In the evening of the first day of the feast, Jesus and his twelve apostles met in an upper chamber at Jerusalem to partake of the paschal lamb. “Jesus knew that his hour was come that he should depart out of this world unto the Father.” Tenderly he loved his apostles. In this hour, when their final separation was so near, “he riseth from supper, laid aside his garments, and took a towel, and girded himself. After that, he poureth water into a basin, and began to wash the disciples’ feet, and to wipe them with the towel wherewith he was girded.”
Simon Peter, with characteristic impulsiveness, exclaimed remonstratingly, “Lord, dost thou wash my feet?”
Jesus replied, “What I do thou knowest not now; but thou shalt know hereafter.”
But Peter still remonstrated, saying, “Thou shalt never wash my feet.” Jesus answered, “If I wash thee not, thou hast no part with me.”
Then this childlike man, fickle yet heroic, exclaimed, “Lord, not my feet only, but also my hands and my head!”
Jesus rejoined, “He that is washed needeth not save to wash his feet, but is clean every whit.” He then added, in allusion to Judas Iscariot, “And ye are clean, but not all.”
Having thus washed the feet of his apostles, he sat down, and said to them, “Know ye what I have done to you? Ye call me Master and Lord: and ye say well; for so I am. If I, then, your Lord and Master, have washed your feet, ye also ought to wash one another’s feet; for I have given you an example that ye should do as I have done to you. Verily, verily, I say unto you, The servant is not greater than his lord, neither he that is sent greater than he that sent him. If ye know these things, happy are ye if ye do them.”
Jesus then “took bread; and, when he had given thanks, he brake it, and said, Take, eat: this is my body which is broken for you. This do in remembrance of me.”
While they were eating of the bread, and before they partook of the cup, Jesus said to them,—
“Behold, the hand of him that betrayeth me is with me on the table. And truly the Son of man goeth as it was determined; but woe unto that man by whom he is betrayed! I speak not of you all: I know whom I have chosen: but that the scripture may be fulfilled, He that eateth bread with me hath lifted up his heel against me. Now, I tell you before it come, that, when it is come to pass, ye may believe that I am he. Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that receiveth whomsoever I send receiveth me;and he that receiveth me receiveth Him that sent me.”[60]