Jesus lays out the pattern for greatness in the kingdom. “If I then, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet. For I have given you an example, that you should do as I have done to you. Most assuredly, I say to you, a servant is not greater than his master; nor is he who is sent greater than he who sent him” (John 13:14–16).

Upon having washed the feet of His disciples, Jesus took up the garments He had doffed and sat down. Sitting was the posture of a teacher and Jesus had a lesson to impart. He begins by asking them a question, “Do you know what I have done to you?” (John 13:12).

Evidently, His question was a rhetorical device to get their attention and get them thinking about what has just taken place. The classroom for His lesson is particularly striking because it is the anteroom for the holy drama of His betrayal, arrest, and crucifixion. He is communicating what messianic mission looks like and how the kingdom of God operates, and it is nothing like people might expect.

Having gotten their attention, Jesus says, “You call Me Teacher and Lord, and you say well, for so I am” (John 13:13). He is affirming their understanding of Him. He is the Christ of God. He is the Messiah who was to come. He is all those things that we have learned about Him in the first half of John’s Gospel.

In seeing Jesus taking up the mantle of a servant and engaging Himself in the basest of tasks, He is not sending a contrary message to who He is. Nor is He sending a mixed message.

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