body to be washed--"not my feet
only, but my hands and my head." If this washing means that we are Thy
friends and partners, let me be all washed, for every bit of me is
Thine. Here again Peter was swayed by blind impulse, and here again he
erred. If he could only have been quiet! If he could only have held his
tongue! If only he could have allowed his Lord to manage without his
interference and suggestion at every point! But this was precisely what
Peter had as yet not learned to do. In after-years he was to learn
meekness; he was to learn to submit while others bound him and carried
him whither they would; but as yet that was impossible to him. His
Lord's plan is never good enough for him; Jesus is never exactly right.
What He proposes must always be eked out by Peter's superior wisdom.
What gusts of shame must have stormed through Peter's soul when he
looked back on this scene! Yet it concerns us rather to admire than to
condemn Peter's fervour. How welcome to our Lord as He passed from the
cold and treacherous heart of Judas must this burst of enthusiastic
devotion have been! "Lord, if washing be any symbol of my being Thine,
wash hands and head as well as feet."

Jesus throws a new light upon His action in His reply: "He that is
washed, needeth not save to wash his feet, but is clean every whit: and
ye are clean, but not all." The words would have more readily disclosed
Christ's meaning had they been literally rendered: He that has bathed
needeth not save to wash his feet. The daily use of the bath rendered it
needless to wash more than the feet, which were soiled with walking from
the bath to the supper-chamber. But that Christ had in view as He washed
the disciples' feet something more than the mere bodily cleansing and
comfort is plain from His remark that they were not all clean. All had
enjoyed the feet-washing, but all were not clean. The feet of Judas were
as clean as the feet of John or Peter, but his heart was foul. And what
Christ intended when He girt Himself with the towel and took up the
pitcher was not merely to wash the soil from their feet, but to wash
from their hearts the hard and proud feelings which were so uncongenial
to that night of communion and so threatening to His cause. Far more
needful to their happiness at the feast than the comfort of cool and
clean feet was their restored affection and esteem for one another, and
that humility that takes the lowest place. Jesus could very well have
e