John answered, saying to all,
"I indeed baptize you with water;
but One mightier than I is coming,
whose sandal strap I am not worthy to loose..."
- Luke 3:16a
Blessed is that servant whom his master will find
so doing when he returns.
- Matthew 24:46
Where I live, it is normal for households to have one or more domestic helpers.
The domestic helper may be a young woman in her late teens, or a middle-aged woman in her fifties. Many families also have young men in their employ, working as drivers, assistant cooks, or gardeners.
They usually come from the rural farm areas where families are poor and the monthly wages earned by a son or a daughter working as a domestic helper goes a long way.
It is a give and take relationship. The servant girl, called a "maid," needs the job, and the family that she works for needs her precious services.
In a sense, the domestic helper becomes a part of the family, where she gets her own room, and is given free meals on top of her monthly wages.
But the work is not easy. From sun up till sun down there is work to be done, and the maidservant only gets to rest when the master finally goes to sleep.
Servanthood is never easy.
In olden times, a servant was required to do everything he could to make his master's life easy and comfortable. He was at the beck and call of the one he served.
It has been said that there were degrees of servanthood. The lowest ranking servant was called a menial.
In the middle-eastern culture of Jesus' time, menials were assigned the duty of washing the feet of guests before they entered the home. There were no cars in those days, and traveling was mostly done on foot. There were no paved streets either, just dusty roads made of gravel, dirt, and sand.
We can just imagine what a menial servant's work was like. Untying sandal straps, removing the dusty sandals, and washing dirty feet.
At the last supper, the twelve apostles and Jesus had gathered at the Upper Room to partake of their last meal together. As they entered the room, there must have been an uncomfortable silence as they began to take their places around the table and begin eating supper. There was no menial around, so they had all entered the house with dirty feet.
After supper ends, the unthinkable happens... we know the story by heart.
Jesus puts a towel around his waist, gets a jar of water, a basin, and begins to kneel in front of each of his disciples to wash their feet.
Jesus was their master, someone they held in high esteem, a rabbi they looked up to. They honestly thought He would be the King that they had all been waiting for.
So what was He doing on the floor, doing the job of a menial?
I have often thought of that night... how Jesus in all humility lays aside his outer garments and girds himself with a towel, and stoops down to do what none of the others had thought of doing.
John 13 begins this story with a very beautiful line: "... he loved them to the end." I love how an earlier version of the NIV puts it this way: "He showed them the full extent of His love."
This was the way Jesus showed them the full extent of His love... by washing their feet, just as a menial manservant would.
I understand that the act of washing another's feet is such a sign of humility. For us today, it would be very uncomfortable to have somebody else washing our feet. We think so because we regard it as a job beneath anyone's dignity to have to do.
I am sure we all have a clear understanding of just what foot washing really implies.
On the first night of our fourth Scarf Sisters' reunion, we were all gathered at Donna's cozy home in Canandaigua. The Canada girls, Terry, Betty, and Rachel, together with Cindy from Florida, had arrived and were finishing their meal.
In a soft voice, Cathy explained that she wanted to begin this year's reunion with a symbolic act... a foot-washing service.
I offered to share a few personal thoughts about footwashing.
When the people asked John the Baptist if he was the Christ that everyone had been waiting for, his humble reply, in effect, went like this, "I am definitely not the Christ. He is much greater... so great that I am not worthy to loosen the thongs of His sandals."
Untying sandal straps was a job assigned to the lowest ranking servant... and yet John said he would not be worthy to untie the sandals on Jesus' feet.
What a humble attitude John had. Yet even more humble was the heart of Jesus... for He was the Master, and here He was, untying everyone else's sandals and washing their dirty feet!
And that night, as Cathy knelt on the floor to wash each of our feet... we were all silent, taking in the beautiful symbolism of the act of humility and love that Cathy showed each one of us.
Even if it was just a symbolic foot-washing, slightly wetting the top of our feet, and then wiping them dry with a paper towel, still the significance of the moment was not lost on us.
It was so sacred, so beautiful... and we all felt the presence of the Lord in our midst. When Cathy came to the last pair of feet, something in me stirred. A question in my heart quickly came, "Who is going to wash Cathy's feet?" And the answer came as quickly as I thought of the question, "I will."
Doing that completed the circle. All our feet were washed, and we all felt, somehow, a deeper sense of bonding and love.
What a beautiful way to begin the reunion. For indeed, we had all traveled from faraway places.
Figuratively, and literally.
Terry, Betty and Rachel had come all the way from Canada.
Cindy had come from Florida.
Cheryl had come from Georgia.
Deb had driven a long way, not an easy thing to do under her present physical condition, all the way from Pennsylvania.
Cathy had left her house before dawn and had several connecting flights before reaching upstate New York.
Pat had arrived a few days earlier to be with Donna in the final preparations, from Michigan.
Donna had been traveling back and forth the past months, being the gracious hostess of this year's reunion.
And me... well I had come all the way from the Philippines, the other side of the globe.
I am sure many of us were excited, and looking forward to this important event... but yes, we were tired and would have enjoyed the comfort of a foot spa.
Well we had our foot-washing.
What a fitting start to our get-together.
Beautiful feet... being washed in a beautiful, meaningful, symbolic act of foot-washing.
Guess what arrived in the mail a few days ago!
A parcel from Donna containing a pair of brand new mismatched socks...
a beautiful blue scarf (blue is my favorite color)...
and a lovely card.
I am really delighted to be given an opportunity to wear mismatched socks, and to have a photo taken, just like the rest of you!
Below is a song we used to sing at our church... a song I really love. It came to mind as I was beginning to do this post, and I think the message for each of us is really beautiful. I also posted a video of it at the end. Hope you will find time to listen to it, and be blessed!
The Servant Song
(Richard Gillard)
Brother let me be a servant
Let me be as Christ to you
Pray that I might have the grace
To let you be my servant, too
We are pilgrims on a journey
We are brothers on the road
We are here to help each other
Walk the mile and bear the load
I will hold the Christ light for you
In the night time of your fear
I will hold my hand out to you
Speak the peace you long to hear
I will weep when you are weeping
When you laugh I'll laugh with you
I will share your joy and sorrow
Till we've seen this journey through
When we sing to God in heaven,
We shall find such harmony
Born of all we've known together
Of Christ's love and agony.
