Amazing Grace

In one of her recent Telling the Truth truth columns, writer, preacher, and public speakerJill Briscoe observes that Jesus provided an unforgettable example of serving others when he washed his disciples’ dusty feet. Luke 22 and John 13 are parallel passages describing the same event—the last supper Jesus had with his disciples. She says the passage in John shows us that Jesus lovingly washed the feet of all his disciples, including Judas Iscariot, who had not yet left to do his evil deed (John 13:30).

  Not only did Jesus show his disciples how to serve one another, but he also showed them, as they might later understand, that such service would always be appropriate no matter how their audience responded.

Briscoe can see Jesus lovingly handling the traitor’s feet, well aware that those same feet would shortly lead Jesus’ enemies to the Garden of Gethsemane to arrest him! We can see him looking into Judas’s eyes, while Judas tried to avert his own.

Briscoe points out that so often we want to be appreciated for our gracious acts of service. We look for something in return, but a servant spirit is a giving-with‑no-strings-attached spirit. In this case washing the traitor’s feet did not turn the man’s heart back to God. But Jesus, knowing it wouldn’t change Judas’s mind, washed his feet anyway. That’s grace. Grace gives without expecting a return. It happens to be one of my favorite words whose environment is effortlessly captured in this photograph of a setting Super Moon taken by Paul Shippey of Steamboat Springs Colorado, in the early hours of an August summer morning.