C3 - The Washing of the Feet

After the teaching discourses that follow the account of Jesus’ entrance into Jerusalem, the Synoptic Gospels resume the narrative thread with a precise chronological indication that leads into the Last Supper.

Mark says at the very beginning of chapter 14: “It was now two days before the Passover and the feast of Unleavened Bread” (14:1). Then he recounts the anointing at Bethany and Judas’ conspiracy, and he continues: “On the first day of Unleavened Bread, when they sacrificed the Passover lamb, his disciples said to him, ‘Where will you have us go and prepare for you to eat the Passover?’ ” (14:12).

John, on the other hand, simply says: “Before the feast of the Passover … during supper” (13:1-2). The meal that John describes takes place “before the feast of the Passover”, whereas the Synoptics present the Last Supper as a Passover meal, and thus they appear to be using a chronology that differs from John’s by one day.

We will return to the much-debated questions about these differing chronologies and their theological significance when we consider Jesus’ Last Supper and the institution of the Eucharist.

The hour of Jesus

For now, let us focus on the Fourth Gospel, where we find two uniquely Johannine elements in the account of Jesus’ final evening with his disciples before the Passion. First, John tells us that Jesus administered the menial service of washing the disciples’ feet. In this context, he also recounts the prophecies of Judas’ betrayal and Peter’s denial. The second element consists of Jesus’ farewell discourse, culminating in the high-priestly prayer. These two key episodes will be considered in turn during the present chapter and the one following.

“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” (13:1). With the Last Supper, Jesus’ “hour” has arrived, the goal to which his ministry has been directed from the beginning (2:4). The essence of this hour is described by John with two key words: it is the hour of his “departing” (metabaínein / metábasis); it is the hour of the love that reaches to the end (agápe).

The two concepts shed light on one another and are inseparable. Love is the very process of passing over, of transformation, of stepping outside the limitations of fallen humanity - in which we are all separated from one another and ultimately impenetrable to one another - into an infinite otherness. “Love to the end” is what brings about the seemingly impossible metábasis: stepping outside the limits of one’s closed individuality, which is what agápe is - breaking through into the divine.

The “hour” of Jesus is the hour of the great stepping-beyond, the hour of transformation, and this metamorphosis of being is brought about through agápe. It is agápe “to the end” - and here John anticipates the final word of the dying Jesus: tetélestai - “it is finished” (19:30). This end (télos), this totality of self-giving, of remolding the whole of being - this is what it means to give oneself even unto death.

When Jesus speaks here, as elsewhere in John’s Gospel, of having come from the Father and of returning to him, one is perhaps reminded of the ancient model of exitus and reditus, of exit and return, such as we find in the philosophy of Plotinus in particular. Nevertheless, the going out and returning that John describes is something quite different from what is meant in the philosophical model. For Plotinus and his successors, the “going out”, which is their equivalent of the divine act of creation, is a descent that ultimately leads to a fall: from the height of the “one” down into ever lower regions of being. The return then consists in purification from the material sphere, in a gradual ascent, and in purifications that strip away again what is base and ultimately lead back to the unity of the divine.

Jesus’ going out, on the other hand, presupposes that creation is not a fall, but a positive act of God’s will. It is thus a movement of love, which in the process of descending demonstrates its true nature - motivated by love for the creature, love for the lost sheep - and so in descending it reveals what God is really like. On returning, Jesus does not strip away his humanity again as if it were a source of impurity. The goal of his descent was the adoption and assumption of all mankind, and his homecoming with all men is the homecoming of “all flesh”.

Something new happens in this return: Jesus does not return alone. He does not strip away the flesh, but draws all to himself (cf. Jn 12:32). The metábasis applies to all. If in the Prologue of John’s Gospel we read that “his own” (ídioi) did not accept him (cf. 1:11), we now hear that he loves “his own” to the end (cf. 13:1). In descending he has reassembled “his own” - the great family of God - from strangers he has made them “his own”.

Let us listen to the evangelist as he continues: Jesus “rose from supper, laid aside his garments, and tied a towel around himself. Then he poured water into a basin, and began to wash the disciples’ feet, and to wipe them with the towel that was tied around him” (Jn 13:4-5). Jesus performs for his disciples the service of a slave, he “emptied himself” (Phil 2:7).

What the Letter to the Philippians says in its great Christological hymn - namely, that unlike Adam, who had tried to grasp divinity for himself, Christ moves in the opposite direction, coming down from his divinity into humanity, taking the form of a servant and becoming obedient even to death on a cross (cf. 2:7-8) - all this is rendered visible in a single gesture. Jesus represents the whole of his saving ministry in one symbolic act. He divests himself of his divine splendor; he, as it were, kneels down before us; he washes and dries our soiled feet, in order to make us fit to sit at table for God’s wedding feast.

When we read in the Book of Revelation the paradoxical statement that the redeemed have “washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb” (Rev 7:14), the meaning is that Jesus’ love “to the end” is what cleanses us, washes us. The gesture of washing feet expresses precisely this: it is the servant-love of Jesus that draws us out of our pride and makes us fit for God, makes us “clean”.

“You are clean”

In the passage about the washing of the feet, the word “clean” occurs three times. John is drawing upon a fundamental concept of the religious tradition of the Old Testament and of world religions in general. If man is to enter God’s presence, to have fellowship with God, he must be “clean”. Yet the more he moves into the light, the more he senses how defiled he is, how much he stands in need of cleansing. Religions have therefore created systems of “purification”, intended to make it possible for man to approach God.

In the cultic ordering of all religions, purification regulations play a major part: they give man a sense of the holiness of God and of his own darkness, from which he must be liberated if he is to be able to approach God. The system of cultic purifications dominated the whole of life in observant Judaism at the time of Jesus. In chapter 7 of Mark’s Gospel, we encounter Jesus’ fundamental challenge to this concept of cultic purity obtained through ritual actions; and in Paul’s letters, the question of “purity” before God is repeatedly debated.

In Mark’s Gospel we see the radical transformation that Jesus brought to the concept of purity before God: it is not ritual actions that make us pure. Purity and impurity arise within man’s heart and depend on the condition of his heart (Mk 7:14-23).

Yet the question immediately presents itself: How does the heart become pure? Who are the pure in heart, those who can see God (Mt 5: 8)? Liberal exegesis has claimed that Jesus replaced the ritual concept of purity with a moral concept: in place of the cult and all that went with it, we have morality. In this view, Christianity is considered to be essentially about morality, a kind of moral “rearmament”. But this does not do justice to the radically new dimension of the New Testament.

Its newness becomes clear in the Acts of the Apostles when Peter takes issue with the former Pharisees in the Christian community who insist that Gentile Christians must be circumcised and must “keep the law of Moses”. Peter explains: God himself decided that “the Gentiles should hear the word of the gospel and believe … He made no distinction between us and them, but cleansed their hearts by faith” (15:5-11). Faith cleanses the heart. It is the result of God’s initiative toward man. It is not simply a choice that men make for themselves. Faith comes about because men are touched deep within by God’s Spirit, who opens and purifies their hearts.

This broad theme of purification, which is merely mentioned in passing in Peter’s address, is taken up and developed further by John both in the account of the washing of the feet and later, under the heading of “sanctification”, in Jesus’ high-priestly prayer. “You are already made clean by the word which I have spoken to you”, Jesus assures his disciples in the parable of the vine (Jn 15:3). It is his word that penetrates them, transforms their intellect, their will, their “heart”, and opens it up in such a way that it becomes a seeing heart.

In our reflection on the high-priestly prayer, we will encounter this idea again, albeit expressed in slightly different terms, when Jesus prays: “Sanctify them in the truth” (Jn 17:17). In priestly terminology, “to sanctify” means to render fit for divine worship. The word designates the ritual actions that the priest must carry out before he enters the presence of God. “Sanctify them in the truth” - Jesus here gives us to understand that the truth is now the “bath” that makes men fit for God. They must be immersed in it in order to be freed from the impurity that separates them from God. In this regard, we must remember that the truth John has in mind here is no abstract concept: he knows that Jesus himself is the truth.

In chapter 13 of the Gospel, it is the washing of feet by Jesus that serves as the way of purification. Here we encounter the same idea once again, but from a different perspective. The bath that cleanses us is Jesus’ love to the point of death. Jesus’ word is more than a word; it is his very self. His word is truth, and it is love.

Essentially Paul is expressing this same idea in a more roundabout way when he says, “We are now justified by his blood” (Rom 5:9; cf. Rom 3:25, Eph 1:7 et al.). And the same thing reappears in the exalted vision of Jesus’ high priesthood that is set forth in the Letter to the Hebrews. In place of ritual purity, what we have now is not merely morality, but the gift of encounter with God in Jesus Christ.

Once again the comparison with Platonic philosophies of late antiquity suggests itself, philosophies that, as we saw in the case of Plotinus, revolve around the theme of purification. This purification is obtained, on the one hand, through ritual actions, but also and especially through man’s gradual ascent to the heights of God. In this way man purifies himself from matter, becoming spirit and, hence, pure.

For the Christian faith, though, it is the incarnate God who makes us truly pure and draws creation into unity with God. Nineteenth-century piety brought back a one-sided notion of purity by reducing it to the sexual sphere, thereby burdening it once again with suspicion of material things, of the body. In terms of mankind’s broader search for purity, Saint John’s Gospel - and Jesus himself - shows us the way: he who is both God and man makes us fit for God. Being incorporated into his body, being pervaded by his presence is what matters.

Perhaps it is worth mentioning at this point that the shift in meaning of the notion of purity brought about by Jesus’ message is a further illustration of what was said in chapter 2 about the end of the animal sacrifices, about worship and the new Temple. Just as the old sacrifices pointed toward the future that was awaited, receiving light and dignity from that eagerly anticipated future, so too the whole question of ritual purity associated with this worship was likewise - as the Fathers would say - “sacramentum futuri”: a stage in the history of God with men, and of men with God, straining forward to the future, but obliged to step aside once the hour of the new had actually come.

Sacramentum and exemplum: The “new commandment”

Let us return to chapter 13 of Saint John’s Gospel. “You are clean”, says Jesus to his disciples. The gift of purity is an act of God. Man cannot make himself fit for God, whatever systems of purification he may follow. “You are clean” - in Jesus’ wonderfully simple statement, the grandeur of the mystery of Christ is somehow encapsulated. It is the God who comes down to us who makes us clean. Purity is a gift.

Yet an objection springs to mind. A few verses later, Jesus says: “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 as I have done to you” (Jn 13:14-15). Does this not after all suggest a purely moral conception of Christianity?

Rudolf Schnackenburg, as it happens, speaks of two opposing interpretations of the foot-washing in chapter 13: the first is “theologically more profound and in it the washing of the feet is seen as a symbolic action pointing to Jesus’ death. The second is paradigmatic and is centered on the humble service of Jesus - itself based on the washing of the disciples’ feet” (The Gospel according to Saint John III, p. 7). Schnackenburg holds that the second interpretation is an “editorial formation”, and in his view “the second interpretation seems to have nothing to do with the first” (p. 12, cf. p. 24). But this is too narrow an approach, too closely tied to the thought patterns of our Western logic. For John, Jesus’ gift and his subsequent ministry among the disciples form a unity.

The Fathers expressed the difference between these two aspects, as well as their mutual relationship, using the categories of sacramentum and exemplum: by sacramentum they mean, not any particular sacrament, but rather the entire mystery of Christ - his life and death - in which he draws close to us, enters us through his Spirit, and transforms us. But precisely because this sacramentum truly “cleanses” us, renewing us from within, it also unleashes a dynamic of new life. The command to do as Jesus did is no mere moral appendix to the mystery, let alone an antithesis to it. It follows from the inner dynamic of gift with which the Lord renews us and draws us into what is his.

This essential dynamic of gift, through which he now acts in us and our action becomes one with his, is seen with particular clarity in Jesus’ saying: “He who believes in me will also do the works that I do; and greater works than these will he do, because I go to the Father” (Jn 14:12). This expresses exactly what is meant by “I have given you an example” from the account of the foot-washing: Jesus’ action becomes ours, because he is acting in us.

On this basis we can understand the teaching about the “new commandment”. After an interlude devoted to Judas’ betrayal, Jesus returns to his instruction to the disciples to wash one another’s feet, and he applies it more widely (13:34-35.). What is new about the new commandment? Since this question ultimately concerns the “newness” of the New Testament, that is to say, the “essence of Christianity”, it is important to be very attentive.

It has been argued that the new element - moving beyond the earlier commandment to love one’s neighbor - is revealed in the saying “love as I have loved you”, in other words, loving to the point of readiness to lay down one’s life for the other. If this were the specific and exclusive content of the “new commandment”, then Christianity could after all be defined as a form of extreme moral effort. This is how many commentators explain the Sermon on the Mount: in contrast to the old way of the Ten Commandments - the way of the average man, one might say - Christianity, through the Sermon on the Mount, opens up the high way that is radical in its demands, revealing a new level of humanity to which men can aspire.

And yet who could possibly claim to have risen above the “average” way of the Ten Commandments, to have left them behind as self-evident, so to speak, and now to walk along the exalted paths of the “new law”? No, the newness of the new commandment cannot consist in the highest moral attainment. Here, too, the essential point is not the call to supreme achievement, but the new foundation of being that is given to us. The newness can come only from the gift of being-with and being-in Christ.

Saint Augustine actually began his exegesis of the Sermon on the Mount - his first cycle of homilies after priestly ordination - with the idea of a higher ethos, loftier and purer norms. But in the course of the homilies, the center of gravity shifts more and more. In a number of places he has to acknowledge that the older morality was already marked by a genuine completeness. With increasing clarity, preparation of the heart comes to replace the idea of the higher demand (cf. De Serm. Dom. in Monte I, 19, 59); the “pure heart” (cf. Mt 5:8) becomes more and more the focus of the exegesis. Over half of the entire cycle of homilies is shaped in terms of this basic idea of the purified heart. Hence the connection with the washing of the feet becomes visible in a surprising way: only by letting ourselves be repeatedly cleansed, “made pure”, by the Lord himself can we learn to act as he did, in union with him.

It all depends on our “I” being absorbed into his (“it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me” - Gal 2:20). This is why the second constantly recurring keyword in Augustine’s exegesis of the Sermon on the Mount is misericordia - mercy. We must let ourselves be immersed in the Lord’s mercy, then our “hearts”, too, will discover the right path. The “new commandment” is not simply a new and higher demand: it is linked to the newness of Jesus Christ - to growing immersion in him.

Taking this line of argument farther, Thomas Aquinas observed: “The new law is the grace of the Holy Spirit” (Summa Theologiae I - II, q. 106, a. 1) - not a new norm, but the new interiority granted by the Spirit of God himself. This spiritual experience of the truly new element in Christianity was what Augustine succinctly expressed in the famous formula: “Da quod iubes et iube quod vis” (give what you command and command what you will; Conf. X, 29, 40).

The gift - the sacramentum - becomes an exemplum, an example, while always remaining a gift. To be a Christian is primarily a gift, which then unfolds in the dynamic of living and acting in and around the gift.

The mystery of the betrayer

The account of the washing of the feet presents us with two different human responses to this gift, exemplified by Judas and Peter. Immediately after the exhortation to follow his example, Jesus begins to speak of Judas. John tells us in this regard that Jesus was troubled in spirit and testified: “Truly, truly, I say to you, one of you will betray me” (13:21).

John speaks three times of Jesus’ being “troubled”: beside the grave of Lazarus (11:33, 38), on “Palm Sunday” after the saying about the dying grain of wheat in a scene reminiscent of Gethsemane (12:24-27), and finally here. These are moments when Jesus encounters the majesty of death and rubs against the might of darkness, which it is his task to wrestle with and overcome. We shall return to this “troubling” of Jesus’ spirit when we consider the night spent on the Mount of Olives.

Let us return to our text. Understandably, the prophecy of the betrayal produces agitation and curiosity among the disciples. “One of his disciples, whom Jesus loved, was lying close to the breast of Jesus: so Simon Peter beckoned to him and said, ‘Tell us who it is of whom he speaks.’ So lying thus, close to the breast of Jesus, he said to him: ‘Lord, who is it?’ Jesus answered: ‘It is he to whom I shall give this morsel when I have dipped it’ ” (13:23-26).

In order to understand this text, it should be noted first of all that reclining at table was prescribed for the Passover meal. Charles K. Barrett explains the verse just quoted as follows: “Persons taking part in a meal reclined on the left side; the left arm was used to support the body, the right was free for use. The disciple to the right of Jesus would thus find his head immediately in front of Jesus and might accordingly be said to lie in his bosom. Evidently he would be in a position to speak intimately with Jesus, but his was not the place of greatest honor; this was to the left of the host. The place occupied by the beloved disciple was nevertheless the place of a trusted friend”; Barrett then makes reference to a passage from Pliny (The Gospel according to Saint John, p. 446).

Jesus’ answer, as given here, is quite unambiguous. Yet the evangelist says that the disciples still did not understand whom he meant. So we must assume that John retrospectively attributed a clarity to the Lord’s answer that it lacked at the time for those present. John 13:18 brings us onto the right track. Here Jesus says, “The Scripture must be fulfilled: ‘He who ate my bread has lifted his heel against me’ ” (cf. Ps 41:9; Ps 55:13). This is Jesus’ classic way of speaking: he alludes to his destiny using words from Scripture, thereby locating it directly within God’s logic, within the logic of salvation history.

At a later stage, these words become fully transparent; it is seen that Scripture really does describe the path he is to tread - but for now the enigma remains. All that can be deduced at this point is that one of those at table will betray Jesus; it is clear that the Lord will have to endure to the end and to the last detail the suffering of the just, for which the Psalms in particular provide many different expressions. Jesus must experience the incomprehension and the infidelity even of those within his innermost circle of friends and, in this way, “fulfill the Scripture”. He is revealed as the true subject of the Psalms, the “David” from whom they come and through whom they acquire meaning.

John gives a new depth to the psalm verse with which Jesus spoke prophetically of what lay ahead, since instead of the expression given in the Greek Bible for “eating”, he chooses the verb trogein, the word used by Jesus in the great “bread of life” discourse for “eating” his flesh and blood, that is, receiving the sacrament of the Eucharist (Jn 6: 54-58). So the psalm verse casts a prophetic shadow over the Church of the evangelist’s own day, in which the Eucharist was celebrated, and indeed over the Church of all times: Judas’ betrayal was not the last breach of fidelity that Jesus would suffer. “Even my bosom friend, in whom I trusted, who ate my bread, has lifted his heel against me” (Ps 41:9). The breach of friendship extends into the sacramental community of the Church, where people continue to take “his bread” and to betray him.

Jesus’ agony, his struggle against death, continues until the end of the world, as Blaise Pascal said on the basis of similar considerations (cf. Pensées VII, 553). We could also put it the other way around: at this hour, Jesus took upon himself the betrayal of all ages, the pain caused by betrayal in every era, and he endured the anguish of history to the bitter end.

John does not offer any psychological interpretation of Judas’ conduct. The only clue he gives is a hint that Judas had helped himself to the contents of the disciples’ money box, of which he had charge (12:6). In the context of chapter 13, the evangelist merely says laconically: “Then after the morsel, Satan entered into him” (13:27).

For John, what happened to Judas is beyond psychological explanation. He has come under the dominion of another. Anyone who breaks off friendship with Jesus, casting off his “easy yoke”, does not attain liberty, does not become free, but succumbs to other powers. To put it another way, he betrays this friendship because he is in the grip of another power to which he has opened himself.

True, the light shed by Jesus into Judas’ soul was not completely extinguished. He does take a step toward conversion: “I have sinned”, he says to those who commissioned him. He tries to save Jesus, and he gives the money back (Mt 27:3-5). Everything pure and great that he had received from Jesus remained inscribed on his soul - he could not forget it.

His second tragedy - after the betrayal - is that he can no longer believe in forgiveness. His remorse turns into despair. Now he sees only himself and his darkness; he no longer sees the light of Jesus, which can illumine and overcome the darkness. He shows us the wrong type of remorse: the type that is unable to hope, that sees only its own darkness, the type that is destructive and in no way authentic. Genuine remorse is marked by the certainty of hope born of faith in the superior power of the light that was made flesh in Jesus.

John concludes the passage about Judas with these dramatic words: “After receiving the morsel, he immediately went out; and it was night” (13:30). Judas goes out - in a deeper sense. He goes into the night; he moves out of light into darkness: the “power of darkness” has taken hold of him (cf. Jn 3:19; Lk 22:53).

Two conversations with Peter

In the case of Judas, we encountered the perennial danger that even those “who have once been enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift, and have become partakers of the Holy Spirit” (Heb 6:4) can perish spiritually through a series of seemingly small infidelities, ultimately passing from the light into the night, where they are no longer capable of conversion. In Peter we encounter another danger, that of a fall which is not definitive and which can therefore be healed through conversion.

John 13 recounts two exchanges between Jesus and Peter, in which two aspects of this danger become visible. Initially, Peter does not want to have his feet washed by Jesus. This goes against his understanding of the relationship between master and disciple and against his image of the Messiah, whom he recognizes in Jesus. His resistance to the foot-washing has ultimately the same meaning as his protest against Jesus’ prophecy of the Passion after the great confession at Caesarea Philippi: “God forbid, Lord! This shall never happen to you” was how he put it on that occasion (Mt 16:22).

Now, from a similar standpoint, he says: “You shall never wash my feet” (Jn 13:8). It is the response to Jesus that we find throughout history: You are the victor, you are the strong one - you must not lower yourself or practice humility! Again and again Jesus has to help us recognize anew that God’s power is different, that the Messiah must pass through suffering into glory and must lead others along the same path.

In the second exchange, which comes after Judas’ departure and the teaching on the new commandment, the theme is martyrdom. It is expressed in terms of “going away”, “going across” (hypágo). Jesus had spoken on two occasions in John’s Gospel about “going away” to a place where the Jews could not come (7:34-36; 8:21-22). His hearers had tried to work out what he meant by this, and they had arrived at two different hypotheses. On the first occasion, they asked: “Does he intend to go to the Dispersion among the Greeks and teach the Greeks? ” (7:35). And the second time: “Will he kill himself?” (8:22). In both cases, they have an inkling of what is meant, yet they completely miss the truth. Yes, his going away is a going unto death - yet not through suicide: rather, he transforms his violent death into the free offering of his life (cf. 10:18). And in the same way Jesus did not actually travel to Greece, yet through the Cross and Resurrection he did effectively come to the Greeks, and he revealed the Father, the living God, to the Gentile world.

During the washing of the feet, in the atmosphere of farewell that pervades the scene, Peter asks his master quite openly: “Lord, where are you going?” And again he receives a cryptic answer: “Where I am going you cannot follow me now; but you shall follow afterward” (13:36). Peter understands that Jesus is speaking of his imminent death, and he now wants to emphasize his radical fidelity even unto death: “Why can I not follow you now? I will lay down my life for you” (13:37). Indeed, shortly afterward on the Mount of Olives, he rushes in with his sword, ready to put his intention into effect. But he must learn that even martyrdom is no heroic achievement: rather, it is a grace to be able to suffer for Jesus. He must bid farewell to the heroism of personal deeds and learn the humility of the disciple. His desire to rush in - his heroism - leads to his denial. In order to secure his place by the fire in the forecourt of the high priest’s palace, and in order to keep abreast of every development in Jesus’ destiny as it happens, he claims not to know him. His heroism falls to pieces in a small-minded tactic. He must learn to await his hour. He must learn how to wait, how to persevere. He must learn the way of the disciple in order to be led, when his hour comes, to the place where he does not want to go (cf. Jn 21:18) and to receive the grace of martyrdom.

The two exchanges are essentially about the same thing: not telling God what to do, but learning to accept him as he reveals himself to us; not seeking to exalt ourselves to God’s level, but in humble service letting ourselves be slowly refashioned into God’s true image.

Washing of feet and confession of sin

As we conclude, we must consider one final detail from the account of the washing of the feet. After the Lord has explained to Peter the necessity of having his feet washed, Peter answers: if this be the case, then Jesus should wash not only his feet, but his hands and his head as well. Jesus’ answer is once again enigmatic: “He who has bathed does not need to wash, except for his feet” (13:10). What does this mean?

Jesus evidently takes for granted that before coming to the meal, the disciples have already had a complete bath, so that at table it is only their feet that need to be washed. It is clear that John sees a deeper symbolic meaning in these words, which is not easy to recognize. Let us remind ourselves straightaway that the washing of feet - as argued above - is not an individual sacrament, but it signifies the whole of Jesus’ saving ministry: the sacramentum of his love into which he immerses us in faith, his love, which is our true bath of purification.

Yet in this context, the washing of feet acquires another more concrete meaning, over and above its fundamental symbolism, one that points to the practicalities of life in the early Church. What is it? The complete bath that was taken for granted can only mean Baptism, by which man is immersed into Christ once and for all, acquiring his new identity as one who dwells in Christ. This fundamental event, by which we become Christians not through our own doing but through the action of the Lord in his Church, cannot be repeated. Yet in the life of Christians - for table fellowship with the Lord - it constantly requires completion: “washing of feet”. What is this? There is no single undisputed answer. Yet it seems to me that the First Letter of John points us in the right direction and shows us what is meant. There we read: “If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just, and will forgive our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us” (1:8-10). Since even the baptized remain sinners, they need confession of sins, “which cleanses us from all unrighteousness”.

This word “cleanse” signals the inner connection with the foot-washing passage. The same practice of confession of sin, which originally came from Judaism, is also mentioned in the Letter of James (5:16), as well as the Didache. There we read: “In church, make confession of your faults” (4, 14) and again, “Assemble on the Lord’s day, and break bread and offer the Eucharist; but first make confession of your faults” (14, 1). In this regard, Franz Mussner, following Rudolf Knopf, says: “In both places a short, public, individual confession is envisaged” (Jakobusbrief, p. 226, n. 5). Admittedly, one cannot equate this confession of sin, found in the life of early Christian communities in areas influenced by Jewish Christianity, with the sacrament of Confession as it was to develop in the course of later Church history: it is merely a “step on the way” toward it (ibid., p. 226).

The point is this: guilt must not be allowed to fester in the silence of the soul, poisoning it from within. It needs to be confessed. Through confession, we bring it into the light, we place it within Christ’s purifying love (cf. Jn 3:20-21). In confession, the Lord washes our soiled feet over and over again and prepares us for table fellowship with him.

Looking back over the whole chapter on the washing of the feet, we may say that in this humble gesture, expressing the entire ministry of Jesus’ life and death, the Lord stands before us as the servant of God - he who for our sake became one who serves, who carries our burden and so grants us true purity, the capacity to draw close to God. In the second Suffering Servant Song from Isaiah, there is a phrase that in some sense anticipates the essence of John’s theology of the Passion: The Lord “said to me, ‘You are my servant, Israel, in whom I will be glorified’ ” (49:3; the Greek word in the Septuagint version is doxasthesomai).

Indeed, Saint John’s whole Passion narrative is built on this connection between humble service and glory (dôxa): it is in Jesus’ downward path, in his abasement even to the Cross, that God’s glory is seen, that the Father and, in him, Jesus are glorified. In a brief scene on “Palm Sunday” - in what might be termed the Johannine version of the Gethsemane story - all this is summed up:“ ‘Now is my soul troubled. And what shall I say? “Father, save me from this hour”? No, for this purpose I have come to this hour. Father, glorify your name.’ Then a voice came from heaven, ‘I have glorified it, and I will glorify it again’ ” (12:27-28). The hour of the Cross is the hour of the Father’s true glory, the hour of Jesus’ true glory.