May grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of
God and of Jesus our Lord.
Who speaks to us in His Epistle saying:
“For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup,
you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes.”
Jesus very rarely says what we want Him to. So it is that
today on this Day of Fools, St. Paul is telling us to proclaim the Lord’s death
and how we do that is by the Lord’s Supper. Communing with Him. However, during
the Last Supper there was a little more going on and the Gospel according to
St. John fills in those details.
There are some that take some of these details of
Jesus very literally and believe that some of His words, such as, “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 just
as I have done to you” indicate an ordinance that must be repeated and
followed, if you are to be a true believer.
Of course, these ordinances then take total priority over
every other word of Christ and are stripped of all their eternal benefits and
in doing devalue them completely, but I digress.
For now, in order to understand foot washing and if there
are any eternal benefits, we must understand what the Bible says about feet or
at least how they are used, besides for walking. Our first stop is Eden, where
Adam is created without socks and shoes. But so what? Well remember Adam is
created from the dust, so him walking in the dust or the dirt is simply him
being in a natural connection with his constitution and by proxy, his Creator.
However, after the Fall, its, “for you are dust, and to
dust you shall return” (Gen 3:19). Death has entered the game and so we
hear these words at the Ash Wednesday Divine Service. Abraham confirms this, hundreds
of years later, as he begs the Lord for the lives of the righteous men who may
or may not be in Sodom and Gomorrah, confessing: “Behold, I have undertaken
to speak to the Lord, I who am but dust and ashes” (Gen 18:27), for our dustiness
is always before the Lord (Psa 103:14).
From Adam and Abraham we go to Moses who, when confronted by
the Lord in the Burning Bush, is commanded to take off his sandals: “Do not
come near; take your sandals off your feet, for the place on which you are
standing is holy ground” (Ex 3:5).
Now, you would think it would be the opposite. You would
think that Moses would have to cover up his dusty feet with holy slippers or
something, since Adam cursed the ground in his sin. Instead, its “put your feet
on the ground” in order to confess your sinfulness and confess the God you have
sinned against. The first man was a man of dust and we have his image and in
him all die (1 Cor 15:47, 49, 22).
At this point, we can begin to get the connection between
feet and sin and how our “dust” is a problem, not just for our feet, but our
head and hands as well. That it is our sinfulness and it must be washed off.
For we are from the corrupted earth and it is corrupt, beyond healing. So much
so that St. Peter asks for more than just a foot washing, because he knows that
his dusty feet have infected his entire body.
And Jesus agrees. He even changes His language when He
responds to St. Peter, in that He is no longer talking about dipping feet in a water
basin, but immersing the entire person. “The one who has been immersed does
not need to wash”, He says literally, meaning of course that now we enter
into Temple language, Church language, ceremony language. The washing that
Jesus is really talking about is a washing for purification, that is, to be
made holy in front of God.
The first man was a man of dust, but the Second Man was from
heaven (1 Cor 15:47). When the Lord told Moses to take off his sandals, He was
immersing Moses in a holy washing of His Word, cleaning his feet of the dust of
sin at His Word, in order that Moses stand in front of God’s face and listen
and live in the Gospel of that forgiveness.
Just as Moses had borne the image of Adam, now at God’s Word,
in Christ, he bears the image of God. Saved by grace, Moses’ feet now become
free of dust, not because of water alone, but because of a promise from the
Lord. In Adam, Moses would have died in front of the bush. In Christ, he is
made alive.
There may be a command to wash feet, but there is no promise
attached to it. There is a command to do what Jesus has done, but no sign of
receiving favor, or forgiveness, or eternal life, if done properly. Because
that promise of grace is absent, there is no sacrament here and washing feet
becomes a metaphor for “forgiving sins” or proclaiming the dust of Adam washed
away.
It is just as Jesus says, we don’t know what He is doing. We
can try to imitate Him and copy Him in reverent mimicry, but there is no
guarantee we’ll get it right. Do we need brass bowls or will plastic do? Do we
need linen or cotton, for a towel? What kind of water? What kind of room? What
kind of participation? 12 Apostles? 11?
All these details Jesus inconveniently leaves out. But He
leaves them out on purpose. For feet don’t need washing, hearts do. Scrub those
feet as long as you want. Scrub them into oblivion, and the dust of sin will
simply stick to your heart. This is how we read the foot washing event: within
the context of the rest of Scripture, not in a vacuum.
Foot washing ceremonies are awkward because no one listens
to Jesus and no one knows when one begins or ends. Baptism has a beginning and
an end. That is the Word, Who is the beginning and the end. For the Word says
with His own mouth, “Believe and be baptized and you will be saved” (Mk
16:16).
There you do have the element and the promise, which makes a
sacrament. Likewise, His Holy Supper: “Eat…and drink…for the forgiveness of
sins” (Mt 26:26-28), “For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you
proclaim the Lord's death until he comes”, from our Epistle this evening.
Your feet must be washed, dear Christian, but they must be
washed by Christ, as He said. So you must find Him and make Him or ask Him to
wash your feet. Good luck.
Thanks be to God, in faith we don’t have to, for we are
given new feet; a new body and a new life that is wholly Christ’s.
This new, Resurrected Body has no dust or stain from the
first man, and is entirely the Second Man Who suffered, died, and rose from the
dead with feet. Beautiful feet that preach the Gospel of peace and bring glad
tidings of salvation (Isa 52:7) with nail holes in them.
Yes. Your feet must not only be washed, but they must be
crucified, in order that our “body of sin might be brought to nothing, so
that we would no longer be enslaved to sin. For one who has died has been set
free from sin” (Rom 6:6-7). Either our own crucifixion or Christ’s which He
gladly gives us full credit for in Faith and in Baptism.
In the washing of rebirth and regeneration that is Baptism,
you are crucified with Christ.
In the washing of rebirth and regeneration that is Baptism,
you are resurrected with Christ.
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