Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 1499
Delivered on Lord’s-Day Morning, October 12, 1879
“Jesus knowing that the Father had given all things into His hands, and that He was come from God, and went to God; He rose from supper, and laid aside His garments; and took a towel, and girded Himself. After that He poured water into a basin, and began to wash the disciples ‘feet, and to wipe them with the towel with which He was girded.” John 13:3-5.
IT seems to me that the true text of this enacted sermon of the foot-washing is to be found in the first verse of the chapter—“Having loved His own which were in the world, He loved them unto the end.” Our Lord washed the feet of His disciples to show that to the last moment of His communion with them He was full of the deepest and truest love to them and was willing to perform the most menial action for their good. Nor was this all, for we may regard that one condescending act as the pledge and type of His daily kindness towards all His own which are in the world. Those deeds of love, which the foot-washing sets forth, are continuous among us and are the sure tokens of His abiding love to us.
Our Lord’s affection for His people is not a transient passion. He loved them before the earth was. He continues to love them and He always will love them, even when these heavens and this earth shall have passed away. In token of the continuance of His love, He has left on record this washing of His disciples’ feet, not because He only did it once, but because it is a type of what He is always doing. Even in His Glory He is caring for His saints with that same condescending love which led Him to wash their feet. And He is acting towards them, spiritually, in the same way.
The love of Christ will assuredly endure all the strain that can ever be put upon it, for at the time when He acted as menial servant to His disciples, His love was enduring and enduring right gloriously, three great trials—any one of which might have broken it had it not been altogether Omnipotent. For, first, He was about to go away from them. Much of human love needs the presence of its object for its maintenance. It is, alas, seldom true that “absence makes the heart grow fonder.” Jesus was about to depart out of this world to the Father and, with the exception of one brief interval, He was to walk no more in the midst of His chosen, or sit at table with them.
Out of sight, however, they would not be out of mind. Though He was just about to take the last terrible journey of death, yet He forgot them not, but graciously made them see that He would remember them still. If you will remember the style of His going, His thoughtfulness of His friends becomes the more remarkable. He was about to leave them by a cruel and ignominious death and, according to the common conduct of men, it would not have been amazing if He had sought pity and comfort from them—instead of which He forgot Himself and all the pain, grief and death which lay before Him and spent all His time and strength upon the comfort and establishment of His followers!
When He knew that the hour was come when He must depart out of the world with unutterable pangs, He still loved His own with an all-absorbing love. There was much in the prospect of His grievous departure which might, for a season, have diverted His thoughts from them. But they lay so close to the center of His soul that even under such circumstances He washed their feet!
Next, it is to be remembered that our Lord was well aware that one of them had already entertained the idea of betraying Him. There sat one at the table who had held a secret interview with the Pharisees and chief priests—and had taken money as a bribe for his Master’s blood. You cannot so dissociate a leading disciple from the rest as not to feel that the whole band was thereby disgraced and the Lord might very well have said, “I will discard My Apostles, for they have betrayed Me.” And then you remember that those who did not sell Him or betray Him, nevertheless all forsook Him and fled—forsook Him when they ought to have rallied round Him and have spoken up for Him at the judgment seat.
None of them appeared in answer to the question, “Who shall declare His generation?” Like timid hares, they fled at the first bark of the dogs. It would not have been amazing, had His been a human love, if He had said, “They are unworthy of Me—their confidence dies out when they see My sorrow—they betray Me—they forsake Me, therefore I will let them go and care for them no more.” No, but knowing what they were, our Lord took a towel and girded Himself and washed their feet, yes, washed the traitor’s feet and gently handled that heel which had been lifted up against Him—washing from it the dust gathered in its secret walk upon the traitor’s errand!—
“The sight might kings themselves convert, God only could so far submit: Satan is in the traitor’s heart, The Lord Most High is at his feet.” This act of tender, considerate affection, performed under such circumstances to men who acted towards Him in such ungenerous style, proves to us that His love will bear the strain of our ill behavior, our lack of fidelity and our thousand grievous failures. Having loved His own which are in the world, He loves them to the end.