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If you knew that tonight was your last night on earth, how would you spend it? How would you use your remaining hours with the people you cared about the most? What would you tell them? What would you want them to remember?

We’ve come to just that moment in Jesus’ life. Entering John 13 we arrive at the final evening before Jesus’ crucifixion. Verse one introduces us not only to the immediate scene, verses one through thirty-five, but also to chapters 13-17. At chapter 18, there is no more discussion. Jesus will go out with His disciples to the garden where Judas will betray Him. Within hours of that, Jesus will be falsely tried, beaten, and killed. John 13:1 through 17:26 are five full chapters of only a few hours in Jesus’ life.

Chapters 13-17 also provide more of the story than the Synoptic Gospels. The things that John tells us not only come from a different perspective than Matthew, Mark, and Luke, the things John tells us aren’t even mentioned by the other three. All of this upper room discourse is unique material to John.

The first twelve chapters covers a few years as Jesus ministered to the Jewish people. Now His public ministry is finished. Chapters 13-17 cover a few hours as Jesus and His small group for one last meeting. Jesus was about to leave them (though He does promise to send Help in chapter 14), about to leave the work in their hands. What do you tell your hand-selected team? How do you get your message across?

All five chapters are crammed with goods like a coffee can stuffed with fire-crackers. Perhaps nothing was more surprising to the disciples than what John describes at the beginning of chapter 13. It really is a defining moment.

Fine, but what, exactly, is defined in this moment? Verse one introduces the theme:

Now before the Feast of the Passover, when Jesus knew that his hour had come to depart out of this world to the Father, having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end. (John 13:1, ESV)

The love of Jesus for His own begins and finishes these chapters. Starting in 13:1, then,

A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another. (John 13:34–35, ESV)

Whoever has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me. And he who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and manifest myself to him. (John 14:21, ESV)

Jesus answered him, “If anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him. Whoever does not love me does not keep my words. And the word that you hear is not mine but the Father’s who sent me.” (John 14:23–24, ESV)

As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Abide in my love. (John 15:9, ESV)

This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends. (John 15:12–13, ESV)

Then all the way to the final words in Jesus’ prayer.

I made known to them your name, and I will continue to make it known, that the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them. (John 17:26, ESV)

The foot-washing is done out of love as an example of love that the disciples must follow in order to be obvious to the world whose disciples they are. Love is the thread.

The world is the fabric. The word “world” is used 40 times in chapters 13-17. It is a contrast between Jesus’ “own” and the world that is His, too, but in a different way. Jesus knew that his hour had come to depart out of the world and He had loved his own who were in the world . This is where we need some worldview help. He loves His own who were in the world, He was departing out of the world, so if He loved them so much, why in the world didn’t He take them with Him?

If you’ve read chapter 17, then you’re already thinking about Jesus’ desire that His own be with Him to see His glory (verse 24) and yet He said earlier, “I do not ask that you (Father) take them out of the world” (verse 15). Jesus knows He’s going out of the world but He wants His disciples in the world and sent into the wold just as He was (verse 17).

Why? For what purpose? To love each other by serving one another, for their joyful unity and world evangelism.

    Because Jesus loves us,
He leaves us in the world to love each other
    by humbly serving one another
    for our joyful, Trinitarian unity and
    for a global witness to God’s love.

This is why John 13 starts the way it does. This is what Jesus wants His disciples to get before He goes. This is big. It will take us a while. No hurry, unless you’re taking off tomorrow.

Dinner Plans (verse 1)

Here is the motive for Jesus’ final meal and meeting.

Now before the Feast of the Passover, when Jesus knew that his hour had come to depart out of this world to the Father, having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end. (John 13:1, ESV)

The other three Gospels tell us about Jesus sending a couple disciples to a prepare a room where all of them to eat the Passover meal. It was now around sundown on Thursday, the time when the Feast should be eaten. Jesus came to dinner with full consciousness, He knew that his hour had come to depart out of this world to the Father . Jesus never lost awareness that He had come from heaven and was headed back; He had told them multiple times. Now it was time.

Knowing that it was His hour, He continued His mission. Having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end . It’s an unusual, but special, way to talk about the disciples. The final night was for their sake, all the way through His death the next day. This banner of love flies over the foot-washing episode. He will wash their feet because He loves them. It is one of the main lessons He wants to leave with them as He makes clear in verses 12-17 and 31-35.

Whatever I thought I knew about the foot-washing, I am overwhelmed, convicted, excited, threatened, and strengthened by watching Jesus.

Divine Position (verses 2-5)

Verses 2-5 are one sentence (in Greek). Everything right in verses 2-4 makes everything in verse 5 wrong.

During supper, when the devil had already put it into the heart of Judas Iscariot, Simon’s son, to betray him, Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands, and that he had come from God and was going back to God, rose from supper. He laid aside his outer garments, and taking a towel, tied it around his waist. (John 13:2–4, ESV)

This is the last supper. John doesn’t tell us about Jesus instituting the Lord’s Supper, instead he focuses on a pre-meal lesson. John also inserts a comment about Judas, I think for two reasons. First, to show the extent of Jesus’ knowledge. He was fully aware of Judas’ heart and of supernatural activity. Second, to show the extent of Jesus’ love. Jesus washes Judas’ feet, at least nothing indicates He didn’t. Judas is His betrayer, the devil is His greatest enemy. Judas is not one of His own, but Judas still received divine grace. That makes Judas more accountable and makes Jesus more amazing.

It was all going to plan and, again, John leaves no doubt about what Jesus knew. knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands, and that he had come from God and was going back to God . This is John’s version of Philippians 2. Jesus is God, became a man, did the Father’s work, and was going home. He had the whole world in His hands, meaning that it was His to do with what He wanted (mentioned already in John 3:35). He had all power and authority. No one, no one, was greater anywhere in the universe, let alone in the room. No one was more impressive.

Why didn’t Jesus judge Judas and the devil right then and there? “Jesus, knowing what He did, gave Judas a 10 second head start and sent angels and earthquakes after him.”

Then He rose from supper . That’s the main verb in the long sentence. Even the remaining description must have been slow motion when the disciples replayed in their heads later: laying aside his outer garment, and taking a towel, he tied it around his waste . Verse five mentions a pitcher of water and a basin. All of the resources were present for the foot-washing except for someone to do it, and Jesus is moving into position. The eternal Logos with “all things in His hands” looked through His galactic arsenal and chose a towel.

This is unexpected, a cotton twist on shock and awe as Jesus turns things upside down.

Then he poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples’ feet and to wipe them with the towel that was wrapped around him. (John 13:5, ESV)

Foot-washing was not a mandate from Scripture or even from the Pharisees, it was good manners. When guests arrived, and certainly having arrived for such a significant feast as this, a servant would wash the traveler’s dusty feet. On this night, all the required items were there, but none of the disciples stepped up to do it.

The host would never wash feet. Peers almost never washed one another’s feet. Jews wouldn’t let their Jewish servants do it either. It was reserved for the lower slaves. In all of the Bible, and in all of the known historical and fictional books, through Greek and Roman life, there is no recorded instance of a superior washing the feet of an inferior. Not ever. Jesus took the form of a servant and humbled Himself. He did something not required for men not deserving.

Wouldn’t we love to know what the disciples were thinking? Peter objects in verses 6-11. John the Baptist said he wasn’t worthy to unstrap Jesus’ sandal (John 1:27) let alone have Jesus touch his feet. So in one sense Pete’s objection was reasonable, but in another sense it was rebellious. Jesus follows the rabbit trial and teaches another lesson. Then Jesus will explain the object lesson of the washing in verses 12-17. We will be back at it in a couple weeks.

Conclusion

What would you talk about if it was your last meal? You’d probably talk about you.

None of us will ever be in Jesus’ position. There will never be greater disparity between who should serve and who should be served. We are not the ultimate authority over anything. We will never have a more important project to finish than the one Jesus was about to finish. We will never be in as big of a battle. We will never have such an enemy. We couldn’t endure what He was about to endure even if we wanted to. And yet we can’t be bothered, interrupted, or expected to do something so beneath us.

Jesus was at His “hour,” the only one of its kind in eternity, and it didn’t slip His mind. If anyone should have said, “Guys, this isn’t my responsibility.” “Guys, don’t you realize what I’m up against here?” “Guys, I’m a little preoccupied getting ready to die for your sins, you know, to take the wrath of my Father for the sin of My people.” “Guys, can’t you even take care of this?”

Jesus had nothing to prove, but He did provide an example of love. He provided a concrete example of a grain of wheat falling into the earth and dying, of losing one’s life.

P.J. O’Rourke observed that numerous individuals want to save the planet, and no one wants to help Mom with the dishes.

Jesus is prepping His disciples for His departure. He makes a bigger point by leaving us here rather than taking us to heaven, just as He made a bigger point by joining us here rather than staying up in heaven (where He deserves to stay, where He belongs, where it is fitting and right for Him to get only praise, not a wet towel wrapped around His body to wash dirty disciples’ feet).

    Because Jesus loves us,
He leaves us in the world to love each other
    by humbly serving one another
    for our joyful, Trinitarian unity and
    for a global witness to God’s love.

This is the message Jesus gave His disciples on His final night with them, modeling for them how to love one another in deed and truth.

But, you say, that person doesn’t deserve my love. That’s a good point. It’s exactly the point Jesus addresses in John 13. Jesus lowered Himself to serve and raised the standard for all His followers.