One commentator says in the first three Gospels, we sort of have a view of bystanders, watching what Jesus does and says from the outside mostly. But the Gospel of John is different. John is written by the disciple whom Jesus loved, as John tells it. John Calvin, the famous reformer from Switzerland, said the first three Gospels show us his acts. The Gospel of John show us his soul. And now that we're entering this section of chapters 13, 14, 15, 16, and 17, we are going to see things that no other Gospel records. Jesus has his disciples in the upper room. He knows what's going to happen. The Word tells us, Jesus, knowing the Father, had given all things into his hands that he had come from God and was going back to God, he knew what was going to happen. He was aware of the trial he was about to face. He was facing arrest very soon. He was going to face a mock trial, we would say in our modern parlance at Kangaroo Court. He would face betrayal by his own disciples, especially Peter as recorded in the Gospels. He was going to be tortured. And then finally he was going to be crucified. And as the Old and New Testaments say, cursed is him who hangs on a tree. So all of the sin of the world, all of the curse of mankind from our sin was going to be laid on him at the cross. And during that crucifixion, he would experience separation from his Father in heaven with whom he had been united from all of eternity in the deepest, most complete love relationship that there could be between Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. And finally his descent into hell. And he knew this was coming. And he knew what his disciples would have to face as well. So he's preparing for warfare, for spiritual warfare. He's preparing his disciples for the war which is to come. Now what is astonishing about this is that his preparation of his disciples is not what we would expect. See the 11, not counting Judas Iscariot who would betray him, the 11 that were left, plus Paul would face severe persecution. In fact all of them would die painful martyr's deaths except for John. Now for some reason John didn't die even though he was boiled in oil. But all the rest of them died. They died horrible deaths. Peter himself was crucified upside down. One of the disciples was belayed. They all experienced persecution, torment, and death for preaching and teaching the gospel. And Jesus is preparing them for that. And it occurred to me to look at some speeches from other people who were preparing for war. One came to mind was Prime Minister of England Winston Churchill before World War II with the Nazis. He said, we have before us an ordeal of the most grievous kind. We have before us many, many long months of struggle and suffering. You ask what is our policy? I can say it is to wage war by sea, land, and air with all our might, with all our strength that God can give to us to wage war against the monstrous tyranny never surpassed and the dark lamentable catalog of human crime. That is our policy. That sounds like somebody that we would expect to deliver a speech if they were preparing the people for war. Another one that came to mind, I don't know if this really took place exactly like this is from the movie Brave Heart. William Wallace delivers these words to those fighting for Scotland's freedom. He rides up and he says, sons of Scotland, I am William Wallace. One young soldier says, William Wallace is seven feet tall. He says, yes, I've heard, kills men by the hundred and if he were here he consumed the English with fireballs from his eyes and bolts of lightning. I am William Wallace and I see a whole army of my countrymen here in defiance of tyranny. You have come to fight as free men and free men you are. What would you do without freedom? Will you fight? One of the older soldiers says, fight against that? No, we will run and we will live. Wallace responds, I fight and you may die. Run and you'll live at least for a while. And dying in your beds many years from now would you be willing to trade all the days from this day to that one chance, that one chance to come back here and tell our enemies that they may take our lives but they will never take our freedom. And then everybody responds, Alba Gubra, which translated means Scotland forever. Other speeches are similar, Henry V, St. Crispin's speech. So that's sort of I guess what you would expect, Jesus to have that kind of emphatic, motivating speech to his disciples to prepare them for what was to come. That's not what happens. He washes their feet. He tells them they don't understand what he is doing but later they will. Now John uses the word understand multiple times and repetition in the Hebrew culture is an indicator. This particular word understand that's chosen in the original language is you will not understand until later. Now when a word is used repeatedly we are either unaware that we're doing it or we can't think of another word. Either we're unaware that we're doing it. I know a lot of people use words over and over again. This one show that I watch called Mountain Men. This one particular person says the last thing I need is and what that reminded me of is my kids laughing at me because I used to say that over and over again. The last thing we need and then I would whatever it was. They would say here we go again. That's not the case here. All I mean John is using the word understand purposely. Now our understanding is increased if we read the Bible over and over again. I know at the beginning of the year I've sent out a list of different plans that you can have to read your Bible in a year. Now if you haven't started that's okay. You can start now beginning of February. You can go through the end of January of next year. But it's important to read your Bible over and over again. It increases our understanding. Sinclair Ferguson said it's like looking at a painting. A Van Gogh or a Rembrandt. You can look at it for three minutes and say yeah I've seen it okay and you walk away. I see it. I know what it is. I understand it. No you don't. You don't. With a great painting you have to come back and come back again and come back again and then you begin to notice details. Brush strokes. Light and dark. Maybe a background figure. In the Prodigal Son painting. There's a painting of the Prodigal Son coming back to his father and the Prodigal Son is kneeling. The father has his arm around him and there's some background characters that are watching the event. And if you look at it the first time you may not notice but in the back in the shadows is a particular figure and it's actually the face of Rembrandt himself. So what does that have to do with this passage we're reading? Well there's a detail that we probably miss. That Jesus gets up during supper and that's just not right. It says during supper when the devil had already put it into the heart of Judas Iscariot, Simon's son to betray him, Jesus knowing that the father had given all things into his hands, that he had come from God and was going back to God, rose from supper, he laid aside his outer garments and taking a towel, tied it around his waist. Then he poured water into a basin. He began to wash the disciples' feet and to wipe them with the towel that was wrapped around him. Why is that noteworthy? One commentator said it's obvious that something here is amiss but what is it? What is amiss? It's that Jesus gets up during supper to wash feet. Why is that strange? Well imagine you've invited some people to your home and here in Nova Scotia at this time of year, it's winter, they're going to arrive with their coats on. And when they come in to your home with their coats on, what do you say? What do you say? Can I take your coat? That happens every time I go to somebody's home here and they say can I take your coat? It would be very strange, wouldn't it, to have people sit down for dinner, seven or eight or ten or however many there are, and they're all wearing their coats. That would be odd. Well it's the same thing here, only it's the foot washing. You see in that culture people wore sandals. They didn't have paved roads, they were dusty and there were things which caused their feet to get dirty and maybe even stink. So it was customary when people arrived at your home for a meal that someone would wash their feet. Only a servant would wash their feet. So here they are sitting at dinner with dirty, sweaty, stinky feet. Nobody's washed them. So Jesus gets up to wash their feet. It means it hasn't been done. It means that when the disciples arrived, nobody took the responsibility of washing feet. I won't embarrass him by mentioning his name, but I've noticed that when we arrived here one of your deacons was outside shoveling snow. My guess is nobody had to ask him to. He just did it. He was considered a lowly and menial job to wash feet. And you remember the disciples had entered into more than one argument about who was the greatest. Mark chapter 9 and verse 33, they came to Capernaum and when he was in the house he asked them, what were you discussing on the way? But they kept silent for on the way they had argued with one another about who was the greatest. And he sat down and called the 12 and he said to them, if anyone would be first, he must be last of all and servant of all. And he took a child and put him in the midst of them and taking him in his arms, he said to them, whoever receives one such child in my name receives me and whoever receives me receives not me, but him who sent me. I remember a story about a professor, one of my professors, he told the story. He grew up in the church. It was a pretty big church. He had been a lifetime Presbyterian, generations of elders had gone before him in his family. His father was an elder. And so when he went into the ministry they hired him there at that church as an assistant pastor. He said he had to learn the ministry and they made him learn it from the bottom up. He said, this is a quote, I started at the bottom of the barrel in the nursery. I won't mention his name. I remember asking someone in our church who's no longer here to serve in some way. I approached the person. I wasn't going to ask them to work in the nursery, but they said, I know you're going to ask me to help in the nursery. I'm not going to do that. Bottom of the barrel. See Jesus said, whoever receives a child in my name receives me and whoever receives me receives not me, but him who sent me. So working in the nursery is not the bottom of the barrel. It's as high of a calling as there is in any church to be responsible for the health, well-being and souls of our littlest ones. So nobody had washed the feet of those gathered for dinner. And it's an indication that the disciples really didn't understand who they are or who Jesus is. Jesus helps them to understand by washing their feet, including Judas Iscariot. Then he asked them to do it. You see real Christian believers wash the feet of others, literally and metaphorically. See it's not the bottom of the barrel to serve each other. I was watching a nature show, I've mentioned to you all many times that I like nature shows and it was a David Attenborough thing about wolf packs. And he showed, had a film of a large pack of wolves and they were all in a line and they were walking through the snowy woods. And he said, can you guess which one is the alpha, the alpha male, the leader of the pack? He said you would think it would be the one at the front, but it isn't. At the front are some strong male wolves. To be there to encounter any danger. Behind them are some more male wolves, stronger but not as strong as the first two. And after them are the female wolves and their children. And then after them are some more strong males. And finally the one way in the back is the alpha, the leader of the pack. There to protect the rest of them. See real leaders serve. That's what Jesus is saying to his disciples. That's what he's preparing them for. First Timothy chapter 5 talks about widows who were enrolled in ministry after they become widows. Should a widow be enrolled if she's not less than 60 years of age, having been the wife of one husband and having a reputation for good works, if she has brought up children, has shown hospitality, has washed the feet of the saints, has cared for the afflicted, has devoted herself to good works. Jesus knew that they couldn't understand yet. He was giving them an example of what they were supposed to do. He even says, I'm an example. Paul says in 1 Corinthians, be imitators of me as I am of Christ. He's giving them an example but as one commentator said it's also a dramatic parable and he compared it to Philippians chapter 2. I'm going to read that and as you remember what was read from John 13, listen to the words of Philippians chapter 2. So if there's any encouragement in Christ, any comfort from love, any participation in the spirit, any affliction and sympathy, complete my joy by being of the same mind, having the same love being in full accord and of one mind, do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit but in humility, count others more significant than yourselves. You see the disciples when they got to the home for this supper, the significant supper of the last week of Jesus' life, the last days, the last hours of his life before he would undergo the crucifixion, when they got there, apparently they were too worried about who was the greatest that nobody wanted to wash their feet. He said, let each one of you look not only to his own interest but also the interest of others, have this mind among yourselves which is yours in Christ Jesus who though he was in the form of God to not count equality with God a thing to be grasped. Remember our passage says that he knew he had come from God and he was going back to God, but he didn't count it a thing to be grasped. He said in taking form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men and being found in human form, he humbled himself. That's what servants do. That's what Christian servants are supposed to do. They're supposed to humble themselves. And Jesus humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. People can get confused about humility. Humorality doesn't mean cowardice, which a lot of times people who are cowardly get praised for being humble. They're not humble, they're cowards. But that's not the case with Jesus and it shouldn't be the case with the disciples and it shouldn't be the case with leaders in the church. Therefore God, I'm sorry, in being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that the name of Jesus every knee should bow in heaven and on earth and under the earth and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father. That's almost exactly what we're seeing here in the Gospel, chapter 13, Jesus washing the feet of the disciples as an example to them, as a metaphor for what they were going to have to do in the future. And he says he loved them to the end. He loved them until he died. And his love would never cease. Interestingly when Peter, Jesus comes to Peter to wash his feet, Peter says, do you wash my feet? No, you'll never wash my feet. Literally what it means is Peter said never to all of eternity will you wash my feet. We would say something like never in a million years. But then Jesus said, well, if I don't wash your feet, you have no part of me. And of course, Peter being Peter says, well, then wash my head and my body too. But Peter finally follows Jesus example as we read in first Peter. He says he was foreknown from the foundation of the world, but was made, he's speaking of Christ, was made manifest in the last times for the sake of you who through him are believers in God who raised him from the dead and gave him glory so that your faith and hope are in God. Having purified your souls by obedience to the truth for a sincere brotherly love, love one another earnestly from a pure heart. You see, if you love each other earnestly from a pure heart, you would serve. If the disciples loved each other earnestly from a pure heart, somebody, maybe more than once one would have washed the feet of the disciples before dinner. They wouldn't have left it for Jesus to get up from dinner to wash our feet. He said, since you have been born again of a perishable seed, not of a perishable seed, but imperishable through the living and abiding word of God. Jesus says you don't understand, but you will understand now. When he said that to the disciples, he meant that they wouldn't understand immediately, but after his death and resurrection, they would begin to understand, but they probably wouldn't fully understand. We probably won't fully understand the extent of God's love and service to us until heaven. That's what this Lord's Supper is about. We take the bread and the wine, and it is a parable, it is symbolic of the giving and receiving of the body and blood of Christ. It's a demonstration that he loved us to the end. And while we can taste it and feel it, we won't really taste it, we won't really feel it until heaven. What no eye has seen, what no ear has heard, nor has it entered into the mind of man, all that God has prepared for those who love him, because he loved us to the end. Let's pray. And as we come to your Supper, we pray that everything that we do would preach again the gospel of Jesus Christ, that men, women, and children would be drawn to him. And we pray this in his name. Amen.