Love Gets Its Hands Dirty

Date: Tuesday, August 25, 2026

As we move into the second half of John's gospel, you might want to watch Part 2 of the overview of John from the Bible Project.

Jesus says “the Father has given all things into my hands”. In other words, He has full authority over everything. And what does He do with that authority? He gets up from supper, wraps a towel around His waist, and washes His disciples’ dusty, road-worn feet. It’s a task normally reserved for the lowest household servant. Peter objects, as we probably would too. Some kinds of love feel too undignified to receive. But Jesus insists: “If I do not wash you, you have no share with me.” Grace has to be received and experienced, not just intellectually observed from a comfortable distance.

Every generation of the church has found ways to reenact this, from ancient Maundy Thursday liturgies to modern missionaries quietly kneeling to wash the feet of prisoners, the homeless, or refugees. The posture matters because it embodies the new commandment Jesus gives moments later: “Love one another, as I have loved you.” It's the kind of love that gets its hands dirty.

In 1969, at the height of racial tension over segregated public swimming pools, Fred Rogers (who was an ordained Presbyterian Minister) filmed a simple scene on his children’s program “Mister Roger’s Neighborhood”. He invited Officer Clemmons, a Black cast member, to cool his feet in a small wading pool alongside his own, then knelt down and dried them with a towel. No speech, no explanation, no lecture. Just a white man in a cardigan quietly drying a Black man’s feet on national television, at a time when many community pools still barred Black swimmers outright. It wasn’t flashy, and that’s precisely the point of John 13: the most subversive love doesn’t announce itself with force. It doesn’t need to. It kneels down with a towel and lets the act of love say what words can’t.

Devotional Prompts:

Whose “feet” (literally or figuratively) is Jesus inviting you to wash this week?
Fred Rogers’s quiet act said more than a sermon could have. Where might a small, unannounced act of service speak louder than words this week?

Prayer: King of glory, You knelt with a towel to show us what love looks like. Give us joyful hearts to shout Your praise, and humble hands to serve as You served us. Amen.