The chapter
Simply At supper on the night before Passover, Jesus gets up, ties a towel round his waist and washes his disciples' feet. Peter tries to stop him. Afterwards he explains that they should do the same for each other. He says one of them will hand him over, gives a piece of bread to Judas, and Judas leaves. Then he gives them a new commandment, to love one another, and tells Peter he will deny him three times before morning.
Context SOMETHING IS ABSENT HERE AND IT IS WORTH KNOWING BEFORE READING. This is John's account of the last supper, and it contains no bread broken and no cup given, no take and eat, no this is my body. Matthew, Mark and Luke all have those words at this point in their story and this app carries all three. In John the supper holds a basin and a towel instead, and the language about bread and flesh has already been used, three chapters into the public ministry, in a synagogue at Capernaum. The one cup in this whole Gospel is at 18:11 and it means suffering. The file states the absence rather than filling it in, because what a reader is given here is a washing, and reading the chapter as if the other one were also on the page changes what it says.
Verses 1-11
Simply Knowing his time has come, and having loved his own, he loves them to the end. During supper he gets up, takes off his outer clothes, ties a towel round himself, pours water into a basin and starts washing feet. Peter says he will never allow it. Jesus says that if he does not wash him, Peter has no part with him, and Peter asks for his hands and head too. Jesus says that a bathed man needs only his feet, and that they are clean, but not all of them.
Context The washing is set between two sentences about knowledge, and they are the reason it lands: verse 1 says he knew his hour had come, verse 3 says he knew the Father had given everything into his hands, and the next thing he does is take off his clothes and kneel. Peter's two refusals are opposite mistakes and the text keeps both, first refusing entirely and then asking for too much. Verse 11 closes the section by saying who the not all of you meant, which means Judas' feet were washed with the rest.
Verses 12-20
Simply He puts his clothes back on, sits down, and asks whether they understand what he has done. He says they call him Teacher and Lord and are right to, and that this is exactly why they should wash each other's feet. He has given them an example. A servant is not greater than his master. Knowing this is not the point, he says; doing it is.
Context Verse 13 is the hinge of the argument and it is easy to read past. He does not set the titles aside in order to serve; he confirms them and then draws the conclusion from them, so the washing is presented as what being Lord and Teacher looks like rather than as a break from it. Verse 17 puts a condition on the blessing that is unusual in this Gospel, which mostly speaks of believing: here it is doing. The quotation at verse 18 is Psalm 41:9, and it can be opened in this app.
Verses 21-30
Simply He is troubled, and says plainly that one of them will hand him over. They look at each other with no idea who he means. One disciple, the one Jesus loved, is next to him, and Peter signals to him to ask. Jesus says it is the one he gives the dipped bread to, and gives it to Judas. Judas goes out at once. The chapter says: it was night.
Context Verse 23 is the first of five places in this Gospel that speak of the disciple whom Jesus loved, and he is never given a name in any of them. The other four are at 19:26, 20:2, 21:7 and 21:20. Verse 28 is the strange one: Jesus names the traitor by an action in front of everyone, and nobody at the table understands what has happened, which is why they guess he has been sent shopping. The last three words of verse 30 do more than tell the time. This book has run on light and darkness since its first paragraph, and here it simply says it was night.
Verses 31-38
Simply Once Judas is gone, Jesus says the Son of Man has been glorified. He tells them he is only with them a little longer and that they cannot come where he is going. Then he gives them a new commandment: love one another as he has loved them, and that is how everyone will know whose they are. Peter asks where he is going and says he will lay down his life. Jesus asks whether he will, and tells him the rooster will not crow before he has denied him three times.
Context The commandment is called new, and what is new in it is the measure rather than the content: love one another AS I HAVE LOVED YOU, which the chapter has just defined with a basin. Verse 33 hands the disciples the sentence he had used against his opponents at 7:34 and 8:21, where you cannot come where I am going was a rebuke; here the same words are said to his own, and softened only by verse 36's afterwards. The chapter ends on Peter offering his life and being told the hour he will fail, and the offer is not withdrawn or mocked, only dated.