John 13:4-5

“[Jesus] rises from the supper and lays aside his garments; and, taking a towel, he girds himself. 5. Then he pours water into the basin; and he began to wash the feet of his disciples and to wipe them with the towel wherewith he was girded. ”

Joh 13:3 has initiated us in advance into the meaning of this act. If need were, this would suffice to explain the reason of it. So Ewald and Meyer do not seek to find any outward motive. Jesus, however, does not act, in general, by a mere impulse from within; He yields to a given occasion in which He discerns the signal from the Father. St. Luke relates to us, Luke 22:24-27, that there arose at the supper a dispute among the disciples on the question to whom the first place among them belonged. Whereupon Jesus said: “The first among you must take the place of the last.” Then, giving Himself as an example: “Who is greater, he that sits at meat or he that serves? But I am among you as he that serves.”

This answer of Jesus might be applied to His way of acting, in general, in the midst of His own; and it is thus, perhaps, that it was understood by Luke to whom this saying of the Lord had been handed down as separated from the story with which we are now occupied. But for ourselves, knowing the act which Jesus performed at this supper, it is impossible not to connect it with the saying and explain the latter by the former. The washing of the feet was undoubtedly occasioned by the dispute of which Luke speaks. Jesus wished to eradicate from the hearts of His disciples the last remnant of the old leaven of pride and Messianic ambition which still infected their faith and manifested itself in so offensive a manner in the discussion of which Luke has preserved the remembrance. But why give this form to the lesson which He desired to leave with His followers at this final meeting? Luke places the dispute at the very end of the supper, and, if necessary, it might be supposed that, being pained by the fact that no one of them at the beginning of the meal had offered to discharge this humble office, and that, in consequence, the washing of the feet had not taken place, Jesus had at first kept His feeling to Himself, but afterwards, an opportunity presenting itself, He expressed it precisely as He did in the case mentioned in Luke 7:44.

The washing thus was performed, as a mere example, at the end of the supper. The natural place, however, for such a ceremony is at the beginning of the meal, and it may be easily supposed that Luke placed as a supplementary detail in the account of the meal a fact which he knew belonged to it, but the exact moment of which he did not know. Indeed, he simply says: “ There was also a dispute. ” Jesus was already seated at table (John 13:4); the apostles took their places (John 13:6; John 13:12). It was perhaps on this occasion that the dispute broke out, each claiming to have the right to be seated next to the Saviour. At this moment Jesus rises and, by charging Himself with the humble office which each one of them should have spontaneously hastened to perform, He gives them to understand who is really the greatest in His kingdom. The matter in hand here is not indeed to give His disciples a lesson of kindness, of condescension, of mutual serviceableness. Comp. John 13:13-15, and especially John 13:10 which, from this point of view, is no longer intelligible. Jesus wishes to teach them that the condition for entering and advancing in a kingdom like His own, is the reverse of what takes place on earth, to know how to humble oneself, to efface oneself; and that, the more each one shall outstrip the other in this divine art, the more he will become like Him, at first in spirit, and then in glory.

Each feature of the following picture betrays the recollection of an eye- witness; John describes this scene as if beholding it at this very moment. Jesus assumes the garb of a slave. His garments: here, the upper garment. Jesus keeps only the tunic, the garment of the slave. He girds Himself with a towel, because He must carry the basin with both hands. Νιπτῆρα, with the article: the basin, the one which was there for this purpose and which belonged to the furniture of the dining-hall. Nihil ministerii omittit, says Grotius.