When he had finished washing their feet, he put on his clothes and returned to his place. “Do you understand what I have done for you?” he asked them. “You call me ‘Teacher’ and ‘Lord,’ and rightly so, for that is what I am. Now that I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also should wash one another’s feet. I have set you an example that you should do as I have done for you. Very truly I tell you, no servant is greater than his master, nor is a messenger greater than the one who sent him. Now that you know these things, you will be blessed if you do them.” (John 13:12–17 NIV)
A few years ago, a digital content creator went viral on social media for sharing a series of prints from The Footwashing Series.
This series of images featured Jesus washing the feet of individuals from diverse and differing backgrounds, lifestyles, and beliefs. My own social media feed was filled with reposting and resharing of this beautiful collection.
What these images did were challenge some of our own beliefs that aren’t always at the surface but hidden beneath who is deserving to sit on a chair and allow Jesus to wash their feet. We might have heard this story many times as kids growing up in church and allowed the belief to sink in that Jesus takes on the humble and gentle spirit to wash everyone’s feet, even the friend and follower that’s going to betray him and turn him over to the authorities for a punishment of death.
Over time, influences may have tainted our Sunday School, felt board image of who should be sitting and partaking in this foot washing. Instead of putting all the images of the individuals on the felt board, we set some of them aside, placing them in a folder, unsure if they ‘fit’ into this picture of who Jesus really is.
What The Footwashing Series – and even greater, what this Maundy Thursday passage of Scripture – invites us to do is see Jesus’s desire and invitation to wash the feet of all who respond to his invite. Jesus invites us, too, to take on this same posture of humility, grace, and service when we encounter every image bearer of God.
On this Maundy Thursday, this Holy Thursday, we can take a moment to pause and ponder who we’ve left out of the invitation. Who are the felt board images we’ve set off to the side to exclude from this invitation to be made new and welcomed into a relationship of forgiveness, mercy, and compassion? May we experience Jesus’s love with fresh eyes. May we be reminded that he desires to wash the feet of all who will receive his invitation.
April Wahl serves as the youth minister at Missio Church in Bismarck, North Dakota, and is a member of the NAB’s Women’s Connection Leadership Team.
