While it’s true that talking and planning and strategizing and analyzing has much value, what is also important is for people to just take action. Or at least it’s true when it comes to jobs like foot-washing which offer no notoriety or adulation; jobs that comes with a willing acceptance of dishonor. But jobs that nevertheless need to be done.

It had been quite a week.

A few days earlier, Jesus had entered Jerusalem riding on a donkey to the adulation of the crowds who welcomed him there. The next day, Jesus performed one of His stranger miracles, cursing a fig tree and then driving out the profiteers from the temple grounds.

He came back to those same grounds and engaged the religious leaders head on, and then predicted His own death and resurrection. The city, meanwhile, was swelling with Passover pilgrims and visitors, and those same religious leaders began to put their assassination plot into motion.

And now, in the midst of this whirlwind of activity, controversy, and anxious nerves about what was to come, Jesus came into the Upper Room. Once there, He did something that astounded His friends, though at this point, it might not should have: He washed their feet:

The evening meal was in progress, and the devil had already prompted Judas, the son of Simon Iscariot, to betray Jesus. Jesus knew that the Father had put all things under his power, and that he had come from God and was returning to God; so he got up from the meal, took off his outer clothing, and wrapped a towel around his waist. After that, he poured water into a basin and began to wash his disciples’ feet, drying them with the towel that was wrapped around him (John 13:2-5).

This was, of course, not a job befitting Jesus. Or at least it wasn’t in the eyes of His disciples. It was a dirty job; it was a role reserved for the servants of the house. But there He was, the One they had followed, doing that which was so clearly beneath Him.

At least one disciple was indignant about it – Peter objected that Jesus should not be doing such a menial task. There might have been others – nervous looks; coughs; sideways glances – all feeling at least a little uncomfortable at what was unfolding.

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