Very soon we in United Church of God will be partaking in the foot-washing ceremony in which each man pairs with another man and each woman pairs with another woman and they wash one another’s feet. It is a simple act. It only takes a few minutes of our time. But, according to Jesus Christ, it is a very important part of the Passover service as it teaches profound lessons.

Let’s read His example for us: “Jesus…rose from supper and laid aside His garments, took a towel and girded Himself. After that, He poured water into a basin, and began to wash the disciples’ feet, and to wipe them with the towel with which He was girded” (John 13:3-5). Verse 12 reads, “So when He had washed their feet, taken His garments, and sat down again, He said to them, ‘Do you know what I have done to you? You call me Teacher and Lord, and you say well, for so I am. If I then, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet.”

We know that in ancient times it was one of the lowest jobs to wash another’s feet. Is that the only meaning we are to learn—to become a lowly servant to another?

Just what should the foot-washing ceremony mean to us? In Exodus 12 the Israelites were about to experience their first Passover and Feast of Unleavened Bread. Notice the symbolic meaning found here. The lamb is killed and blood is shed and put on the doorposts so God would protect the people from the death angel. Following the Passover are seven days of unleavened bread, but where is the foot-washing component?

Were the Israelites in a humble foot-washing attitude? They agreed to do what God said, didn’t they? We know the story of how the Israelites complained and many rebelled. So God led them for 40 years in the wilderness to humble and test them (Deuteronomy 8:2).

In Genesis 15:13, Abram is told, “Your descendants will be strangers in a land that is not theirs, and will serve them, and they will afflict them four hundred years.” There it is. Servitude! Bondage! A humbling experience, but did this type of trial produce a foot-washing attitude—the attitude of humility, service and love that we should have not only at Passover but year-round?

Voluntary humility

Notice that God was forcibly humbling the Israelites. Does God want to force us into humility?

No. We, as the spiritual body of Christ are to humble ourselves. It comes down to choice. It is a voluntary humbling (Romans 12:1). “I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service…For I say, through the grace given to me, to everyone who is among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think.” There it is again—a humbleness of mind.

So, being a living sacrifice and having a humble attitude go hand in hand. We are to surrender ourselves to it. It is our reasonable service.

In the dictionary the word humble is described as:

1.

Coming from the Middle English, from Old French, from the Latin humilis—low, humble—from humus—earth.
2.

Not haughty, proud.
3.

Submissive.
4.

Ranking low in a hierarchy or scale, unpretentious.

What really surprised me here was that the word humble comes from the word humus, which means earth.

“Humus” today commonly refers to that part of the soil that is brown or black complex, variable material resulting from partial decomposition of plant or animal matter and forming the organic portion of the soil. In other words, you could call it compost. The chemical composition of humus varies depending on the plant sources. As they decompose, plant residues are converted into stable forms that are stored in the soil and are usable by plants as food. The amount of humus in soil also affects such important physical properties of the soil as structure, color, texture and moisture-holding capacity.

The ideal development of crop plants depends largely on the humus content of the soil. Some soil is certainly more productive than others, some can even be quite depleted and the plants or trees suffer or even die from a lack of this important ingredient humus.

So what can we learn from this analogy? What does compost have to do with being humble and the foot-washing service? Everything!

Humus or organic matter is living matter, and in its humble attitude or state it is something that sacrifices itself—in other words, it dies—decomposes—changes composition, if you will—and in the process gives itself up in order to serve others (John 12:24; Matthew 10:39). To give life to other plants, animals and humans, it gives its own life through its humble service.

Humus is an excellent example of a living sacrifice.

Living sacrifice

Let’s humble ourselves before God and one another by laying down our lives voluntarily to serve and love one another.

I know I now have a deeper understanding of Romans 12 where it encourages us to become a living sacrifice like that of humus. Sometimes we forget our humble beginnings—how God made us out of the lowest part of the earth, “dust” or “humus” (Genesis 3:19). But our “dust” needs to be improved—to become like compost, or that organic part of the soil that is the most necessary part, which imparts life to others by its continual sacrifice. This is the type of sacrifice God wants from us.

Let’s look at an example of humbleness in action—of a living sacrifice from the Bible. Ruth of the Old Testament demonstrates the principle of the foot-washing attitude—the one we should be developing.

Ruth lived in the land of Moab and had married one of Naomi’s sons who later died. Ruth did not bear any of his children. She had no further obligations to serve her mother-in-law. Naomi, after losing her husband and sons, was going back home to another country, another way of life. Naomi was not of the same religion as Ruth. But Ruth displayed an unusual attitude.

In Ruth 1:16-17, Ruth says, “Entreat me not to leave you, or to turn back from following after you; for wherever you go, I will go; and wherever you lodge, l will lodge: Your people shall be my people, and your God, my God. Where you die, I will die, and there will I be buried.”

Ruth in her humility, went back to the soil, so to speak, to work in the fields—giving herself in service to another human being. Like the humus or compost, her sacrifice provided sustenance or life to another. Without Ruth, Naomi would have had a difficult time obtaining food.

What makes Ruth’s story different than that of the Israelites in the wilderness after that first Passover is her willingness to humble herself in service to another. She laid down her life for another as she lay at Boaz’s feet—symbolic of the foot-washing attitude.

God did not have to do something to her or convince her to be humble. And because of her living sacrifice, Christ was born through her lineage and He, in turn, gave His life to be , a living sacrifice so everyone could have a chance at eternal life.

So let’s not be like the physical Israelites, having to be convinced by physical trials to be in a humble foot-washing attitude. Instead, let’s humble ourselves before God and one another by laying down our lives voluntarily to serve and love one another—just as the example of the humble humus—or like the examples of Ruth and Christ, who sacrificed so others may have life.