Reflective Bible Study

Following Jesus washing the disciples’ feet, the gospel of John tells us that Jesus shares why He did this. While one semi-obvious reason was to give the disciples a picture into how God’s character includes humility, John tells us that Jesus shares another reason.

In John’s gospel, as Jesus sits down after finishing washing the disciples’ feet, He first asks the group a question: “Do you understand what I have done for you?” but without even giving the disciples a chance to respond, Jesus continues by saying, “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.” (v. 12-15)

John tells us in his gospel that Jesus modeled humility because He wants us to model humility. While the idea of washing someone’s feet is awkward, I doubt the level of awkwardness hasn’t changed much in the 2,000 years since Jesus told His followers to continue to do this.

But what I do know is that there are few ways we could more visibly show our humility towards another person than by washing their feet. When washing another person’s feet, a level of humility must be present in both people involved. Some people are self-conscious about their feet, and it takes a certain level of humility to let someone else touch their feet. Other people don’t mind having other people touch their feet, but they feel awkward about washing the feet of someone else. These people have the opportunity to display humility by actually bending down to wash the feet of someone else.

The foot washing example and instruction is something we all would benefit from incorporating into our spiritual lives. When we display the level of humility and submission that foot washing takes, it draws us together in ways that can be difficult to describe. Foot washing helps us remember Jesus, it helps us stay humble, and it helps us be united as a group of believers. Foot washing helps us be the people God wants us to be.

Part way through His ministry as He is visiting Jerusalem for a festival, Jesus gets in a debate with some Jews in the temple. As this debate is ending, Jesus makes one of His craziest claims, and this one claim shifts the focus of those He is debating from thinking He is crazy and should be ignored to He is crazy and should be killed.

Leading up to this moment, we find Jesus telling the Jews that they don’t know God the Father. Jesus says, “Though you do not know him, I know him. If I said I did not, I would be a liar like you, but I do know him and obey his word. Your father Abraham rejoiced at the thought of seeing my day; he saw it and was glad.” (v. 55-56)

I’m not sure if these Jews misunderstood Jesus when they responded, or if they were getting irritated and were trying to put words in His mouth. On hearing Jesus say this, they respond by saying, “You are not yet fifty years old, and you have seen Abraham!” (v. 57)

In Jesus’ earlier statement, unless there is something suggested in the original language, Jesus simply suggests to these leaders that Abraham looked forward to the day when God would send the Messiah. To make this point, Jesus could have used any of the hundreds of righteous people throughout Biblical history because they all looked forward to God’s Messiah. Jesus did not need to prove through scriptures that one of the greatest heroes in the Old Testament looked forward to the day when the Messiah would arrive.

However, Jesus recognizes this misunderstanding, but He also knows He has the conversation exactly where He wants it to make His greatest claim. It is at this moment Jesus says, “Very truly I tell you, before Abraham was born, I am!” (v. 58)

This claim is one that speaks directly to Jesus’ divinity. While Jesus had been alive on earth for only a little over 30 years, in this claim, Jesus points to His divinity and the fact that He existed as part of the Godhead prior to Abraham being born. This single claim would be enough to invalidate anyone’s ministry at any point in history, and in Jewish law, anyone making this claim was condemned to be stoned. John tells us that “At this, they picked up stones to stone him, but Jesus hid himself, slipping away from the temple grounds.” (v. 59)

However, God would know the heart of anyone making this claim, and God the Father would not support a self-centered lunatic making this claim by also enabling this person to perform wonderful miracles to help draw attention onto himself. But God did visibly support Jesus, which gives authority to His hard-to-believe claims.

Also, while John describes the Jews picking up stones to throw at Jesus, He says that Jesus hid Himself and escaped the temple unharmed. While this is understated in John’s gospel, the only way for this to have happened is if God protected Jesus and allowed Him to get out. The part of the temple they were in was likely the innermost courtyard where only Jewish men could be, and Jesus would have needed to successfully navigate unseen past various checkpoints on His way out – all while He has a death warrant on His head.

This leaves us with one conclusion: Since God supported Jesus and His crazy sounding claims about divinity and because God protected Jesus until the right time and place for His death to fulfill prophecy, we must conclude that Jesus’ was truly the Son of God. This also means that He existed before time began and that even if we don’t always understand what He taught, His life and death on the cross demonstrates God’s love for each of us!

In this brief dialog with the Pharisees that is included in our passage for this journal entry, Jesus makes a fascinating statement. While pushing back against the Pharisees request for a sign, Jesus says in the last part of verse 3, “Do you know how to discern the appearance of the sky, but cannot discern the signs of the times?”

This got me thinking about how we look for signs around ourselves today. Are we quick to dismiss the signs God sends because we can easily understand them? Or are we quick to discount a miracle because God used a professional (such as a doctor) to be His hands working out a key part of the problem?

And then looking closer at what Jesus is saying, are we easily able to determine the weather from the appearance of the sky but are blind to the signs (trends) that are happening all around us from a spiritual perspective?

It would seem that from Jesus’ words, He sees more value in understanding the “signs of the times” than He does in discerning weather patterns. Both use a similar logical path of observing and predicting based on the evidence, but only when looking from a spiritual perspective on the events of the world are we then able to start understanding how God is moving during the times we live in.

The Pharisees were so intent on something spectacular that could only be done by God that they missed or ignored all the small signs that pointed to the same truth. Jesus wasn’t all that interested in performing great signs and wonders when He came the first time, and because of this, when He returns, chances are high that He won’t be all that interested in performing great signs and wonders on His next visit.

Instead, by understanding the times we are living, and by looking at life through a spiritual perspective, specifically looking for how God is working and moving, we are able to open our eyes to what He is doing during our lifetime – and before concluding this big idea, it is critical to mention that this is only successfully done by studying the Bible to help us understand God and what He is truly like.

Part way through Jesus’ ministry, Jesus shared a brief glimpse of His mission with a group of people present with Him. In what Jesus shares, we can learn what Jesus came to do and what He didn’t come to do – which happened to be different from what the religious leaders in that culture believed Jesus was doing.

To set the stage, John’s gospel describes Jesus opening by saying, “I am the light of the world. The person who follows me will never live in darkness but will have the light that gives life.” (v. 12)

While the Pharisees didn’t like the claims Jesus makes in this verse, what Jesus describes here is pretty powerful when we stop to think about it.

The first phrase Jesus says is simply, “I am the light of the world.” While Jesus’ statement is up for debate depending on who you talk to, this phrase is how Jesus describes Himself – which is important. While people throughout that culture had different views of Jesus, when we read this, we see how Jesus preferred to be seen.

To follow this phrase up, Jesus tells those present that “The person who follows me will never live in darkness but will have the light that gives life.” Part of me wonders what Jesus means when He says this. Does following Jesus literally mean that we will never experience dark points in our lives from this point forward?

Answering this question is tricky because there are plenty of cases in all our lives we could call dark or low points. However, I wonder if Jesus spoke this promise to help frame the people who follow Him always having something to look for and forward to. As followers of Jesus, we can always be looking for the ways He is moving in the world today, and we can always look forward to the promise of the second coming and heaven in our future.

Jesus gives light to our world because He came to show us a loving picture of God. By following Jesus and obeying His teachings, we are able to see God through new eyes and we see light where others see darkness – we see hope when others can only see despair.