“It was just before the Passover Festival. Jesus knew that the hour had come for him to leave this world and go to the Father. Having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end,” (John 13:1).
 We were studying the section of John's gospel where Jesus washes the feet of His disciples. Since this occurred just prior to the crucifixion, the person leading the class made the observation that while most people would be trying to mark things off their bucket list, Jesus was washing dirty feet. It occurred to me that Jesus didn't have a bucket list--He had a basin list. l times wore sandals and tromped through dirt, debris, and animal
dung. Add to that all of the people (and
animals) present in Jerusalem for the Passover and you have some soiled and
nasty smelling feet in the upper room.
Clean feet were almost as important as clean hands when you were eating
since they ate their meals in a reclined position on couches rather than
sitting in chairs (Luke 22:14). This meant your feet were not on the floor
hidden under a table, but on the couch --- visible and in close proximity to
others. It was customary for the host to provide water for guests to wash their
feet and if they had the means, a household servant would be assigned the task
(Luke 7:44). In the case of Jesus
and His disciples, one of the disciples should have taken it upon themselves to
perform this task, but they were too busy thinking about their place in the kingdom
(Luke 22:24ff). He had a basin list and He checked
off every name that was on it --- even the name of Judas. What if we followed His example (John 13:15,17), and instead of having a
list of things we wanted to do before we died, we had a list of people we
wanted to serve? What if our bucket list
became a basin list? How transformative
would that be?
Let’s find
out. Back to Opening the Bible Back to Home
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