his sacramental authority. And if they
don’t enlist others into that ministry, it dies when they die.
And that is exactly what St Clement, Bishop of Rome, writing in
the 1st century AD to the Church in Corinth, describes happening when the
Apostles spread the Good News:
“The Apostles received the Good News (euengelisthesan)
for us from the Lord Jesus Christ; Jesus Christ was sent forth from God.”
(1 Clement 42:1)
“So preaching everywhere in country and town,
they appointed their first fruits,
when they had proved them by the Spirit, to be bishops and deacons unto them that should believe.” (1
Clement 42:4)
“For this cause therefore, having received
complete foreknowledge, they appointed
the aforesaid persons, and afterwards they provided a continuance, that if these should fall asleep, other
approved men should succeed to
their ministration. (1 Clement
44:2)
Conclusion
On
the night in which he was betrayed, Our Lord symbolically prepared the Apostles
for their mission by washing--beautifying their feet in fulfillment of Isaiah 52:7.
And when he told them, “As I have done for you, you should also do,” (John 13:15) he
meant them to understand that, just as he was sent from the Father, and they
were sent from him, so also they must send still others, until the Good News
has been preached to all nations.
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