SECTION II. THE EXPLANATION
John xiii. 12-20.
Peter's resistance overcome, the washing
proceeded without further interruption. When the process had come to an end,
Jesus, putting on again His upper garment, resumed His seat, and briefly
explained to His disciples the purport of the action. "Know ye," He inquired,
"what I have done unto you?" Then, answering His own question, He went on to
say: "Ye call me Master and Lord: and ye say well; for so I am. If I, then,
your Lord and Master, have washed your feet, ye also ought to wash one
another's feet. For I have given you an example, that ye should do as I have
done to you."
It was another lesson in humility which Jesus had
been giving "His own,"--a lesson very similar to the earlier ones recorded in
the synoptical Gospels. John's Christ, we see here, teaches the same doctrine
as the Christ of the three first evangelists. The twelve, as they are depicted
in the fourth Gospel, are just such as we have found them in Matthew, Mark, and
Luke--grievously needing to be taught meekness and brotherly kindness; and
Jesus teaches them these virtues in much the same way here as elsewhere--by
precept and example, by symbolic act, and added word of interpretation. Once He
held up a little child, to shame them out of ambitious passions; here He
rebukes their pride, by becoming the menial of the household. At another time
He hushed their angry strife by adverting to His own self-humiliation, in
coming from heaven to be a minister to men's needs in life and in death; here
He accomplishes the same end, by expressing the spirit and aim of His whole
earthly ministry in a representative, typical act of condescension.
This lesson, like all the rest, Jesus gave with
the authority of one who might lay down the law. In the very act of playing the
servant's part, He was asserting His sovereignty. He reminds His disciples,
when the service is over, of the titles they were wont to give Him, and in a
marked, emphatic manner He accepts them as His due. He tells them distinctly
that He is indeed their Teacher, whose doctrine it is their business to learn,
and their Lord, whose will it is their duty to obey. His humility, therefore,
is manifestly not an affectation of ignorance as to who and what He is. He
knows full well who He is, whence He has come, whither He is going; His
humility is that of a king, yea, of a Divine Being. The pattern of meekness is
at the same time one who prescribes Himself to His followers as a pattern, and
demands that they fix their attention on His behavior, and strive to copy
it.
In making this demand, Jesus is obviously very
thoroughly in earnest. He is not less earnest in requiring the disciples to
wash one another's feet, than He was in insisting that He Himself should wash
the feet of one and all. As He said to Peter in express words, "If I wash thee
not, thou hast no part with me;" so He says to them all in effect, though not
in words,"If ye wash not each other, if ye refuse to serve one another in love,
ye have again no part with me." This is a hard saying; for if it be difficult
to believe in the humiliation of Christ, it is still more difficult to humble
ourselves. Hence, notwithstanding the frequency and urgency with which the
Saviour declares that we must have the spirit manifested in His humiliation for
us dwelling in us, and giving birth in our life to conduct kindred to His own,
even sincere disciples are constantly, though it may be half unconsciously,
inventing excuses for treating the example of their Lord as utterly inimitable,
and therefore in reality no example at all. Even the apparently unanswerable
argument employed by Jesus to enforce imitation does not escape secret
criticism. "Verily, verily," saith He, "a servant is not greater than his lord,
neither he that is sent greater than he that sent him." "It may," say we, "be
more incumbent on the servant to humble himself than on the master, but in some
respects it is also more difficult. The master can afford to condescend: his
action will not be misunderstood, but will be taken for what it is. But the
servant cannot afford to be humble: he must assert himself, and assume airs, in
order to make himself of any consequence."
The great Master knew too well how slow men would
ever be to learn the lesson He had just been teaching His disciples. Therefore
He appended to His explanation of the feet-washing this reflection: "If ye know
these things, happy are ye if ye do them," hinting at the rarity and difficulty
of such high morality as He had been inculcating, and declaring the blessedness
of the few who attained unto it. And surely the reflection is just! Is not the
morality here enjoined indeed rare? Are not the virtues called into play by
acts of condescension and charity most high and difficult? Who dreams of
calling them easy? How utterly contrary they are to the native tendencies of
the human heart! how alien from the spirit of society! Is it the way of men to
be content with the humblest place, and to seek their felicity in serving
others? Doth not the spirit that is in us lust unto envy, strive ambitiously
for positions of influence, and deem it the greatest happiness to be served,
and to be exempt from the drudgery of servile tasks? The world itself does not
dispute the difficulty of Christ-like virtue; it rather exaggerates its
difficulty, and pronounces it utopian and impracticable--merely a beautiful,
unattainable ideal.
And as for the sincere disciple of Jesus, no
proof is needed to convince him of the arduousness of the task appointed him by
his Lord. He knows by bitter experience how far conduct lags behind knowledge,
and how hard it is to translate admiration of unearthly goodness into imitation
thereof. His mind is familiarly conversant with the doctrine and life of the
Saviour; he has read and re-read the Gospel story, fondly lingering over its
minutest details; his heart has burned as he followed the footsteps of the
Blessed One walking about on this earth, ever intent on doing good: sweeter to
his ear than the finest lyric poems are the stories of the woman by the well,
the sinner in the house of Simon, and of Zaccheus the publican; those touching
incidents of the little child upheld as a pattern of humility, and of the
Master washing quarrelsome disciples' feet, and the exquisite parables of the
Lost Sheep, the Prodigal, and the Good Samaritan. But when he has to close his
New Testament, and go away into the rude, ungodly, matter-of-fact world, and be
there a Christ-like man, and do the things which he knows so intimately, and
counts himself blessed in knowing, alas, what a descent! It is like a fall from
Eden into a state of mere sin and misery. And the longer he lives, and the more
he gets mixed up with life's relations and engagements, the further he seems to
himself to degenerate from the gospel pattern; till at length he is almost
ashamed to think or speak of the beauties of holiness exhibited therein, and is
tempted to adopt a lower and more worldly tone, out of a regard to sincerity,
and in fear of becoming a mere sentimental hypocrite like Judas, who kissed his
Master at the very moment he was betraying Him.
In proportion to the difficulty and the rarity of
the virtue prescribed is the felicity of those who are enabled to practice it.
Theirs is a threefold blessedness. First, they have the joy connected with the
achievement of an arduous task. Easy undertakings bring small pains, but they
also bring small pleasures; rapturous delight is reserved for those who attempt
and accomplish that which passes for impossible. And what raptures can be
purer, holier, and more intense than those of the man who has at length
succeeded in making the mind of the meek and lowly One his own; who, after long
climbing, has reached the alpine summit of self-forgetful, self-humbling love!
Those who practice the things here enjoined further win for themselves the
approbation of their Lord. A master is pleased when a pupil understands his
lesson, but a lord is pleased only when his servants do his bidding. Christ,
being Lord as well as Master, demands that we shall not only know but do. And
in proportion to the peremptoriness of the demand is the satisfaction with
which the Lord of Christians regards all earnest efforts to comply with His
will and to follow His example. And to all who make such efforts it is a great
happiness to be assured of the approval of Him whom they serve. The thought, "I
am guided in my present action by the spirit of Jesus, and He approves what I
do," sustains the mind in peace, even when one has not the happiness to win the
approbation of his fellow-men; which is not an impertinent remark here, for it
will often happen to us to please men least when we are pleasing the Lord most.
You shall please many men by a prudent selfishness much more readily than by a
generous uncalculating devotion to what is right. "Men will praise thee when
thou doest well to thyself;" and they will wink at very considerable deviations
from the line of pure Christian morality in the prosecution of self-interest,
provided you be successful. Even religious people will often vex and grieve you
by advices savoring much more of worldly wisdom than of Christian simplicity
and godly sincerity. But if Christ approve, we may make shift to do without the
sympathy and approbation of men. Their approbation is at most but a comfort;
His is matter of life and death.
The third element in the felicity of the man who
is not merely a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the perfect law of Christ, is
that he escapes the guilt of unimproved knowledge. It is a religious
commonplace that to sin against light is more heinous than to sin in ignorance.
"To him that knoweth to do good, and doeth it not, to him it is sin." And, of
course, the clearer the light the greater the responsibility. Now, in no
department of Christian truth is knowledge clearer than in that which belongs
to the department of ethics. There are some doctrines which the church, as a
whole, can hardly be said to know, they are so mysterious, or so disputed. But
the ethical teaching of Jesus is simple and copious in all its leading
features; it is universally understood, and as universally admired. Protestants
and Papists, Trinitarians, Socinians, and Deists, are all at one here. Happy
then are they, of all sects and denominations, who do the things which all know
and agree in admiring; for a heavy woe lies on those who do them not. The woe
is not indeed expressed, but it is implied in Christ's words. The common Lord
of all believers virtually addresses all Christendom here, saying: "Ye behold
the sunlight of a perfect example; ye have been made acquainted with a high and
lovely ideal of life, such as pagan moralists never dreamed of. What are ye
doing with your light? Are ye merely looking at it, and writing books about it,
and boasting of it, and talking of it, meanwhile allowing men outside the pale
of the church to surpass you in humane and philanthropic virtue? If this is all
the use you are making of your knowledge, it will be more tolerable for pagans
at the day of judgment than for you."
Having made the reflection we have been
considering, Jesus followed it up with a word of apology for the tone of
suspicion with which it was uttered, and which was no doubt felt by the
disciples. "I speak not," He said, "of you all: I know whom I have chosen: but
that the scripture may be fulfilled, He that eateth bread with me hath lifted
up his heel against me." The remark may be thus paraphrased: "In hinting at the
possibility of a knowledge of right, unaccompanied by corresponding action, I
have not been indulging in gratuitous insinuation. I do not indeed think so
badly of you all as to imagine you capable of deliberate and habitual neglect
of known duty. But there is one among you who is capable of such conduct. I
have chosen you twelve, and I know the character of every one of you; and, as I
said a year ago, after asking a question which hurt your feelings, that one of
you had a devil,[21.6] so now, after making a suspicious reflection, I say
there is one among you whose character illustrates negatively its meaning; one
who knows, but will not do; who puts sentiment in place of action, and
admiration in place of imitation; one who, having eaten bread with me as a
familiar friend, will repay me for all my kindness, not by loving obedience,
but by lifting up his heel against me." The infirmity of sincere disciples
Jesus could patiently bear with: but the Judas-character--in which correct
thinking and fine sentiment are combined with falseness of heart and practical
laxity, in which to promise is put in place of performance, and to utter the
becoming word about a matter is substituted for doing the appropriate
deed--such a character His soul utterly abhorred.
Who can doubt that it was not in vain that
sincere disciples had been so long in the society of One who was so exacting in
His ideal, and that they really did strive in after years to fulfil their
Master's will, and serve one another in love?
This document (last modifiedSeptember 17, 1997) from Believerscafe.com
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