The Most Powerful Hand Took theTowel
The Sign of our Wealth

"Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into His hands, and that He had come forth from God and was going back to God, got up from supper, and laid aside His garments; and taking a towel, He girded Himself." John 13:3-4 (NASB).

In these verses we see two contrasting things: the greatness of the Lord, His dignity (and the conscience of that dignity), and His humiliation before the men.

The Lord has arrived at the end of His ministry. All that He had to do, He had done. Only the cross remained. But even before this, the Father had already decreed that He is the heir of all things, and had put all things in his hands.

The Lord can now rest. (He has already pleased the Father's heart, what more could one want?) However, He doesn't rest. There is something more that He must do.

With those same hands that the Father has generously filled with power and authority, He carries out some more actions. Some strange actions. Work which is considered vile, worthy only of a servant.

In this moment, when He has everything in His hands, now that He has been given all power, He carries out a slave's actions.

He could well use His hands to exercise some form of government, or to demand submission. He could raise His hands with majesty and claim obedience and adoration. All of this would be perfectly legitimate.

However, what he actually does is quite unusual. He takes off his outer clothing, (his mantel was beautiful, perhaps the only thing that humanly gave him some attractiveness), takes a towel and  wraps it round His waist, puts water in a basin, and begins to wash the disciple’s feet, drying them with the towel.

In His hands, He could well have had a controlling whip, but look! He has taken a towel!

This is not the behavior of the greatest King! It is not the majestic expression of God’s favorite!

"Jesus, knowing..."

Jesus chooses this moment to give us the supreme lesson in humility. True humility is not the impotence of the poor and abandoned person that doesn't have any other option than to accept violation. It is not the impotence of the weak who cannot be escape mockery, yet who suffers with boiling anger inside.

Nor is humility a consequence of contempt toward oneself, or of a consciousness of indignity. On the contrary.

Humility rests in the knowledge of God and of what you are for God. Humility begins with a full heart, of hands that have been blessed by God. True humility begins with your wealth, with your rest in God. Since you are something for God, you can be humble before men. Your heart feels so satisfied in God that you don't care about the contempt or the incomprehension of men.

When Jesus knew that the Father had given him all things into His hands, He took the towel.

When you know that you are beautiful for God, and you know that you are rich, and that what you have is perfectly secured in God, you can expose it, and you can go to the extreme of taking the towel.

If you know where you come from and where you are going, you can humble yourself. If you know that you have all things in Christ, what does it matter when vain men want to take all things for themselves? If God has decided to give to you (and His will is unyielding), who will be able to take it away?

The towel in your hand is not a loss of your dignity: it is an honor. It is to thresh divinity upon the feet of men.

The fear of losing

There are those that are not willing to take the towel, and yet, on the other hand, they are ready to sit down and to be washed; who don't want to serve, but to be served, they do not know they are sufficiently enriched in Christ; they have insecurity, so they don't want to lose the little that they believe they have before men.

The haughtiness, the arrogance, the presumption, they have a great spiritual poverty, and a supreme interior weakness. If they don't defend themselves, if their rights don't cry out, they are left without anything.

After the lack of humility there is a bottomless abyss. If they don't reaffirm their personality, they don't have personality; if they don't make an effort to obtain protagonism, they don't have protagonism; if they don't scream, they are not listened to; if they don't say "Here I am!", nobody would pay attention to them.

They are nothing here below (they at least feel this way), because they don't have the testimony of occupying a place in God’s heart. They find that the heavens are closed for them and that God doesn't want them, nor supports them.

If above all they take the towel, they will not only be poor, but rather they will appear poor. They won't only be small, but rather they will appear as such.

Peter intervenes

If after a lot of pondering, they do decide to humble themselves, if they have begun to wash the feet of other individuals who are smaller than them; if in that moment some Peter asks them: “Are you going to wash my feet?", they don't hesitate in stopping; before which, they find that it was the objection that they were waiting for; they feel that it confirms their apprehensions, and that it is what they need. Doesn't it help them avoid humiliation? Doesn't it honor their position before men?

For if they still harbor some doubt and that Peter insists, saying: you won't ever wash my feet," then they will confirm their doubt. With this, it finishes the hour (perhaps they were only a few minutes) of their humiliation and that of their exaltation begins. From there they will be willing to receive all the honor that comes in plain language.

There they will have lost the occasion of descending, and of giving a lesson in humility to others.

 In this way, the ego in the heart begins to settle down, with all their haughtiness, instead of enthroning Christ's spirit.

The Lord however, didn't do this. He must go down to the bottom in His descent, and He did it. Peter could not impede Him. Nothing must palliate the quota of His humiliation. He had to be an example. And He was, perfectly.

A call to commit

Jesus responded to Peter: –Unless I wash you, you have no part with me

The Lord’s answer was an order to commit. He was telling Peter: –If you don't let me wash you, then you don't know me.

If Peter had prevented the Lord from washing him, he could perfectly refuse later on to wash others. On the other hand, now that he had had to accept the Lord humbled before his feet; he too would have to do it for others. –Peter, commit or you won't have any part with me.

That same voice resonates for us. He has washed our feet, and we must wash others. He humbled himself before you, so you have to humble yourself before others. And those others will follow that example until arriving at the last disciple.

Judas as well

"When he had finished washing their feet, he put on his clothes and returned to the table…”

This sentence clearly indicates that Jesus fulfilled this task with all his disciples. But... with all of them?

Among the twelve there is one that looked on with irony at what Jesus did. His thoughts boiled inside. –See how the one they call the Son of God shines! Kneeling like the vilest of slaves!

It is Judas. Judas was also present! We can understand that Jesus washed the feet of the eleven, but must he also have washed those of Judas?

Those of Judas as well. To avoid this would have been very easy. It would be enough to tell him to go out some minute before. After all, he would quickly depart to hand Jesus over to the authorities. (John 13:27).

Why didn't He do this? It is because there was no limit to Christ's humiliation; so that no attempt of humiliation on our behalf would be superior to His; so that nobody would glorify himself, but Jesus alone.

To humble oneself before Peter could be relatively easy; to humble oneself before John, the dear disciple, as well. But, to humble oneself before the one that had to hand Him over?

There is no limit to the humiliation to which one who loves God and that follows Jesus will be willing to go to.

Copyright © AGUAS VIVAS | CHILE 2001