The Last Supper

179:3.1Af­ter drink­ing the first cup of the Pass­over, it was the Jew­ish cus­tom for the host to arise from the ta­ble and wash his hands. Later on in the meal and af­ter the sec­ond cup, all of the guests like­wise rose up and washed their hands. Since the apos­tles knew that their Mas­ter never ob­served these rites of cer­e­mo­nial hand wash­ing, they were very cu­ri­ous to know what he in­tended to do when, af­ter they had par­taken of this first cup, he arose from the ta­ble and silently made his way over to near the door, where the wa­ter pitch­ers, basins, and tow­els had been placed. And their cu­rios­ity grew into as­ton­ish­ment as they saw the Mas­ter re­move his outer gar­ment, gird him­self with a towel, and be­gin to pour wa­ter into one of the foot basins. Imag­ine the amaze­ment of these twelve men, who had so re­cently re­fused to wash one an­other’s feet, and who had en­gaged in such un­seemly dis­putes about po­si­tions of honor at the ta­ble, when they saw him make his way around the un­oc­cu­pied end of the ta­ble to the low­est seat of the feast, where Si­mon Pe­ter re­clined, and, kneel­ing down in the at­ti­tude of a ser­vant, make ready to wash Si­mon’s feet. As the Mas­ter knelt, all twelve arose as one man to their feet; even the traitorous Ju­das so far for­got his in­famy for a mo­ment as to arise with his fel­low apos­tles in this ex­pres­sion of sur­prise, re­spect, and ut­ter amaze­ment.

179:3.2There stood Si­mon Pe­ter, look­ing down into the up­turned face of his Mas­ter. Je­sus said noth­ing; it was not nec­es­sary that he should speak. His at­ti­tude plainly re­vealed that he was minded to wash Si­mon Pe­ter’s feet. Not­with­stand­ing his frail­ties of the flesh, Pe­ter loved the Mas­ter. This Galilean fish­er­man was the first hu­man be­ing whole­heart­edly to be­lieve in the di­vin­ity of Je­sus and to make full and pub­lic con­fes­sion of that be­lief. And Pe­ter had never since re­ally doubted the di­vine na­ture of the Mas­ter. Since Pe­ter so revered and hon­ored Je­sus in his heart, it was not strange that his soul re­sented the thought of Je­sus’ kneel­ing there be­fore him in the at­ti­tude of a me­nial ser­vant and propos­ing to wash his feet as would a slave. When Pe­ter pres­ently col­lected his wits suf­fi­ciently to ad­dress the Mas­ter, he spoke the heart feel­ings of all his fel­low apos­tles.

179:3.3Af­ter a few mo­ments of this great em­bar­rass­ment, Pe­ter said, “Mas­ter, do you re­ally mean to wash my feet?” And then, look­ing up into Pe­ter’s face, Je­sus said: “You may not fully un­der­stand what I am about to do, but here­after you will know the mean­ing of all these things.” Then Si­mon Pe­ter, draw­ing a long breath, said, “Mas­ter, you shall never wash my feet!” And each of the apos­tles nod­ded their ap­proval of Pe­ter’s firm dec­la­ra­tion of re­fusal to al­low Je­sus thus to hum­ble him­self be­fore them.

179:3.4The dra­matic ap­peal of this un­usual scene at first touched the heart of even Ju­das Is­car­iot; but when his vain­glo­ri­ous in­tel­lect passed judg­ment upon the spec­ta­cle, he con­cluded that this ges­ture of hu­mil­ity was just one more episode which con­clu­sively proved that Je­sus would never qual­ify as Is­rael’s de­liv­erer, and that he had made no mis­take in the de­ci­sion to desert the Mas­ter’s cause.

179:3.5As they all stood there in breath­less amaze­ment, Je­sus said: “Pe­ter, I de­clare that, if I do not wash your feet, you will have no part with me in that which I am about to per­form.” When Pe­ter heard this dec­la­ra­tion, cou­pled with the fact that Je­sus con­tin­ued kneel­ing there at his feet, he made one of those de­ci­sions of blind ac­qui­es­cence in com­pli­ance with the wish of one whom he re­spected and loved. As it be­gan to dawn on Si­mon Pe­ter that there was at­tached to this pro­posed en­act­ment of ser­vice some sig­ni­fi­ca­tion that de­ter­mined one’s fu­ture con­nec­tion with the Mas­ter’s work, he not only be­came rec­on­ciled to the thought of al­low­ing Je­sus to wash his feet but, in his char­ac­ter­is­tic and im­petu­ous man­ner, said: “Then, Mas­ter, wash not my feet only but also my hands and my head.”

179:3.6As the Mas­ter made ready to be­gin wash­ing Pe­ter’s feet, he said: “He who is al­ready clean needs only to have his feet washed. You who sit with me tonight are clean—but not all. But the dust of your feet should have been washed away be­fore you sat down at meat with me. And be­sides, I would per­form this ser­vice for you as a para­ble to il­lus­trate the mean­ing of a new com­mand­ment which I will pres­ently give you.”

179:3.7In like man­ner the Mas­ter went around the ta­ble, in si­lence, wash­ing the feet of his twelve apos­tles, not even pass­ing by Ju­das. When Je­sus had fin­ished wash­ing the feet of the twelve, he donned his cloak, re­turned to his place as host, and af­ter look­ing over his be­wil­dered apos­tles, said:

179:3.8“Do you re­ally un­der­stand what I have done to you? You call me Mas­ter, and you say well, for so I am. If, then, the Mas­ter has washed your feet, why was it that you were un­will­ing to wash one an­other’s feet? What les­son should you learn from this para­ble in which the Mas­ter so will­ingly does that ser­vice which his breth­ren were un­will­ing to do for one an­other? Ver­ily, ver­ily, I say to you: A ser­vant is not greater than his mas­ter; nei­ther is one who is sent greater than he who sends him. You have seen the way of ser­vice in my life among you, and blessed are you who will have the gra­cious cour­age so to serve. But why are you so slow to learn that the se­cret of great­ness in the spir­i­tual king­dom is not like the meth­ods of power in the ma­te­rial world?

179:3.9“When I came into this cham­ber tonight, you were not con­tent proudly to refuse to wash one an­other’s feet, but you must also fall to dis­put­ing among your­selves as to who should have the places of honor at my ta­ble. Such hon­ors the Phar­isees and the chil­dren of this world seek, but it should not be so among the am­bas­sadors of the heav­enly king­dom. Do you not know that there can be no place of prefer­ment at my ta­ble? Do you not un­der­stand that I love each of you as I do the oth­ers? Do you not know that the place near­est me, as men re­gard such hon­ors, can mean noth­ing con­cern­ing your stand­ing in the king­dom of heaven? You know that the kings of the gen­tiles have lord­ship over their sub­jects, while those who ex­er­cise this au­thor­ity are some­times called bene­fac­tors. But it shall not be so in the king­dom of heaven. He who would be great among you, let him be­come as the younger; while he who would be chief, let him be­come as one who serves. Who is the greater, he who sits at meat, or he who serves? Is it not com­monly re­garded that he who sits at meat is the greater? But you will ob­serve that I am among you as one who serves. If you are will­ing to be­come fel­low ser­vants with me in do­ing the Fa­ther’s will, in the king­dom to come you shall sit with me in power, still do­ing the Fa­ther’s will in fu­ture glory.”

179:3.10When Je­sus had fin­ished speak­ing, the Al­pheus twins brought on the bread and wine, with the bit­ter herbs and the paste of dried fruits, for the next course of the Last Sup­per.