The Symbolism of Foot Washing

Simplistic though this message is, certain latter-day Pharisees have said the millions spent on the ad could have fed the poor immigrants at the border, housed the homeless person, or paid for the education of the pregnant woman’s child. True that is, but by that argument we should never build and maintain cathedrals or libraries or seminaries, let alone try to reach people seeking entertainment. And the symbolism is a bit askew. Jesus didn’t wash strangers’ feet. He washed his disciples’ and told them to “wash one another’s feet” (John 13:14), likening this act to a master waiting on his servant. To extend this injunction to a divine command to keep doing it in His remembrance, like the Last Supper, is a stretch.

Our socked and shod feet bear little resemblance to those which in the 1st Century trod field and stone pavement in open-toed leather sandals. Pedicures and buffing, polish and lotions, vibrating massagers and cushioned soles have made our lowliest parts comfortable, perhaps even beautiful. We can still ruin our feet with stiletto heels and other instruments of torture but that’s because we choose to, and not out of necessity.

The “poor ye will always have with you” Jesus said when Mary washed His feet with perfume and dried them with her hair (John 12: 3-8). Perhaps this is the message that should have been broadcast on Super Bowl Sunday.

Donald Duggan is a retired attorney living in Chicago

The Symbolism of Foot Washing

by David G. Duggan ©
www.virtueonline.org
March 31, 2024

I’m not much into having my feet washed. Even though I’ve had it done once by a bishop and a few other times, it’s not that I fear that I’ll offend someone with my foot odor or the sight of a few deformities from age and ill-fitting shoes. I guess it’s having bathed myself for the last 70 years, I just don’t find how this act of submission relates to our submission to Christ as Lord. Or maybe it’s because one time, my just washed foot froze up and I could barely make it back to the pew. Fortunately I recovered in time to make it to the Easter service three days later.

So I wasn’t that put off by the recent Super Bowl ad campaign by the “He Gets Us” movement. The vignettes of unlikely-paired persons–a homeless person and a cop in an alley, a woman in front of a bus cradling an infant and a suburban woman, a young woman outside an abortion clinic and an older woman–the former standing or sitting above the other who while kneeling is washing the other’s foot, are set to a ballad “Never Tear Us Apart.” At the end “Jesus Didn’t Teach Hate” flashes on the screen: “He Washed Feet.” The gospel reduced to seven words.