Have you ever asked, “How should I live my life?”
Tonight at a Chinese restaurant, my daughter opened a
fortune cookie that had this message: “We never know the worth of water till the
well is dry.” Actually, as well, we will never know the spiritual significance
of water until we consider certain key teachings of the Gospel.
1.
Water shows: What is God like?
2.
Water shows: Who is Jesus Christ?
3.
Water shows: What must I do now?
4.
Water shows: How should I live my life?
This time we explore the last essential of water from the
Gospel According to John.
In John chapter 13, Jesus the Messiah has reached the point
of mission critical. He, the sacrificial Passover Lamb of God who takes away
the sin of the world (Jn 1:29), has now come to the festival of the Passover in
Jerusalem to be
offered up for sin. He whose hour had not yet come at the wedding in Cana of
Galilee (Jn 2:4) – for him the hour has now come. For him whose body is the
temple (visible presence) of God, that “temple” will now be destroyed, but he
will raise it up in three days (Jn 2:19). As Moses lifted up the bronze serpent
on a pole in the wilderness, so must now Jesus – the Son of Man who descended
from heaven – be lifted up upon a cross, that whoever believes in him may have
eternal life (Jn 3:13-17).
With a double entendre on his last three words, John the
Beloved Disciple, says in verse one: “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
[or “utmost”].” He loved them “to the end” – his death on the cross. And yet,
because of the resurrection, there was no end to his love. There is a circle of
never ending love. He loves his own to the utmost, everlastingly.
In 1923 Frederick Martin Lehman contemplated this amazing
love of God the Son, and then penned a hymn, “The Love of God.” In stanza three
he simply stands there in awe:
Could we with ink the ocean fill,
And were the skies of parchment made;
Were every stalk on earth a quill,
And every man a scribe by trade;
To write the love of God above
Would drain the ocean dry;
Nor could the scroll contain the whole,
Though stretched from sky to sky.
As a literary unit, John 13 is structured like three steps
down and three steps up (called a chiasm) [1]:
Prologue
(13:1-5)
A – Dialogue
with Peter (13:6-11) A1 – Dialogue with Peter (13:36-28)
B – “I give you an example” 13:12-15) B1 – “I
give you a new commandment” (13:31-35)
C – The betrayer (13:16-20) C1 – The betrayer (13:21-30)
This three-fold structure conveys three critical ideas to
us.
• Water reveals the most important bath ever (John
13:10).
The story that is about to unfold blends together two uses
of water: the religious and the practical. “Now the Passover of the Jews was at
hand, and many went up from the country to Jerusalem before the Passover to purify
themselves” (Jn 11:55). The temple courts provided many pools of water for
ritual cleansing. But also, in this culture where you walked in sandals on
dusty roads, foot washing was performed in domestic settings for personal
hygiene and comfort (2 Sam 11:8; Song 5:3) and in domestic settings devoted to
hospitality (Gen 18:4: Luke 7:44).
Jesus and the disciples were seated at the table for a meal
together before the Passover – the last supper before Jesus was arrested,
scourged, and crucified. Jesus, Lord and teacher, stood up from the table, laid
aside his outer garments, took a towel and tied it around his waist. To the
surprise and shock of the disciples, he poured water into a basin, began to
wash the disciples’ feet and wipe them with the towel wrapped around him. Washing
people’s feet was a task reserved for people of low estate or for Gentile
slaves. So when Jesus got to Peter, an interesting dialogue ensued between
Peter (P) and Jesus (J), verses 6-11.
P: “Lord, do you wash my feet?”
J:
“What I am doing you do not understand
now, but afterward you will understand.”
P:
“You shall never wash my feet.”
J:
“If I do not wash you, you have no
share with me.”
P:
“Lord, not my feet only but also my
hands and my head!”
J:
“The one who has bathed does not need
to wash, except for his feet, but is completely clean. And you (plural) are
clean, but not every one of you.”
Apostle
John: For he knew who was to betray him; that was why he said, “Not all of you
are clean.”
Finally, Jesus put on (literally “took up”) his outer clothes
(v 12). To see the symbolism, it is important to remember that this is now
Jesus’ “hour” (v 1). As Jesus had told his disciples, “The hour has come for
the Son of Man to be glorified. Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of
wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears
much fruit” (Jn 12:23-24). The foot washing deliberately and solemnly recalls
the teaching about Jesus being the Good Shepherd [2]. As Jesus “lays aside” his
outer clothes for foot washing (Jn 13:4), so Jesus the Good Shepherd “lays
aside” his life for his sheep (Jn 10:11,15,17,18). As Jesus “takes up” his
outer garments again after foot washing (Jn 13:12), so Jesus the Good Shepherd
“takes up” his life again (Jn 10:17). His self-giving love causes him to die as
the Lamb of God for the sins of the world. His self-giving love causes him to
resurrect himself as the living Savior of the world. “For God so loved the
world that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish
but have eternal life” (Jn 3:16).
Jesus has just solemnly proclaimed, “If I do not wash you,
you have no share with me” (v 8). The “water” is his death for sin and his
rising to newness of life. He must die and rise again, not the people. He must
apply this water by washing people. They cannot do it themselves. To receive
this gift of being washed, the disciple must trust in this Good Shepherd, join
the fold of God, and follow the Shepherd. This bath of washing which Jesus
gives takes place once for all in an individual’s life. The washing of the feet
takes place frequently.
Have you been washed in the bath water that Jesus Christ
provides? Do you have a part in eternal life? Or, by your neglect or outright refusal,
are you in the other group? “Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life;
whoever does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God remains
on him” (Jn 3:36).
• Water reveals the greatest danger ever (John 13:8).
To Peter, the Lord Jesus had said, “And you (plural) are clean,
but not every one of you” (v 10). Judas Iscariot, the unclean one, had
presumably been baptized as a disciple of Christ (Jn 3:22; 4:2). He had shared
the common life with Jesus and the other key disciples. At the last supper, he
had shared a morsel (Jn 13:26), which later Christians would have seen as a
parallel to participating in the Lord’s Supper, Holy Communion. And yet he had
an evil heart of unbelief to which Satan could enter (Jn 13:27). And Judas
betrayed Jesus to the authorities, fulfilling the Old Testament Scripture which
said, “He who ate my bread has lifted his heel against me” (Jn 13:18).
When Jesus and his other disciples left the upper room where
they had the supper, they went to the Garden of Gethsemane
across from the brook Kidron. There Judas (who had left early), having procured
a band of soldiers and some officers from the chief priests and the Pharisees (who
were carrying lanterns and torches and weapons), found Jesus and arrested him.
Judas rejected any participation in the bath of Christ’s death for sins and
resurrection unto life. He was washed with physical water but never with
spiritual water. Here is the greatest of dangers: knowing that Jesus is the way
to eternal life and either neglecting him or rejecting him, and thereby
perishing in darkness away from God – who is life – forevermore.
There is a second
danger. Those like Peter who have had the spiritual bath can fail miserably and
need restoration. Jesus had instructed him, “The one who has bathed does not
need to wash, except for his feet” (Jn 13:10). Peter needed the washing of the
feet – that cleansing from sin and that spiritual empowerment which Jesus
supplies daily after the one-time bath. A little later in that same evening,
Jesus taught this same principle using a different metaphor (Jn 15:1-11):
I am the true vine . . . Already
you are clean because of the word that I have spoken to you. Abide in me, and I
in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the
vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me. I am the vine; you are the branches.
Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart
from me you can do nothing. . . . By this my Father is glorified, that you bear
much fruit and so prove to be my disciples. As the Father has loved me, so have
I loved you. Abide in my love. If you keep my commandments, you will abide in
my love, just as I have kept my Father's commandments and abide in his love.
These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy
may be full. This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved
you.
After the bath we must pay attention to the Word of Christ –
the message of the Old Testament Scriptures centered on Christ and the message
of the writings of the apostles (the New Testament). We must depend on Christ.
We must pray. We must obey the commandments of Christ, especially the
command to love one another as he has loved us. If we cease this daily washing
and spiritual empowerment, we can become like Peter. That night after the last
supper, Peter denied knowing Jesus three times before a rooster crowed alerting
people to the morning. After the resurrection, on the shore
of Lake Tiberias, the Lord Jesus
restored Peter to active service in the kingdom of God.
Have you undergone the bath from the Lord Jesus but are
tempted to live life on your own sometimes? Remember, Christ is the vine and we
are the branches. Only by that daily washing of the feet and that daily abiding
of the branch in union with the vine – only then can we stay useful and joyful in
our earthly pilgrimage.
• Water reveals the most important example ever (John
13:15).
If we have been washed in the once-for-all bath that Jesus
gives, how should we live thereafter? Jesus tells us, “If I then, your Lord and
Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another's feet. For
I have given you an example, that you also should do just as I have done to you
(Jn 13:14-15). As we read this literary unit of the Gospel, we are walking down
the literary steps, so to speak. As we walk back up the literary steps, Jesus
says it again in a broader way, “Now is the Son of Man glorified, and God is
glorified in him. . . . 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” (Jn 13:31,34,35).
How does humble, welcoming service (“foot washing”) and the
new commandment of love (“love as I have loved”) work out in real life? Let me give
an extended example based on a research article [3]. No follower of Christ is
flawless, but we are candles in the darkness and this is how one man shines his
light.
Adriaan J. Vlok (born December 11, 1937), grew up in a rural
region of South Africa.
Unable to afford college, he got a job as a filing clerk in the Department of
Justice for the Afrikaner National Party government, which was beginning to
standardize South Africa’s
systems of formal and informal racial segregation into the strict legal framework
called apartheid. Rising through the ranks, he became the Minister of Law and
Order in South Africa
from 1986 to 1991 in the final years of the apartheid era, which ended in 1994.
To appear humane and yet crush black opponents, Adriaan Vlok
had his department engage in clandestine tactics of horrible violence. For
example, the department formed a secret “counterinsurgency unit” at a farm
called Vlakplaas. This unit with the good-sounding name kidnapped, drugged, and
murdered anti-apartheid fighters, and then burned their bodies on a barbecue
pit. On one occasion this unit caused the disappearance of a whole group of
youth activists by packing them into a bus laden with explosives and pushing it
off a cliff.
They developed a plan to assassinate Reverend Frank Chikane,
a preacher and the peaceful head of an interdenominational Christian group. Why
did the unit plot against this peaceful man? The apartheid government believed that
his group was harboring armed anti-apartheid militants in its Johannesburg headquarters. What are you going
to do to the leader of an outfit like that except to neutralize him?
So in 1989, a pair of Vlok’s policemen broke into Chikane’s
suitcase at the Johannesburg airport, where he’d
checked it for a trip to Namibia,
and laced his underpants with paraoxon, a potent insecticide. As a result, Chikane
got so sick that he had to be flown to the United States for advanced medical
treatment. Fortunately, he didn’t die. And after South
Africa’s transition to a multiracial democracy in 1994,
he went on to serve South Africa’s
second black president.
As part of the transition to democratic rule in 1994, a
Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) was formed. People – black and white
– who had committed crimes against human rights under apartheid were invited to
testify. The TRC granted amnesty to most perpetrators such as Vlok, except for
a few notorious killers like Eugene de Kock, the primary Vlakplaas assassin.
Vlok visited this assassin in prison. Intending to seek his forgiveness, Vlok
instead gave into a different urge: the urge to defend himself. “Eugene!” he cried out.
“Did I ever tell you to kill somebody?” “No,” de Kock replied. “But you gave me
a medal when I killed them.”
Thus, there has been a battle within Adriaan Vlok’s soul:
between making excuses and following the path of redemption, truth, forgiveness
and reconciliation. It has been a long way, but he is on the right path. The
first steps began with a government-sponsored tour of Taiwan in the 1980’s. The Taiwanese
took his delegation to a museum that showcased 5,000 years of Han Chinese
political, intellectual, and artistic achievements. Yet, back home in South Africa,
Chinese immigrants were classified as “colored,” making them second-class
citizens, compared to whites. Standing before display cases of delicate Chinese
pottery, the folly of apartheid struck him. “I saw then, ‘There must be
something wrong. Not with them, but with us.’”
His wife, plagued with depression, became much worse after
he retired from public life in 1994. She finally took a pistol and ended her
life. Vlok felt devastated. A couple of weeks later a man delivered a card to
his home. It said, “In remembrance of Corrie, we have placed a thousand books
of New Testaments and psalms.” The man was from the Gideons International, the
group which distributes millions of Bibles a year to public spaces.
Incredibly moved by the gesture, he accepted their
invitation to a dinner meeting. They asked, “Do you want to join us?” South Africa’s
Truth and Reconciliation Commission had just informed him it would call him up
to testify about his time as police chief. So he declined the invitation to
join the Gideons. In Vlok’s words: “I said, ‘I have got a bad history. Horrible
stories will come out!’ And they said, ‘Look at the Bible. Moses killed a
person, and the Lord used him. David committed adultery, and he killed people,
and the Lord used him. Do you still say no?’ So I joined them.”
Adopting the Gideons’ regiment of reading the Bible twice
daily (the Old Testament in the morning and the New Testament in the evening),
he came to have a deep, living faith in Christ as his Lord and Savior, Christ
who died for our sins and rose victoriously from the grave. One particular
passage from the Gospel of Matthew gripped him and wouldn’t let him go: “If you
are presenting a sacrifice at the altar in the Temple,” Jesus said in the Sermon on the
Mount, “and you suddenly remember that someone has something against you, leave
your sacrifice there at the altar. Go and be reconciled to that person. Only
then come and offer your sacrifice to God.”
“I realized,” Vlok said, “I had to start making peace with
my brother whom I had hurt.” He adopted an unusual method: taking the role of a
servant, washing the feet of black people whom he had harmed, and saying, “I
have sinned against the Lord and against you. Will you forgive me?” The author
of the article which I referenced earlier interviewed Adriaan Vlok in his
house. He had opened to the passage from Matthew and read it. She said:
My eyes drifted just above the
text. I saw there was another line to the passage, one Vlok hadn’t quoted me.
“You must not murder. If you commit murder, you are subject to judgment.” I
asked him if he was afraid of judgment. “After I die, yes, yes, the Lord will
sit in judgment,” he muttered. “But Jesus will be there next to me. If anyone
accuses me, He will say: ‘But I already paid the price.’ ”
How shall we live after receiving our bath from Christ? By
being like him – living a life of humble, welcoming service (symbolically
represented by the foot washing in the upper room at the Last Supper), by
paying attention to the Word of Christ (the message of the Holy Scriptures of
the Old and New Testaments), and by loving one another as Christ has loved us.
[1] Mary L. Coloe, “Welcome
into the Household of God: The Foot Washing in John 13,” CBQ 66, 2004, pp 400-415.
[2] Ibid. p 407.
[3] Eve Fairbanks, “I Have
Sinned Against the Lord and Against You! Will You Forgive Me?”
New Republic,
June 18, 2014. http://www.newrepublic.com/article/118135/adriaan-vlok-ex-apartheid-leader-washes-feet-and-seeks-redemption
