If you were to walk into my office, you would find hanging on the wall Sieger Köder’s picture of Jesus kneeling before Peter, washing his feet. Almost each day this piece of artwork invites me into a deeper engagement with the question Jesus asked his disciples after washing their feet. Do you remember it?
“Do you understand what I have done for you?”
This question faces all of us who want to embrace the Jesus way for our lives. Even though Jesus himself answered the question to some extent, we do not seem to have grasped its revolutionary significance. Jesus’ foot-washing action sharply contradicts the dominant way our society is organized, so we tend to shy away from engaging the question’s tough challenge. Foot washing seems too inconsistent with our culture, too challenging, too radical for ordinary people like you and me. Let us, however, for a few moments put aside these concerns and take a long look at this picture.
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 Trevor Hudson is an author and pastor with Northfield Methodist Church in Benoni, South Africa. His most recent books published in the United States include Questions God Asks (Upper Room Books) and Discovering Your Spiritual Identity: Practices For God’s Beloved (InterVarsity Press), released in December 2010.
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