Tuesday, January 10, 2012

The Gospel of John 13:1-38

Jesus Washes His Disciples Feet

13:1 Before the Passover celebration, Jesus knew that His hour had come to leave this world and return to His Father. He had loved His disciples during His ministry on earth, and now He loved them to the very end.
2 It was time for supper, and the devil had already prompted Judas, son of Simon Iscariot, to betray Jesus.
3 Jesus knew that the Father had given Him authority over everything and that He had come from God and would return to God.
4 So He got up from the table, took off His robe, wrapped a towel around His waist,
5 and poured water into a basin. Then He began to wash the disciples feet, drying them with the towel He had around Him.
6 When Jesus came to Simon Peter, Peter sad to Him, "Lord, are you going to wash my feet?"
7 Jesus replied, "You don't understand now what I am doing, but someday you will."
8 "No," Peter protested, "you will never ever wash my feet!" Jesus replied, "Unless I wash you, you won't belong to Me."
9 Simon Peter exclaimed, "Then wash my head and hands as well, Lord, not just my feet!"
10 Jesus replied, "A person who has bathed all over does not need to wash, except for the feet, to be entirely clean. And you disciples are clean, but not all of you."
11 For Jesus knew who would betray Him. That is what He meant when He said, "Not all of you are clean."
12 After washing their feet, He put on his robe again and sat down and asked, "Do you understand what I was doing?
13 You call me "Teacher" and "Lord", and you are right, because that's what I am.
14 And since I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you ought to wash each others feet.
15 I have given you an example to follow. Do as I have done to you.
16 I tell you the truth, slaves are not greater than their master. Nor is the messenger more important than the one who sends the message.
17 Now that you know these things, God will bless you for doing them.

18 I am not saying these things to all of you; I know the ones I have chosen. But this fulfills the Scripture that says, 'The one who eats my food has turned against me'.
19 I tell you this beforehand, so that when it happens you will believe that I Am the Messiah.
20 I tell you the truth, anyone who welcomes My messenger is welcoming Me, and anyone who welcomes Me is welcoming the Father who sent Me."
21 Now Jesus was deeply troubled, and He exclaimed, "I tell you the truth, one of you will betray Me!"
22 The disciples looked at each other, wondering whom He could mean.
23 The disciple Jesus loved was sitting next to Jesus at the table.
24 Simon Peter motioned to him to ask, "Who's He talking about?"
25 So that disciple leaned over to Jesus and asked, "Lord, who is it?"
26 Jesus responded, "It is the one to whom I give the bread I dip in the bowl." And hen He had dipped it, He gave it to Judas, son of Simon Iscariot.
27 When Judas had eaten the bread, Satan entered into him. Then Jesus told him, "Hurry and do what you're going to do."
28 None of the others at the table knew what Jesus meant.
29 Since Judas was their treasurer, some thought Jesus was telling him to go and pay for the food or give some money to the poor.
30 So Judas left at once, going out into the night.

31 As soon as Judas left the room, Jesus said,"The time has come for the Son of Man to enter into His glory, and God will be glorified because of Him.
32 And since God receives glory because of the Son, He will soon give glory to the Son.
33 Dear children, I will be with you only a little longer. And as I told the Jewish leaders, you will search for Me, but you can't come where I am going.
34 So now I am giving you a new commandment: Love each other. Just as I have loved you, you should love each other.
35 Your love for one another will prove to the world that you are My disciples."
36 Simon Peter asked, "Lord, where are you going?" And Jesus replied, "You can't go with Me now, but you will follow Me later."
37 "But why can't I come now, Lord?" he asked. "I' ready to die for you."
38 Jesus answered, "Die for Me? I tell you the truth, Peter - before the rooster crows tomorrow morning, you will deny three times that you even know Me." ~ John 13:1-38

Maybe this is why 13 is an unlucky number...

That must have been a hard time for Jesus. To know ahead of time what is going to happen and be unable to change any of it. To know who will betray you, before they even do it. You can't dislike somebody for doing something they officially haven't done yet. And Judas didn't even know he would betray Jesus at that point in time. And yet Jesus knew it was inevitable. And then to have Peter throw salt in the wound by saying He would die for Jesus, when Jesus knew He would just end up denying Him... it's a hard feeling when you face dark times and the people you think would always be there for you and support you end up deserting you.

I think it's interesting that the last two main messages Jesus gave His disciples He essentially repeated twice. The first was about The Messenger and the one who is Sending the Message. The second was about His disciples loving each other as He had loved them. I think since that since these werea few of His last messages before He died and He repeated them twice, these were the take away, the most important message He wanted His disciples to follow and remember.

5 comments:

  1. I wikipedia'd "13". Fascinating. Check it out.

    12

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Looked it up. It has a lot of both positive and negative connotations. I think the thing that best represents the number 13 is that it is associated with Luck and Bad Luck, Fortune and Misfortune -not one or the other but BOTH.

      Delete
  2. I don't like the "replies" portion of blogspot. I know they were trying to be helpful, but it just makes the words more compacted and hard to see.

    ReplyDelete