The story of Christ washing the disciples of the feet encapsulates many of the unique characteristics of Christ as Messiah. The actions and words show that he is a very different type of saviour to the one that they were expecting, he is not an all conquering David but rather a man who prefers subtle yet provocative acts of subversion.
First, the logistics of foot washing. Jesus gets up from the table, ties a towels around his waste and begins to wash the disciples feet. Now presumably at this point the disciples are still seated, so Jesus is kneeling at the feet of the disciples. They are above him looking down on him. Psalm 121 say: ‘I lift my eyes up to the hills, from where will my help come from?’ There is this sense of looking upwards to find God. Yet in this story we have the disciples not looking up to the heavens to find the messiah, but down to the earth. Down to the ground, the ground that Jesus walked on. Jesus is a different type of messiah, a messiah grounded in everyday human experience, grounded in his humanity, grounded in serving those around him.
The act of foot washing changes the perspective through which the disciples view the messiah. They are now looking down on him – a different physical perspective. It is interesting that the phrase ‘looking down-on-someone’ means that we don’t respect them, that we think we are better than them. And here Jesus willingly places himself in a location where he will be looked down upon, both literally and culturally. I can only think of one other person that looked down on Christ, that was Zaccheus, a short man, who was always looked down on, climbs a tree and looks down on the messiah. Jesus invites Zaccheus for dinner and immediately Jesus is looked down-on by the religious leaders of the time. Through the act of foot-washing the one in authority becomes the servant, and the one who is being served looks down on the one with authority. Christ subverting power structures and what it means to have authority.
Finally this act pulls me prematurely toward the cross. On the cross, a vulnerable broken man is looking down on all of humanity. But Christ is not looking down from a position of power, he is looking down from a place of brokenness. A man who ultimately has the power to take himself off the cross and raise himself above all of humanity in a mighty act of power, once again becomes a servant.
Tags: maundaythursday, power, subverstion
