Peter and the other apostles were naturally embarrassed. No wonder: the King of Israel was washing their feet, doing a slave's work! Many of us would surely dislike it if the person dearest to us began doing something humiliating and improper. But this washing of feet is a decisive moment in the history of Jesus' relationship with His disciples; anyone who dislikes it is free to leave.

Why is it so important? Apparently it is impossible to understand the Lord and follow Him without learning through experience this lesson in which the Master serves those beneath Him and the Teacher serves His disciples. As Scripture says, this is an example—but not an example on a board or in a picture. Peter and all of us must pass through this shock so that we will never again be shocked by the thought that we too must serve those who are lesser and weaker than we are.

In some Christian churches the custom of washing feet has become a tradition. After all, Jesus says directly that we Christians should do this for one another, and if His words are understood literally, then the custom or even rite of foot washing can appear entirely appropriate - if not for one "but": Jesus Himself insists categorically that this is no rite and no ritual. The ritual washing customary during the Passover seder (and the Last Supper was precisely a Passover seder, a ritual Jewish meal performed during the feast of Passover) had already been completed by that moment. Now they had to recline at the table (in those days people did not sit at table but reclined), and before that everyone needed to have their feet washed, because one usually climbed onto the couch with one's feet.

As a rule, this work was assigned to a household slave, and so when Jesus Himself does it, it causes real shock: such a task is not for the Teacher. Peter protests, but Jesus is unyielding: if you refuse, you will not sit at the Passover table with Me. Then Peter tries to turn everything precisely into a rite, into a ritual washing.

If Jesus had also washed his hands and head, and those of the other disciples, then this really would have resembled a ritual cleansing washing; but Jesus does not want that. He is not going to turn ordinary foot washing into a ritual. On the contrary, He wants to show His disciples that the Kingdom is not a ritual, but ordinary life, the life people live, and live simply, not for the sake of observing some endless mysterious rites. Only in this life there are no tasks that are, on the one hand, "high" and "spiritual," and on the other, "low": any work is filled with spiritual meaning if it is done according to God's will and with love.

And a person's position in the Kingdom, his so-called status as an inhabitant of this Kingdom (to the extent that it is appropriate to speak of any status here at all), is not affected by any ministries or tasks: what matters here is the person's inner state, the spiritual quality of his life, not what he is occupied with. This is the simple truth Jesus wants to bring to His disciples by His own example. And if, instead of understanding and accepting this truth, we again and again turn it into a ritual, then the problem is in us, not in the truth.

In the Gospel account of Jesus washing His disciples' feet, we are often inclined to see something significant and mysterious, at times almost mystical. Sometimes in some Christian communities people even try to revive this "sacred ritual," expecting from it either some special grace or abundant spiritual fruits.

Jesus Himself had nothing of the sort in mind. He clearly had in mind nothing mysterious, no special ritual, no sacred washings. Peter wanted to see the situation this way, but Jesus did not allow him to do so. He did not turn an ordinary, though absolutely necessary, task into a ritual. He simply did the work that was usually assigned to a household slave. And He said at the same time: you call Me Teacher and Lord, and you are right; if so, then act as I do.

Does this mean that only occupations once assigned to slaves are suitable for a Christian? Hardly. But there must be readiness to do any work if it is necessary for specific neighbors in a specific situation. Any work at all, even the kind that one would not do under ordinary circumstances.

What disturbed Peter most of all was precisely that his Teacher was doing something completely inappropriate to His position. He tries to smooth over a situation that appears to him humiliating for his Teacher by turning the ordinary washing of feet, absolutely necessary at that time, into a kind of ritual washing that will not humiliate Jesus: that is why he asks Him to wash not only his feet, but also his hands and head, as was usually done during purification washings.

Jesus Himself sees nothing humiliating for Himself in the situation that has arisen. More than that: He speaks of it as the norm for relationships among Christians. Not so that some could shift onto others the tasks they do not want to do themselves, but so that His disciples would understand what the life of the Kingdom is. A life in which what is so important in this world does not matter: status, prestige, imaginary dignity, which often does not allow us to do what our neighbors expect from us; in a word, everything that has no relation to the love of the Kingdom, by which the true followers of Christ were supposed to live and about which they were supposed to bear witness, the followers Jesus wanted the apostles to be.