ONE ANOTHER
D. L. Stewart
In John’s gospel as is well known we have matters that are not in the other gospels. I think it has been said that John is writing for the last days and his gospel is possibly the last of the Scriptures. The saints already had Paul, and his epistles, and John has a unique place to fill in that things would already have broken down publicly or been weakened at any rate in the assembly. But John is distinctive, and brings in what the other three evangelists do not touch at all. The other gospels, as to the cross, speak of the forsaking and the darkness; John alone speaks about the blood. The other gospels give us the setting of the Lord’s supper, a matter that we have had great help about in our days.
John does not give us that, he gives us this service of feet washing. He says that Jesus rises from supper; the Lord no doubt had in mind what was ahead. Knowing that He is about to “depart out of the world”, He introduces this service of feet washing. He rises from supper, no doubt the Passover, and lays aside His garments, and girds Himself with a linen towel. He pours water into the wash-hand basin and began to serve His own by washing their feet.
There was nothing official. I suppose it would be right to suggest that after the Lord’s supper something should be different with us, perhaps there should be a greater appreciation than ever of what the saints are to Christ, where He has been rejected and refused and cast out as worthless. All that Christ has here at the present time, He has in His own, they are so valuable in His sight. So it says, “having loved his own who were in the world, loved them to the end”. He loved them through everything (see note). It is not a question of getting us ready for the Supper, that may be necessary, but that is not the setting of it here. It is what is to come in in the week as we meet the problems of this scene and the world from which Christ is rejected, refused and cast out as worthless. In the end of the gospels, the Lord had so few, but they were so valuable to Him. He knew that He was departing and they would need one another, one another. That is what we have, beloved brethren, in this scene; in a certain sense we have got nothing else.
We have light of course and there is still what is to come; the kingdom and the glory, all that is yet to come, but at the present time we have one another. We have the Spirit also, and He, the Spirit of Christ, would enable us to take up this unique matter of serving one another.
Then it says, He “began to wash the feet of the disciples”; what was in His mind was, no doubt, refreshment in a contrary scene. These feet were to tread the path that He had trodden, in some limited sense, and would be in need of refreshment and strengthening. The Supper is always ahead of us (but also it is behind us), and so as we are in contact with the world and its doings in everyday life, there is a need of this washing. Young people need this, we all need it, every one of us, this service of feet washing; in view of another Lord’s day; in view of another Supper; in view of His coming for us, in fact. So that we may be treading this scene with refreshment in our souls, our steps moving onward and upward.
Then in John 21 we have another matter that we get nowhere else. In the other gospels we get what the Lord did in various ways when among His own in resurrection, but in John we get this service of shepherding. It is perhaps on a similar line to what has already engaged us, but it shows how much it was in the Lord’s heart. He Himself, of course, is the great Shepherd and the good Shepherd, able to succour His sheep and supply what they need. But that is not the way it is put in John 21. He lays the service on Peter; He lays it three times upon Peter, and this would surely have some bearing on us. He speaks about the lambs being fed, and the sheep needing shepherding and feeding too. There is a greater need than ever in our day for this feature of feeding the lambs that are precious to Him. Young people and older ones too, are so valuable to Christ in the midst of a scene like this, they are His lambs and His sheep. In John 10 He says they hear His voice. That is the character of His sheep, that they hear His voice, and they follow Him. There is the need of shepherds, the need of those who care for one another. How precious are the words one another! All we have here in one sense is one another. So the Lord would encourage us as to this matter. May the Lord bless His word to us.
Word in meeting for ministry, Edinburgh
10 July 1990