The upper room: the footwashing, the new commandment and the way to the Father

The Gospel of John is anonymous in its own text. Church tradition, beginning with Irenaeus, ascribes it to the apostle John, son of Zebedee, and the Gospel itself traces its testimony to 'the disciple whom Jesus loved' (21:24). Some scholars accept the apostle as author, others see a community of his disciples at work, and Richard Bauckham argues for an eyewitness outside the Twelve. The traditional date is late in the first century. The Gospel is written so that readers may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God (20:31).

With chapter 13 the Gospel changes pace. The first twelve chapters, often called the Book of Signs, move from sign to sign and from crowd to crowd. From chapter 13 the scene narrows to a single room on the night before the crucifixion, with only the disciples present, and the narrator says that Jesus knew his hour had come to depart from this world to the Father and that he loved his own to the very end (13:1). Some call chapters 13-20 the Book of Glory, since Jesus' glory is revealed in his death and resurrection.

The meal is set before the Passover feast (13:1), and John's dating differs from that of the other Gospels, who describe the Last Supper as a Passover meal (Mark 14:12-16). Interpreters have proposed several explanations. One is that groups in Judaism used different calendars. Another is that John's use of 'Passover' covers the whole festival, so that the leaders in 18:28 are avoiding defilement for later festival meals. A third is that John means Jesus died as the Passover lambs were being slaughtered. The question does not change the meaning of the chapters, and John does not narrate the institution of the Lord's Supper. He gives the footwashing in its place.

Chapters 13-17 form the Farewell Discourse, a form of speech with a long history in the Old Testament. Jacob speaks to his sons before his death (Genesis 49), Moses to Israel (Deuteronomy 31-33), Joshua to the people (Joshua 23-24), and Samuel to the nation (1 Samuel 12). These speeches share features: the leader announces his departure, gives a final charge, names a successor, and assures the people of God's continued presence. John 13-14 follows this pattern, and Jesus' promise of the Spirit is the equivalent of the successor, though the Spirit does not replace him but makes him present.

John tells the first scene as action and the rest as dialogue, with three disciples interrupting in chapter 14. The interruptions are not distractions; each question sets up one of Jesus' great statements. The reader should hold the footwashing and the discourse together, since Jesus' act in 13:1-17 is the first lesson and the love that he commands in 13:34 is explained by it.

There is a literary puzzle at the end of chapter 14. Jesus says, 'Get up! Let us go on from here' (14:31), yet the speech continues for three more chapters. Some scholars think the later chapters were added to an earlier form of the discourse, and others think the group lingered, or that Jesus spoke on the way. The class reads the chapters as they stand.

13:1-5. John writes that Jesus knew the hour had come and that he loved his own to the end, a phrase that can mean to the last moment and to the fullest degree. The devil had already put betrayal in the heart of Judas. Jesus knew that the Father had given all things into his hands and that he had come from God and was going to God. With this knowledge he rises from the meal, takes off his outer garment, wraps a towel round his waist, pours water into a basin and begins to wash his disciples' feet. Foot washing was the work of a household slave. John makes the point that the one who knows he holds all things chooses the lowest task. Luke records that the disciples had been arguing about who was greatest (Luke 22:24-27).

13:6-11. Peter resists. Jesus says that Peter does not now understand but will afterward. When Peter says Jesus will never wash his feet, Jesus replies that unless he washes him Peter has no share with him. Peter then asks for hands and head as well. Jesus answers that one who has bathed needs only to have his feet washed, and he is clean, though not all of them are, a reference to Judas. The act is a sign of a cleansing that Jesus gives and that must be received, and it points beyond the water to his death.

13:12-20. Jesus then gives the act a second meaning. He is Lord and Teacher, yet he has washed their feet, so they ought to wash one another's. A servant is not greater than his master. He quotes Psalm 41:9, about a table companion who has lifted his heel against the speaker, and says it must be fulfilled. He tells them in advance so that when it happens they will believe that 'I am He'. Whoever receives the one he sends receives him, and whoever receives him receives the Father.

13:21-30. Troubled in spirit, Jesus says one of them will betray him. The disciples look at each other. The disciple whom Jesus loved, who is reclining next to him, asks who it is, and Jesus answers by dipping a morsel and giving it to Judas, son of Simon Iscariot. Satan enters Judas. Jesus tells him to do quickly what he is going to do, and the others think he is sent to buy food or to give to the poor. Judas goes out, and John adds that it was night.

13:31-38. With Judas gone, Jesus speaks of glory: the Son of Man is glorified, and God is glorified in him. He calls them little children and says he will be with them only a little longer. He gives them a new commandment: love one another as he has loved them, by which all will know they are his disciples. Peter asks where he is going and says he will lay down his life for him. Jesus tells him that before the rooster crows he will deny him three times.

14:1-4. Jesus tells the troubled disciples not to let their hearts be troubled, but to believe in God and in him. In his Father's house are many dwelling places. In 2:16 Jesus used the phrase 'my Father's house' for the temple, so he is speaking of the presence of God himself. He is going to prepare a place and will come again and take them to himself.

14:5-14. Thomas objects that they do not know the way. Jesus replies that he is the way, the truth and the life, and that no one comes to the Father except through him. Philip asks to be shown the Father. Jesus answers that whoever has seen him has seen the Father, because the Father is in him and he in the Father, and the words and works prove it. He adds that those who believe will do greater works, because he goes to the Father, and that whatever they ask in his name he will do.

14:15-24. Love shows in keeping his commands. Jesus promises 'another Advocate', the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive but whom the disciples know, since he abides with them and will be in them. He will not leave them orphans, but will come. Judas (not Iscariot) asks why Jesus will show himself to them and not to the world. Jesus answers that the one who loves him will keep his word, and the Father and he will come and make a dwelling with that person. The word for 'dwelling' here (mone) is the word for the 'dwelling places' in verse 2, so the place he prepares is the mutual indwelling of the persons with his people.

14:25-31. The Spirit will teach them everything and remind them of all that Jesus said. Jesus leaves them his peace, not as the world gives. He says the Father is greater than he and that they should rejoice that he goes. The ruler of this world is coming and has no hold on him. He acts as the Father commands, so that the world may know he loves the Father.

These chapters are the plainest place in Scripture where the Father, the Son and the Spirit are described together and in relation to each other. The Son is in the Father and the Father in the Son (14:10-11). The Father sends the Spirit in the Son's name (14:26), and the Spirit makes the Father and the Son present with the disciples (14:17, 23). Christians later drew on these chapters to set out the doctrine of the Trinity. The relationship of the Spirit to the Father and the Son became the subject of a long dispute between Western and Eastern churches over the Latin addition 'and the Son' (filioque) to the Nicene Creed, which turns on John 14:26 and 15:26.

The chapters also give the church's foundation for the apostolic witness. The Spirit will teach the disciples and remind them of what Jesus said (14:26), and Christians have long seen in this a promise behind the writing of the New Testament. They also say that Jesus is the way to the Father, which fits the Bible's teaching that access to God is through a mediator (1 Timothy 2:5; Hebrews 10:19-20). Christians differ on how widely to apply the exclusivity of 14:6, but most agree it is a claim about Jesus and not a statement about the limits of God's mercy.

Finally, the love commandment and the footwashing teach that the life of the people of God is shaped by the pattern of Christ's self-giving. This theme returns in Philippians 2:5-8 and 1 John 3:16.

John 13 is Christ's own self-portrait before the cross. Knowing that all things were in his hands, he lays aside his garments and takes the towel of a servant. Paul's hymn describes the same movement in the incarnation and death: he took the form of a servant and humbled himself (Philippians 2:5-8). The footwashing is an enacted picture of that humbling and a sign of the cleansing his death brings. It also recalls the Servant of Isaiah 52:13-53:12, though John does not cite the passage here.

He names the fulfilment himself. Judas's betrayal fulfils Psalm 41:9 (John 13:18), which David wrote of a friend who turned against him. Jesus' words 'I am He' (13:19) echo God's self-naming in Isaiah 43:10, and this is offered as an echo. In John 14 Jesus speaks plainly of himself as the only way to the Father and as the one in whom the Father is seen (14:6, 9). The disciples ask what Moses asked in Exodus 33:18-23 and were told something different. Moses asked to see God's glory and was shown only his back. Philip asks to see the Father and is told that he is looking at him, an echo that marks the gap between the old covenant and the new.

The farewell setting adds one more connection. As Moses handed the work on to Joshua (Deuteronomy 31:7-8), so Jesus promises that the Spirit will carry on his work among his disciples. The difference is that the Spirit is not a successor in his place but the presence of Jesus himself (14:18).