“And everyone who has this hope in Him purifies himself, just as He is pure.”

1 John 3:3

My toddler loves the outdoors. She learned to walk a couple of months ago so we’ve been spending a lot of time outside now that it’s warmer. She always comes in with dirty feet because she wears sandals and doesn’t know yet how to step around mud and grime. 

I have to clean her feet because she can’t do it alone, but I don’t want anyone else cleaning my feet. One of Jesus’s disciples named Peter didn’t either. On the night of Jesus’s arrest before He was crucified, He washed each of His disciples’ feet, but at first Peter refused. He said, “Lord, do you wash my feet?… You shall never wash my feet” (Jn. 13:6,8). 

Jesus’s response to Peter is interesting. He told Peter, “What I am doing you do not understand now, but afterward you will understand… If I do not wash you, you have no share with me” (Jn. 13:7,8). Jesus’s act was clearly about more than just cleaning His disciples’ feet. It was a physical act to demonstrate a spiritual principle: if He did not wash their feet, they had no share with Him. 

But what does it mean to have a “share” with Jesus? 1 John 3:3 gives us our answer: “And everyone who has this hope in Jesus purifies himself, just as Jesus is pure.” When we place our hope in Jesus, we are purified from our sin. In other words, we share in His purity and righteousness. But that’s not something we can do for ourselves. It’s something only He can do for us. 

My daughter can’t clean her feet. Only I can do that right now. You and I can’t purify ourselves from sin. Only Jesus can do that. If we place our hope in Him, we share in His purity. 

That is the hope we celebrate at Easter. 

PRAYER: God, thank you for the hope to share in Christ’s righteousness that we celebrate at Easter. I praise you that He was willing to “wash my feet” when I was unable to wash my own feet because I was spiritually dead in my sin. Thank you for saving me through His life, death, and resurrection.