The Drudgery, the Drama and the Full Extent of Christ’s Love

About 30 years ago, I was preparing a sermon and looking up texts in one of the new pew Bibles we’d just purchased at the church where I was the pastor. 

We had bought the Bibles so I could provide page numbers as well as chapter and verse when I was preaching. That way, everyone, no matter how much of a Bible novice they might be, could easily look up the texts I was quoting. Our new pew Bibles were the 1984 edition of the New International Version. 

My upcoming sermon was going to be based on John 13, where we find the story of Jesus washing the feet of his disciples. It was a familiar chapter to me. Over the years, I’d presented several sermons based on it.  

The full extent of his love

“It was just before the Passover Feast,” I read in the newly purchased Bible. “Jesus knew that the time had come for him to leave this world and go to the Father. Having loved his own who were in the world, he now showed them the full extent of his love.”

I stopped reading. Then I did a quick reread—just to be sure it actually said what I thought it said. Indeed, it said that Jesus “now showed them the full extent of his love.”

It didn’t say he was thinking about how the next day he would provide a graphic example of the truth that “greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends.” No. The passage said that he “NOW showed them the full extent of his love” (emphasis mine).

Did the preceding statement mean that washing his disciples’ feet was a greater demonstration of love than his death on the cross? I don’t think so. But it might mean that Jesus’ death on the cross was only one dramatic and mind-boggling demonstration of how much Christ loved us—but that his love also included simple acts of service. Acts that greatly helped to put the far-reaching nature of his love into full perspective.

I read on. “The evening meal was being served, and the devil had already prompted Judas Iscariot, son of Simon, to betray Jesus. Jesus knew that the Father had put all things under his power, and that he had come from God and was returning to God; so he got up from the meal, took off his outer clothing, and wrapped a towel around his waist. After that, he poured water into a basin and began to wash his disciples' feet, drying them with the towel that was wrapped around him.”

A hospitality faux pas

As I read, I reflected on the details I’d been taught about this story way back when I was a child. There should have been a servant there to wash the feet of those who had gathered for the meal that was part of this Passover celebration. But somehow that crucial element of hospitality had been overlooked. 

Granted that the disciples were wallowing in their dreams about the high and mighty roles they would play when Jesus set up his kingdom—which they were sure was about to happen—none of them were willing to step in and play the role that the missing servant should have been playing. So Jesus did it.

It was a jolt to Christ’s starry-eyed disciples to see their Lord and Master washing their feet. To see Jesus playing a role they considered totally demeaning, a role that didn’t mesh with the visions of grandeur they had for him—and, of course, for themselves, as part of the inner circle of this soon-to-be king. Kings shouldn’t deign to engage in life’s drudgeries, they thought. Yet that’s what Jesus was doing. 

Peter, known for his impulsiveness, sought to help Jesus get his muddled thinking back onto the kingly track by refusing to aid and abet his image-destroying activity: “‘No,' said Peter, ‘you shall never wash my feet.’ 

“Jesus answered, ‘Unless I wash you, you have no part with me.’”

What Peter and his fellow disciples failed to grasp was that Jesus’ ministry was all about servanthood. To be a follower of Jesus entailed being a servant. That was its essence. It came as an inseparable part of the package. As the apostle Paul later described in his letter to the Philippians:

“Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus: Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death—even death on a cross!”

Back to the story

“When he had finished washing their feet, he put on his clothes and returned to his place. ‘Do you understand what I have done for you?’ he asked them. ‘You call me “Teacher” and “Lord,” and rightly so, for that is what I am. Now that I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also should wash one another's feet. I have set you an example that you should do as I have done for you.’”

I can’t believe that Jesus’ goal in washing the feet of his disciples was primarily to establish a ritual in which we periodically re-enact—for freshly pre-washed feet—what he did for sweaty, stinking, grime-encrusted feet back then. Rather, I believe that, first and foremost, Jesus was figuratively using a specific example of service as a call to a lifestyle and lifetime of service. A 24/7 modus operandi. An understanding that the foot washing in which he had just engaged was but a symbol of the multitude of service opportunities—no, responsibilities—in which his followers should be engaging wherever and whenever the need existed. 

What happened to Jesus a few hours after the foot washing was also an act of servanthood. In fact, Jesus’ death was the ultimate act of servanthood. It also was a demonstration of “the full extent of his love.” It was an unparalleled demonstration of love that spoke universally. It was high drama. It definitely caught the attention of the onlookers. It was the talk of the town in Jerusalem. And it was was the foundation of a new religion that quickly swept across the then-known world.

When I describe Jesus’ crucifixion as high drama, I’m not discounting the pain and anguish and heartbreak involved. Certainly, the horrors of all the events leading to Jesus’ death give us as clear a picture of the extent of his love as we can get. But those happened in the context of high drama. Even a non-believing soldier couldn’t help but comment on the unusual character Jesus had displayed.

By contrast, in the washing of his disciples’ feet, and in a lifetime of stepping up to deal with life’s unremitting drudgeries, the full extent of Jesus’ love is also revealed—just in a different direction and in a far more mundane fashion. Yet it’s the fashion that you and I, as his disciples in the 21st century, are far more likely to be called to emulate than the high drama of his death. 

A significant message

As I’ve wrestled with what the 1984 edition of the New International Version says about Christ’s washing of his disciples’ feet, I’ve come to the conclusion that understanding the full extent of his love requires both the drudgery component and the drama component, because both are so crucial. The foot washing conveys a far more significant message than many will grasp just from a casual reading of the story or from going through a ritual that has become far removed from the impact it carried long ago in that dimly lit room with just 13 men present.

Now fast forward to a much more recent happening.

Once again I’m preaching. At a different church with a different pew Bible—though it’s still the New International Version. But, unbeknown to me, it’s the 2011 edition. The theme of my sermon is what I’ve just been writing about in this article—the idea that by washing the feet of his disciples, Jesus “showed them the full extent of his love.”

Imagine my shock and horror when I get to the latter part of verse 1 of John 13, where, instead of saying that Jesus “now showed them the full extent of his love” it just says, that Jesus “loved them to the end.” 

Not a word about how he now showed them the full extent of his love. That phrase is gone. Removed. Deleted. And it's replaced with merely the nice-but-certainly-not-mind-boggling phrase “he loved them to the end.”

I don’t want to bad-mouth the 2011 edition. It presents a nice thought about the constancy of Jesus’ love. And I’m sure the translators had a clear rationale for what seems to me to be such a major overhaul of the wording. But when I first read it, I felt like I’d been gut-punched. A once-invigorating discovery had vanished. I’d been robbed.

The 1984 edition of the New International Version had opened up a new realm of thought for me. It described how the “the full extent” of Jesus’ love necessarily includes both the drama and the drudgery. It added a unique emphasis that, subsequent to discovering it, I’ve always included whenever I’ve told the story.

And, quite frankly, I’m stickin’ to it!