Now the first thing you need to see is, love does not focus on position, or title, or role, or function. Love focuses instead, on serving. It's the nature of the king. Notice what it says. Notice there, where the people were, they'd come in; and of course they didn't have nice roads and cars like we have, just had dusty roads, and people walk with sandals; so they would come in, and the one part of everyone's body that got very, very dirty was the feet. The feet got dirty, so you could imagine what it's like. Any of you have had a day out there, and you come back in, take your shoes off and get a whiff of it, you know what dirty is like. Now they would walk, and they had animals on the road, so they'd pick up all kinds of animal droppings, they would pick up dust and mud and grime and everything. They'd come in, and their feet are dirty and messy; and so it was normally the custom that there would be a bowl of water provided, people would wash their own feet; or the lowest gentile servant would come and wash their feet for them; so that was the normal custom.
So you notice that this was the lowest job. Now here's the interesting thing. Jesus had revealed His power and authority. See, up to this point, they've seen the miracles: people raised from the dead, oh great! See water turned to wine - oh great! Oh, we've seen the bread multiply, oh, that is fantastic! They've seen all kinds of miracles, all kinds of healings. What they hadn't seen, is the nature of the King; what moves it all. See people see power, and miracles, and signs, and these are wonderful, I love them - but you've got to look past that, and see what the core nature of the kingdom is. The power - the Bible doesn't say: God is power. It says: God is love. Power, is how He expresses the love; but that's not the only way love is expressed; and so now Jesus does something that stuns them. He exposes the pride, and the carnal way of thinking they had, about positions and titles and so on. What He does is, He reveals to them, and this is what He did, He washed their feet. He revealed the nature of the kingdom. The kingdom we're part of, is a foot-washing kingdom. Now I'll get to what that means in just moment. It's a foot-washing kingdom. He gave up heaven, and came to earth, and just served. Now He just takes off His clothing, His outer clothing, puts on servant's clothing. He's the Lord, He's the master, He's the rabbi, He's the miracle worker, He's the one everyone comes to; yet He takes it all off, and just goes and washes their feet.
This is a total challenge to thinking. Now you think about this. How could God, come to earth, and wash my feet? Jesus said: the things I do, are what I see the Father doing. How could it be, that an amazing or powerful Almighty God, would not only create the world, but when my life got into a mess, into sin, into all kinds of uncleanness and defilement, He would come and wash my feet? It defies belief, because it's so contrary to the way we see authority and power; and how we see it manifest in the earth. It is completely different. God is not interested - He has ranks and titles and so on - but that is not what the kingdom is about. It's about a nature of love, that shows itself through serving, and entering people's world, where they're dirty and messy; and doing something to help their world become a better place. It's not about literal foot washing. The foot washing part was of the culture of the day. It's not what we do today, but the foot washing that He was - He was trying to teach them something. He didn't say: do what I did. He said do 'as' I did. In other words, understand what is behind this, moving it, and then do that. Getting the idea?