March 26, 2012

"No," Peter protested, "you will never ever wash my feet!" Jesus replied, "Unless I wash you, you won't belong to me." -- John 13: 8 (NLT)

As we approach Resurrection Sunday in a few weeks, I want to look at some of the last moments we had with Jesus on this earth; before He conquered death and hell to redeem us from our sins. The story of Jesus washing His disciples feet is often preached as a statement of unbelievable humility in the face of certain death and rightfully so. But in the middle of this story we have this quick exchange between Peter and the Lord that speaks powerfully into our lives still today.

Similar to the earlier exchange where Peter rebuked Jesus for explaining that He would be crucified, the brash Apostle still doesn't get it. What we see here is a spirit of pride wrapped up in pseudo-piety. The fact is that sometimes we can become so full of ourselves or our assumed positions within our walk that we think we can dictate to God Himself what is right and what is wrong. Harsh you think? Well if Peter was merely confused about the foot washing he could have privately asked the Lord to explain why it was necessary. He could have made a statement that was not so impetuous and filled with indignation. There is a vast difference between saying, "Lord why must You do this" and "You will never ever wash my feet!" And that difference has to do with our pride. The latter statement here indicates that the speaker, Peter, simply knows better and is commanding God. As it was, so it can easily still be"

Think that might be too harsh too? Take a good look around at the modern church. There is a lot of this fake-spirituality wrapping up what some have considered their acts of service unto God or even worship. Instead of singing songs to God about how great He is, we now see songs disguised as worship where we tell God how He should bless us. Vast swaths of the Gospel are either ignored or watered down as we spiritually say to God -- "you'll never ever wash my feet!" We begin to think, within our own spirit of prideful arrogance, that we simply know better than God -- as Peter did on this day. Jesus designed the church so we would infiltrate the world but in too many cases we see the reverse as the secularizing of the church is now mainstream. Instead of Christ and Him crucified, we have cultural excuses for compromise. The Gospel is eroding every day. Stop the erosion; let the Master wash your feet. Because unless we do, we will not even belong to Him.

Rev. Anthony