The basin, the towel, and one new command

On the last night of his life, hours before his arrest, Jesus gathered his closest friends for a final meal. Knowing, John writes, that the Father had given all things into his hands, he did something with all that authority that no one in the room could process. He got up from the table, tied a towel around himself, poured water into a basin, and began washing his disciples' feet.

Foot washing was the job of the lowest servant in the household. Nobody's rabbi did it. And sit with this detail until it staggers you properly: Judas was still in the room. Jesus knew exactly what Judas would do before midnight, and he knelt and washed his feet anyway. He did not only teach love your enemies. He bathed the feet of his betrayer.

Then he stood up and gave them his final command, the one he chose for the last night:

I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.

John 13:34-35

By this everyone will know. Not by your arguments, your correctness, or your credentials. The identifying badge of his people, chosen by him, is love of the kind he had just demonstrated on his knees with a towel.

That same night he tied it all together: if you love me, you will keep my commandments. And he made a promise for every day after he was gone, that they would not be walking this road on their own power:

But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you everything and remind you of all that I have said to you.

John 14:26

A helper, a teacher, a reminder, from the inside. Those who love him and keep his word, he added, will find that the Father and the Son make their home with them. Not a visit. A home.

Tomorrow: midnight in a garden, and the hardest prayer ever prayed.