The record of the disciples’ intimate time with the disciples begins in John 13, and it starts very powerfully.

Now before the Feast of the Passover, when Jesus knew that his hour had come to depart out of this world to the Father, having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end. During supper, when the devil had already put it into the heart of Judas Iscariot, Simon’s son, to betray him, Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands, and that he had come from God and was going back to God, rose from supper. He laid aside his outer garments, and taking a towel, tied it around his waist. Then he poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples’ feet and to wipe them with the towel that was wrapped around him. (John 13.1 – 5, ESV)

• Jesus knew it was time to go to the cross
• He loved the disciples
• The devil motivated Judas Iscariot to betray him.
• Jesus knew:
  • That the Father had given him all things
  • That he had come from God
  • That he was going back to God
• (Therefore)
  • He dressed as a slave
  • He washed the disciples’ feet

I went swimming in a public outdoor pool in Turkey once when I was stationed there in the Air Force. For 25 cents, you got two thin towels, about the size and consistency of a third of a single bedsheet. One I used as a towel. The other was my bathing suit. I started with it behind me, tied it around my waist, brought the remainder up through my legs, under the knot I just made. The excess hung down in front and would have made a “towel” suitable for footwashing. I’m pretty sure this is what Jesus did when he “removed his outer garments and tied a towel around his waist.” It was OK for swimming, but I wouldn’t have wanted to be the only guy in a room dressed like that!

You call me Teacher and Lord, and you are right, for so I am. If I then, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet. For I have given you an example, that you also should do just as I have done to you. (John 13.13 – 15, ESV)

If you know these things, blessed are you if you do them. (John 13.17, ESV)

Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant… (Philippians 2.5 – 7, ESV)