Jesus, wash my feet

Somewhere between, “you shall never wash my feet” and “Lord, not just my feet but my hands and my head as well!” Peter internally addressed feelings we all face from the moment our hearts begin to love Jesus, from the moment we realize who He is. It is a place of vulnerability. Asking for something, for which we are not worthy. Yet the desire to be whole and be a part of Jesus, a child of God outweighs our vulnerability and the emptiness of pride and sin. We must ask. We need to ask.

John 13:6–9 (NIV) states: 6 He came to Simon Peter, who said to him, “Lord, are you going to wash my feet?”

7 Jesus replied, “You do not realize now what I am doing, but later you will understand.”

8 “No,” said Peter, “you shall never wash my feet.”

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

9 “Then, Lord,” Simon Peter replied, “not just my feet but my hands and my head as well!”

How can we think of asking that question of Jesus? Yet we must. I don’t mean that we are required to ask. I mean that we are compelled to ask Him, “Lord, not just my feet …”. Jesus says that if He does not cleanse us then we have no part with Him. That is unacceptable. But to receive His sufficiency we must face our fallibility; to receive His strength we must admit our weakness. It is His very perfection that makes us acutely aware of our need for a savior. We have fallen short of the requirement, and we will never rise to meet the standard; there is no

hope that we ever could.

Then He comes to us with cleansing. He comes before us kneeling. The King of Kings humbles Himself to cleanse us. Once cleansed, we will be clean always. Clean everywhere, in every way. We cannot be made unclean. Jesus, please wash my feet, make me whole. Make me complete.

From the One who could give us what we deserve and could crush us under the weight of Godly wrath against our sin comes compassion. He wipes away all our loss. He cleanses the dirtiest part, the heaviest stains. Jesus longs to bring us near. His humility requires our humility. His service to us empowers our servanthood. He would stop at nothing to cleanse us, and we must stop at nothing to receive it. John 1: 12 says, But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name:

Jesus wash my feet. This is not a command but a request that is inherent from the vacuum of our great need. Our great need seeks to draw from Him God’s great provision and compels the response from our soul, “Jesus wash my feet”. It is the right response. It is the response Jesus desires.