'He Gets Us' - But Do We Get Him?
Jesus didn’t teach hate. He washed feet. He gets us. All of us.
By now you likely have heard about the “He Gets Us” Super Bowl commercial. It offered several candid scenes primarily featuring two individuals, with one washing the other’s feet.
We see a police officer washing the feet of a black man.
An oil field worker washing the feet of a young hippie protesting against drilling.
A woman washing the feet of a girl outside an abortion clinic, while a pro-life protest takes place in the background.
A suburban woman washing the feet of an immigrant getting off a bus (in light of recent events, it is implied that she is an illegal immigrant).
A priest washing the feet of a man who appears to portray himself as “transgender” or homosexual.
Many conservative and Christian commentators rushed to condemn the advertisement for the theological and cultural statements it managed to make in its 60-second run time.
While many of those critiques are absolutely valid, we could offer some Christian charity here by at least visiting the website of the organization that placed the ad to let it speak for itself.
Let’s scrutinize the theological claims made by He Gets Us (a directive of The Signatry, a larger nonprofit). Perhaps this is a “chew the meat, spit the bones” moment?
The Moment Jesus Actually Washed Feet
Before we do that, it’s helpful to review the foot-washing moment used as the scriptural basis for the messaging in this commercial.
In the Gospel of John, Chapter 13, Jesus gathers with His disciples for what is known as the Last Supper. At the beginning of the gathering, Jesus collects a basin and towel and then washes His disciples’ feet.
It was a custom of Near Eastern hospitality — in a culture in which most individuals wore sandals — to have your servant wash the feet of guests in your home.
When Jesus did this Himself, it sent a shocking message to His disciples — so shocking that Peter at first refused the gesture entirely. The idea that his great rabbi would stoop to the level of a servant and perform such a filthy, intimate chore was absolutely repulsive to the zealously enthusiastic and reverent Peter.
It was a profound gesture by Christ. When the Master took on the role of the servant, He communicated that the kind of lordship He was bringing was not the kind the disciples expected. Jesus was bringing a leadership that leads not just by command but also by example. As the military saying goes, He led from the front.
Christ passed this example on to us with the words, “And since I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you ought to wash each other’s feet” (John 13:14, New Living Translation).
Jesus Wasn’t Democratic
“As we explored creative ideas, we recalled the story of Jesus washing his disciples’ feet and realized this was the perfect example of how we should treat one another, even those people with whom we don’t see eye to eye,” the He Gets Us website explains.
“Jesus had washed Peter’s feet, a loyal friend who would publicly deny that he knew Jesus later that very night. And even more astoundingly, Jesus washed Judas Iscariot’s feet, the one who would betray him for 30 pieces of silver.”
He Gets Us scarcely manages a few words of accurate exegesis (critical explanation of Scripture) before stumbling back into a culturally influenced “social justice” worldview.
Jesus did not wash the feet of His disciples to demonstrate that you must serve those you don’t “see eye to eye” with.
Jesus and His 12 did not govern themselves democratically. Jesus did not debate with His disciples to seek a common ground or to reconcile their differences. He could not care less who did or didn’t see eye to eye with Him.
This is demonstrated loudly in John 6 when Jesus utters the famous words, “Eat my flesh and drink my blood.” The many thousands that had followed Him to that point struggled to understand this phrase and deserted Him.
He watched them leave in silence. He didn’t chase them down, shouting, “Wait, everyone, you don’t understand! Let me explain!”
Furthermore, categorizing Judas’ betrayal as simply “not seeing eye to eye” with Jesus is laughable at best.
Imagine you head a nonprofit, and one day your chief accountant not only reveals he’s been embezzling from you for years, but then sells you out to a murderous gang that proceeds to torture and execute you.
Would you characterize the schism in your relationship as a simple disagreement?
Jesus Was Eastern, Not Western
He Gets Us continues on its website, “Foot washing required humility on the part of both parties: the one willing to wash another’s feet and also the one willing to have their feet washed. It was an act of mutual admiration. Jesus was shedding any notion of rank or caste among his disciples.”
That statement is simply untrue and ignorant of historical and cultural realities.
As mentioned, foot washing was a common cultural practice performed by a servant for a visiting guest or for the master of the house. “Mutual admiration” is an injection of modern Western sensibility into an ancient Near Eastern practice.
When you get your shoes shined at Nordstrom, there certainly is admiration for the shoeshiner’s hard work and skill, as well as for his character in placing himself in a vulnerable position. There is no rank or caste implied, and ironically the shoeshiner likely serves many individuals of poorer economic condition than himself.
A modern appreciation of humble labor simply does not translate to the ancient Near East; it’s an utter fabrication.
God Is Not Humiliated
Was Jesus, the King and Messiah, “shedding any notion of rank or caste”? Let’s let God speak for Himself (mere minutes later), and every man be a liar:
“The time has come for the Son of Man to enter into his glory, and God will be glorified because of him. And since God receives glory because of the Son, he will give his own glory to the Son, and he will do so at once” (John 13:31-32, NLT).
Many red-letter “Christians” seem to quit when they get to the end of the Gospels, not making it through to the red letters in the book of Revelation.
I won’t spoil the end of the story other than to assert that there is no humility in heaven. Depending on how we define “humility,” that is!
If we view “humility” as simply “a lack of pride or arrogance,” then yes, of course, our ascended, enthroned Messiah is the perfect example of humility. However, if we were to use the Oxford definition, we would view Christ as possessing “the quality of not thinking that [He is] better than other people.”
Hopefully this won’t come as a shock, but God is well aware that He is better than other people. In fact, He wrote an entire book demonstrating all the ways in which this is true.
There exists a pervasive myth in Christianity that portrays our glorified Savior as a modest, dark-skinned hippie with a lamb slung around his shoulders.
This doesn’t reconcile with the image of a general on a white horse who will lead an angel army to slaughter evildoers and purge the earth of its darkness. Christ came in humility, but He ascended to glory.
Bad Theology, Bad Worldview
He Gets Us closes its exegetical summary of the washing of the disciples’ feet with its application of this Scripture through its worldview.
“We began to imagine a world where ideological others were willing to set their differences aside and wash one another’s feet. How would that look? How would our contentious world change if we washed one another’s feet, not literally, but figuratively?” the website continues.
“Figurative foot washing can be as simple as giving a compliment to a co-worker or paying for a stranger’s lunch. It can also be as difficult as not responding to someone who’s criticizing you or reaching out to an estranged family member. Acts of kindness done out of humility and respect for another person could be considered the equivalent of foot washing.”
This resolution is the equivalent of being hopelessly lost in a corn maze and choosing to set up camp within the confusion and darkness instead of continuing to seek the exit.
Once again, they assert this make-believe concept that Christ — in demonstrating humble servant leadership — was trying to teach His disciples to overlook “ideological differences.”
But even worse, given the content of the commercial, are we to believe things like infanticide and homosexual lifestyles are merely “ideological differences” that must be set aside?
Loving Jesus Means Obeying Him
We are in agreement that literal foot washing is not what Christ was asking His disciples to do, and that serving one another in humility is what He was trying to teach.
However, we don’t need to set aside ideological differences to buy a stranger lunch or give a compliment to a coworker. Nor should we.
One of the most common ways we can err when studying Scripture is by taking a passage out of context — reading an isolated passage and attempting to discern its meaning without looking to the immediately surrounding Scripture.
Jesus’ foot washing in John 13 is just one part of a single, contiguous scene and conversation that lasts until Chapter 17. We don’t even need to attempt to link to a Pauline epistle or an Old Testament story to discern Christ’s meaning; we merely need to keep reading.
And if we do that, a fascinating sermon will unfold — one that demonstrates a pernicious hatred of Christ-followers and their commandments in a secular world.
Christ utters some scary words. He says that those who don’t “produce fruit” are “cut off” by Father God (John 15:2). How do we produce fruit and avoid being cut off (condemned to hell)?
Jesus says we produce fruit by “remaining in Him” (John 15:5), and that we can “remain in Him” by obeying His commandments (John 15:10).
So then, what love is there for those we don’t “see eye to eye” with if we are willing to buy them a sandwich but unwilling to tell them their rebellious lifestyle will cut them off from God forever?
It begets a full stomach and a damned soul.
Cowardly Christians
The reason why is obvious. Feckless, cowardly Christians are too spineless to accurately represent the God of the Bible.
God does have some harsh words for humanity. There are some sobering truths. But cowards would rather buy a sandwich and dish out a compliment — self-serving, fake charity that does just as much for the coward’s self-esteem as it does for the recipient — than preach the true Gospel, the one that includes repentance and obedience.
Jesus doesn’t need a PR firm. Perhaps it’s well-intentioned, or perhaps it’s a blasphemous insult to assume that the lost of this world would finally come to Jesus if someone would just tell them who He “really” is.
Judas Iscariot spent years in Jesus’ ministry. He helped run God’s first earthly nonprofit. He had private moments with the Son of Man and many, many conversations that are lost to history. Judas knew exactly who Jesus was, and still betrayed Him.
God washed Judas’ feet, and then He condemned him to hell.
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