Washed and Ready
For the past year, I’ve been leading a small Bible study on the campus of the community college I work for. We have been meeting on Wednesdays at 11:30 am, and while I don’t always have even more than one student join me, the conversations are always fruitful. One Wednesday in December, the week before finals, I was reading through the first part of John 13 with two girls. This is an account of Jesus washing His disciples’ feet before the Last Supper.
We discussed the attributes of Jesus in this passage—humble, admirable, and kind of confusing, since He is the King of kings, and yet he is washing his friends’ feet like a mere servant boy. We spent some time talking about that paradox, how Jesus humbled himself to become a man and to die a terrible death when He is the most powerful being in the universe. We talked about how that made us feel, and how we should respond.
The most remarkable part of our conversation that Wednesday, though, wasn’t this discussion of Jesus’ humility; it was a question that one of my girls asked: “How could Jesus wash Judas’ feet when He knows that Judas is about to betray Him to His death?”
This truth hit me hard—I hadn’t thought about that before.
Jesus washed Judas’ feet. What an incredible picture of the Gospel.
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In this action, Jesus is saying, “I know you are about to betray Me, but I love you anyway. If you repent afterward and believe in Me, I will joyfully welcome you into paradise.”
Of course, Jesus knew that Judas would not repent, and Jesus knows who will and who will not come to Him in faith. But isn’t this essentially what He says to us when we finally let him wash our feet—when we humble ourselves enough to realize that we need a Savior?
After our conversation, one of my girls said that she isn’t there yet—and that’s okay. When she’s ready, Jesus will be ready, too.
I pray that she is ready soon.
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Such a good reminder, Natalie. We all fall so short and at times even commit sin we don’t even like to admit we are capable of. But there He is to wash us, and set us free. Best wishes with your Bible study participants. What a wonderful ministry.
Thanks, Natalie. Gave me a lot to think about! Humbling to imagine Jesus serving us selflessly, yet he did even more.
Wow. That is a such a powerful reminder of Christ’s unconditional love and a reminder for how we are supposed to live.
Haha. It also reminded me of the title of a blog post I recently saw which was a play on that book “Girl, wash your face.” The blog post title was, “Girl, wash some feet.” And I loved that!
“Jesus is saying, “I know you are about to betray Me, but I love you anyway. If you repent afterward and believe in Me, I will joyfully welcome you into paradise.”
Yes. Grace is for all. Even Judas.