191] possibly as to the order in which
they should take their places at table, over which triviality scribes
and Pharisees as well as the Gentiles often quarreled;[1192] and again
the Lord had to remind the apostles that the greatest of them all was he
who most willingly served his fellows. They had been taught before; yet
now, at this late and solemn hour, they were suffused with vain and
selfish ambition. In sorrowful earnestness the Lord pleaded with them,
asking who is greater, he that sits at the table, or he that serves? And
the obvious reply He supplemented by the statement: "But I am among you
as he that serveth." With loving pathos He added: "Ye are they which
have continued with me in my temptations;"[1193] and then He assured
them that they should lack neither honor nor glory in the kingdom of
God, for if they proved faithful they should be appointed to thrones as
the judges of Israel. For those of His chosen ones who were true to Him,
the Lord had no feeling less than that of love, and of yearning for
their victory over Satan and sin.

THE ORDINANCE OF THE WASHING OF FEET[1194]

Leaving the table, the Lord laid aside His outer garments and girded
Himself with a towel as an apron; then having provided Himself with a
basin and a supply of water, He knelt before each of the Twelve in turn,
washed his feet, and wiped them with the towel. When He reached Peter,
that impulsive apostle protested, saying: "Lord, dost thou wash my
feet?" That the proceeding was something more than mere service for
personal comfort, and more than an object-lesson of humility, appears in
the Lord's words to Peter--"What I do thou knowest not now; but thou
shalt know hereafter." Peter, failing to understand, objected yet more
vehemently; "Thou shalt never wash my feet," he exclaimed. Jesus
answered: "If I wash thee not, thou hast no part with me." Then, with
even greater impetuosity than before, Peter implored as he stretched
forth both feet and hands, "Lord, not my feet only, but also my hands
and my head." He had gone to the other extreme, insisting, though
ignorantly and unthinkingly, that things be done his way, and failing
yet to see that the ordinance had to be administered as the Lord willed.
Again correcting His well-intending though presumptuous servant, Jesus
said to him: "He that is washed needeth not save to wash his feet, but
is clean every whit: and ye are clean, but not all." Each of them had
been immersed at baptism;