In the Gospel of John Jesus says:
“By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”
John 13:35
In loving one another the disciples of Jesus demonstrate to the world that they are His; that they belong to Him and not to the world. While in the world people lord it over one another, disciples of Jesus wash each other’s feet.
Loving others as Jesus does is not a matter of being nice, but carries with it a notion of ‘self-emptying’, dying to one’s self for the sake of others; both those who befriend us and those who hurt us alike. Jesus exemplifies this love, dying for us while we were still sinners. (Romans 5:8)
As one bishop said,
When you tell others you love them, you are saying that you are ready to die so that they may live.
Jesus calls us to demonstrate to the world that we are His disciples in loving others as He loved us, not only when things are easy, but especially when confronted by the sinfulness of others. All discipleship begins and ends with love. The kind of love that draws us to self-emptying and feet-washing.
Are we willing to love one another, even those who hurt us, as Jesus loved us?
Let us pray for unity, that our various churches would extend this feet-washing love to each other and in that, show the world that we all belong to Christ.
This reflection by Riad Moufarrij s excerpted from the Pray by Day column featured in the Sword of the Spirit website.
Top image credit: Jesus washes his disciples’ feet, illustration by James Tissot, from the Brooklyn Museum, New York, USA. Image in the public domain.
Riad Moufarrij is a covenanted member of The People of God in Beirut, Lebanon.