But You Are Clean

 

“He who has bathed needs only to wash his feet, but is completely clean; and you are clean…” (John 13:10a).

 

What does Jesus mean, “…and you are clean…”?

 

Let’s observe that this cleansing took place prior to Jesus’ crucifixion, death, and resurrection. I point this out not to explain it, but simply to remind us that the transcendence of the slain Lamb is indeed transcendent, that is, it radiates through and beyond and into dimensions that dwarf our chronological thinking and experience. Even when God shows us a door open in heaven, and says to us, “Come up here,” (Rev. 4:1) our propensity is to remain on the first floor of our house and not venture into the unknown, even when that unknown is in Jesus Christ.

 

A bit later in the Upper Room Jesus says, “You are already clean because of the word which I have spoken to you.” (Jn. 15:3). Jesus says this when teaching us about the Vine and the branches; we cannot bear fruit unless we abide in Him, and apart from Him we can do nothing. There is a connection, a dynamic, between abiding in Christ and His Word, and between cleansing in Christ and His Word – for after all, Jesus Christ is the Word of God (John 1:1). Our redemption and cleansing and restoration and abiding in Him is redemption and cleansing and restoration and abiding in His Word – not a “word” of ink and paper or electronic images, but rather the living Word of God in Christ.

 

Again, we touch the transcendent in Christ and it is more than we can comprehend, but it is not more than we can experience in Him, for after all, God has made us coheirs with Christ – Jesus Christ is our inheritance and our ever-present life.

 

The Word which Jesus has been speaking to His disciples has been doing a cleansing work within them, it has been bathing them, washing the bodies of their souls, purifying their minds. Now to be sure, as we considered in the previous reflection, their actions will shortly tell us another story, for they will desert Him and deny Him – but things are not as they appear to be, for what Jesus has worked within them is stronger than their momentary fears and desire for self-preservation. Therefore, Jesus can say, “Now they have come to know that everything You have given Me is from You; for the words which You gave Me I have given to them; and they received them and truly understood that I came forth from You, and they have believed that You sent Me.” (Jn. 17:7 – 8).

 

What else can we learn about this cleansing with the Word? Consider Paul’s teaching to the Ephesians (5:25 – 27):

 

“Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself up for her, so that He might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, that He might present to Himself the church in all her glory, having no spot or wrinkle or any such thing; but that she would be holy and blameless.”

 

Here again we see Christ washing His People with His Word. But do we also see His People washing one another with His Word? Do we also see ourselves following Jesus’ sacramental example in John 13, in the washing of feet?

 

In the context of Ephesians 5:25 – 27 we do indeed see feet washing with the Word, for in 5:18 – 21 we read that we are to be filled with the Spirit, and “speaking to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody with your heart to the Lord…and be subject to one another in the fear of Christ.”

 

Psalms and hymns and spiritual songs are to be songs of the Word, songs expressing the Word (unlike so many of our songs today). Perhaps we see this clearer in what Paul wrote to the Colossians (3:14 – 16):

 

“Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body; and be thankful. Let the word of Christ richly dwell within you, with all wisdom teaching and admonishing one another with psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with thankfulness in your hearts to God.”

 

As Jesus cleanses us with the washing of water by the Word, in Him we wash one another’s feet with that same Word. Jesus alone gives us our bath in totality and finality, “He who has bathed needs only to wash his feet” (Jn. 13:10), but we are called in Him to continue the washing, the cleansing, the giving of the Word to one another as His body.

 

This brings us back to the question we asked in earlier reflections, “What does the washing of feet in the Upper Room mean?” Recall that Jesus says, “What I do you do not realize now, but you will understand hereafter” (Jn. 13:7). The washing of feet is about so much more than servant leadership, it is an invitation and calling into the koinonia of the Trinity in which we sacramentally wash one another’s feet with the Living and Abiding Word of God, in which we renew one another in Christ as we mutually live in Him – the Word.

 

(Also, please see Psalm 19:7 – 14 for a description of how the Word works within us, as well, of course, Hebrews 4:12-13).

 

But, is this our experience of church life? Are Ephesians 5 and Colossians 3 the norm? O dear friends, how we cheapen 1 Corinthians 12 and Romans 12 and Ephesians 4:11 – 16 with gift assessments, substituting the things of the natural man for the Spirit of God (see 1 Cor. 1:17 – 2:16). And let’s make no mistake, there are some gift assessments that take its users into things of darkness and self-absorption.

 

Show me a church living in the Word, in the expression of the above Bible passages, and then I will ask you, “Do these people really need such and such gift assessment?” For let me assure you that without living in the Word, no gift assessment will make dry bones live. And let me also assure you, than when Christ is the Head of the Body, and the Body is living organically in Him, that Christ is well able to lead us in the things of the Holy Spirit and into places beyond our imaginations.

 

The Holy Spirit and the Body of Christ are where gifts and callings are recognized and confirmed, forged in relationships, worked out in the ebb and flow of church life – in highs and lows, in sorrows and in joys, in victories and defeats, in seasons of faith and those of uncertainty.

 

O the glory of sacramental feet washing!

 

But there is more to this than what we’ve touched upon, we’ll attempt to go farther out and further in as we continue to look at feet washing in the next reflection in this series.