ed for Jesus betrays itself in Peter's inability to suffer Him
to touch his feet. Peter could not endure that the places of master and
servant should thus be reversed. He feels that shrinking and revulsion
which we feel when a delicate person or one much above us in station
proceeds to do some service from which we ourselves would shrink as
beneath us. That Peter should have drawn up his feet, started up on the
couch, and exclaimed, "Lord, do you actually propose to wash my feet!"
is to his credit, and just what we should have expected of a man who
never lacked generous impulses. Our Lord therefore assures him that his
scruples will be removed, and that what he could not understand would be
shortly explained to him. He treats Peter's scruples very much as He
treated the Baptist's when John hesitated about baptizing Him. Let Me,
says Jesus, do it now, and I will explain My reason when I have
finished the washing of you all. But this does not satisfy Peter. Out he
comes with one of his blunt and hasty speeches: "Lord, Thou shalt never
wash my feet!" He knew better than Jesus, that is to say, what should be
done. Jesus was mistaken in supposing that any explanation could be
given of it. Hasty, self-confident, knowing better than anybody else,
Peter once again ran himself into grave fault. The first requirement in
a disciple is entire self-surrender. The others had meekly allowed Jesus
to wash their feet, cut to the heart with shame as they were, and
scarcely able to let their feet lie in His hands; but Peter must show
himself of a different mind. His first refusal was readily forgiven as a
generous impulse; the second is an obstinate, proud, self-righteous
utterance, and was forthwith met by the swift rebuke of Jesus: "If I
wash thee not, thou hast no part with Me."

Superficially, these words might have been understood as intimating to
Peter that, if he wished to partake of the feast prepared, he must allow
Jesus to wash his feet. Unless he was prepared to leave the room and
reckon himself an outcast from that company, he must submit to the
feet-washing which his friends and fellow-guests had submitted to. There
was that in the tone of our Lord which awakened Peter to see how great
and painful a rupture this would be. He almost hears in the words a
sentence of expulsion pronounced on himself; and as rapidly as he had
withdrawn from the touch of Christ, so rapidly does he now run to the
opposite extreme and offer his whole