Weekly Devotional: March 18, 2026

GOD’S WORD
JOHN 13: 1-19

The Lenten Series for this year will be excerpts from the late Commissioner Phil Needham’s book
“Lenten Awakening”
Daily Meditations from Ash Wednesday to Easter

Introduction to this week’s Devotional
“Walking The Last Week With Jesus”

We have arrived at the most significant week of Jesus’ life: his last on earth. I invite you to be present with Jesus on that final stage of His journey, to observe closely what he says and does. He still has so much to teach us about Himself and our calling to live as His disciples. And there is so much to grasp—and to gain—as we move toward the week’s climax and try to take in the enormity of Jesus’ suffering and the universal benefit of His crucifixion.

I have mentioned before that as I write these pages, the world is suffering from the coronavirus pandemic. People around the world are getting sick, and hundreds of thousands are dying. People are scared. We are fighting an enemy hidden from the naked eye. The best preventive for us all is isolation, but most of us are not used to such extended confinement. We become distracted and bored, fearful, even paranoid.

Considerating the last week of his life, what does Jesus offer us in the times of our uncertainty and even despair? He is facing His own enemies, and He knows this week will end with his own horrible death. Watching him this last week of his earthly life, we will see courage, humility, compassion, authenticity, and hope. He offers us, His disciples, these same gifts:

• Courage to act when fairness and judgment demand it
• Humility before God and each other
• Compassion for all who suffer and lose loved ones
• Authenticity as His followers, even if it calls us to suffer, and
• Sure hope in our future with Christ, come what may.

PERSONAL PRAYER
Dear Jesus of the human road, as we walk with You this final week of Your earthly life, open our eyes to see, our ears to hear, our minds to grasp, and our hearts to be grasped by Your every act of compassion and by the saving scope of Your suffering and death. We ask this in Your name, our worthy Savior and Lord. Amen.

DEVOTIONAL
WASHING FEET

There is more that happened this final week of Jesus’ earthly life than we can include in this week of meditations. Some of them have found a place elsewhere in this book. We are going to move now to events that occurred later in Holy Week.

One of those events is the last supper Jesus shared with His disciples. Different people often remember different things about the same event, and this last supper is no exception. In particular, the remembrance of Matthew, Mark, and Luke begins with the meal itself. Jesus has sent out some of His disciples to engage a room for the Passover meal. They find a guest room on an upper level, and Jesus and His disciples gather there for their final meal together. The action begins when it's time for the meal to begin.

John's remembrance begins with a foot-washing, before the meal begins. We can take for granted that the disciples would have washed their hands before the meal, according to Jewish custom. It was also customary for the servants of the host to wash the feet of dinner guests. Walking the dusty roads in sandals made foot-washings desirable if you had just traveled a distance. Although Jesus was not the owner of the guest room, He was the host of the dinner. Without a word, He, the Master, knelt before the disciples and started washing their feet.

The disciples are struck dumb by this unexpected initiative on their Master's part. He could have asked any one of them to fulfill the task. Not until Jesus gets to Peter are words spoken:

"Lord, are you going to wash my feet?" Peter says what the others are thinking: Masters are not supposed to do the task of servants. (Had they forgotten Jesus’ words just the week before? “The Son of Man didn’t come to be served but rather to serve and to give His life to liberate many people” - Matthew 20:28.)

Like a parent lovingly requiring something important for the good of her child, something the value of which the child cannot yet comprehend, Jesus says He understands why Peter doesn't yet grasp the beauty and the bearing of this act, but he will later. (Perhaps a reference to Pentecost?)

Peter is not persuaded. In fact, his discomfort turns into defiance: "No! You will never wash my feet!" Jesus is quick to respond: "Unless I wash you, you won't have a place with me." Peter again misunderstands what Jesus means: "Lord, not only my feet but also my hands and my head!"

Oh Peter, don't you understand? I've already cleansed you and the others. Have these three years together meant nothing? Do you not yet understand that I am here to be not only your Master but also your Servant, not only your Mentor but also your Sacrifice. This very night the Sacrifice begins, and before six o'clock tomorrow evening, the beginning of Sabbath, the cleansing act will be complete. The spiritual bathing is happening already. It has been happening since you became my disciple and it is about to reach completion. That is why I tell you that you have bathed and are already clean. You have been with me and I have been with you, and my Spirit has been in you.

You must now prepare to walk the dusty roads of this world to declare and offer the cleansing. You will get your feet dusty with the world. You will need brothers and sisters to wash them, and you will need to wash their feet as I am washing your feet.

You must never think you are above it — neither the receiving nor the giving. Never.

“If I, your Lord and teacher, have washed your feet, you too must wash each other’s feet…I have given you an example: just as I have done, you also must do” (John 13:14-15) The sacrifice I am about to make for you and the whole world will be a cleansing that will penetrate your heart so deeply and transform your soul so thoroughly that asking a brother or sister to wash your feet, or offering to wash their feet, will seem so…well, normal!

We who call ourselves followers and disciples of this same Jesus must remember this: Jesus washed the feet of all twelve disciples. He knew all of them would abandon Him that very night. He washed the feet of every one of them! The most ardent among them would deny Him to preserve his own life. Yes, He washed Peter’s feet! The one named Judas was already in the process of betraying Him. Yes, Jesus washed his feet! Is this our example?

What was Jesus thinking? Oh, there was no “thinking” here.

Only loving in a strange new way. Genuinely being servants to those in our company, we'd rather not serve, and frankly might despise. Kneel before them?

So much for us Christians who only keep company with nice Christians like us. Yes, I'll wash the feet of those I have strong affinity with, or those who think as I do, or those who appreciate me, or those I get along with, or those who are friendly. That makes the bowing down and serving not so humbling…and I certainly don't want to be humiliated by someone who would not in the least appreciate what I'm doing, kneeling before them, caring for them—and they turn it into a cruel joke.

The problem is that Jesus doesn't allow His true followers to be so choosy. He doesn't seem to see his church as a cozy society of the like-minded who attract "their kind of people," whose feet they are happy to wash.

Think of Jesus’ twelve: They were a classic case of an incompatible group, ranging from fishermen, to a tax collector, to a money manager, to a violent revolutionary, to who knows what else! And they didn’t get along a good bit of the time! In fact, they got into an argument during this very supper about which one of them was the greatest (Luke 22:24)!

So what is Jesus asking of us, His church, today? Today, in the western world, an actual foot-washing would be a symbolic act, a teaching parable, a reminder of our calling to humble servanthood. The penetrating question for us is, “How are we going to carry out Jesus’ unmistakable command: ‘You too must wash each other’s feet. I have given you an example: just as I have done, you must also do’” (13:14b)?

If there is anything Christians can do to transform their congregations, it is to humble themselves before God and each other - no one excluded! The foot-washing will rarely be literal. It will be delivered through our day-to-day words and actions. It will not be a one-time or even occasional event. It will be part of our daily living. It will be our calling we never outgrow! For the rest of our lives and for eternity.

PERSONAL PRAYER
Dear Jesus, I thank You for the gift of Your example, and for the empowerment through Your Spirit I so much need. Humble Savior, make me, one way or the other, a washer of feet. Lower me before the congregation where I worship and serve, and especially before those who make the humbling most difficult for me. Rob me of my pride and bless me with Your humility in the presence of others. I pray this in Your name, the name of the lowly Nazarene, my Savior, Jesus the Christ. Amen.