John 13

Here's the chapter as usual: http://www.esvbible.org/John+13/

We have come to the night where Jesus is betrayed. Jesus washes his disciples feet at the beginning of John 13. In this time, it was the job of the slaves to wash the feet of those they served or whoever their master asked them to. The disciples saw Jesus as their master, yet here He was doing the job of a servant. Simon Peter at first refuses to allow Jesus to wash His feet, but Jesus tells Him that if He doesn't wash Peter's feet, Peter won't be a part of Him. So Peter immediately recants what he previously said and asks Jesus to wash not only his feet but also his face and hands. Christ extends His metaphor and says a man who has just bathed only needs his feet cleaned because of the journey home. When we first accept Jesus as our Lord and Savior, He completely cleanses us, symbolized by the baptism. Then, we are bound to mess up again and sin, but in doing so, we only dirty our feet to be cleaned again by Christ. After He is done, Jesus says that He is setting an example for them, and that if He, their Lord and master, gets on His knees to wash their feet, that they should wash each other's feet. By the perfect, unsinful Lord serving the dirty, sinful men, He is showing that we must serve others to truly live the way Christ has set out for us.

John moves on to tell and story that is a little darker and creepier. Jesus knows that Judas will be the one who betrays Him. He makes a public announcement about it to His disciples, and they are shocked. They immediately begin trying to figure out who the betrayer is. When John refers to "the one whom Jesus loved," he is referring to himself because he never refers to himself by name. Jesus says He will dip the bread in wine and hand it to the one who will betray Him. Then, he dips the bread and hands it to Judas. At that moment, the devil enters Judas, and Jesus tells him to do what he needs to do. This sparks a huge theological debate because in order for Christ's plan to be completed, He needed to be killed. So Judas helped carry out the plan to save mankind, but people often wonder if he did it by his own free will or if he was directed by God to complete the plan. My belief is that the devil thought he could win the human race if he eliminated Jesus because he was unable to see the whole plan in front of him. When Judas leaves, the disciples are confused about why he left and where he went.

Jesus talks about how He is leaving again. He says that He is going to leave the disciples with a new commandment: to LOVE others as Jesus loved them. People should know Jesus' followers by their love. For some reason, that seems to be so lost in today's society. If Jesus called us to love, why did a poll in New York asking a random sample group what the first thing they thought of Christians yield the result that they HATE gays? Why are churches protesting funerals and burning the holy books of other religions? Why do the churches discriminate in Jesus' name when all He wants us to do is spread LOVE in His name? Simon Peter doesn't like that Jesus says that the disciples can't follow Him where He is going, so He tells Jesus that He would die for Him, and Jesus predicts that before the night is done, Peter will deny Him three times.