Manual labor is defined as physical work done by people rather than machines or animals. The labor is done by “man”. I was thinking about this lately in connection with a very familiar incident in the life of Jesus.
It is the last supper, and Jesus washes the disciples’ feet.
John 13:3-5, “Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands, and that he had come from God and was going back to God, rose from supper. He laid aside his outer garments, and taking a towel, tied it around his waist. Then he poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples’ feet and to wipe them with the towel that was wrapped around him.”
At this moment of fullest realization of who He was as God and His purpose within the plan of salvation, Jesus does this act of “man”ual labor.
He doesn’t just do Peter’s feet then tell him, “There I showed you how; now get busy and wash others.”
He doesn’t pay one of the disciples to do the washing for him.
He doesn’t tell them to go hire a servant to come and wash their feet.
He doesn’t find one of the women who undoubtedly was preparing the meal, and add this chore to her list of responsibilities.
He doesn’t even denigrate them for their lack of self-respect and personal responsibility that they don’t wash their own feet.
He does it himself. He physically lowers himself to take each of the disciples’ dirty feet, wash and dry it himself. He does the dirty work Himself. Then He says the following:
12-16 “When he had washed their feet and put on his outer garments and resumed his place, he said to them, ‘Do you understand what I have done to you? You call me Teacher and Lord, and you are right, for so I am. If I then, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet. For I have given you an example, that you also should do just as I have done to you. Truly, truly, I say to you, a servant is not greater than his master, nor is a messenger greater than the one who sent him.’”
God expects us to do the dirty work for each other ourselves. Not to show someone else how and then order them to do it. Not to pay someone else to do it. Not even to find someone in our employ or the woman in the kitchen to do it for us. Alarmingly, He is not even concerned that we might be enabling them to avoid washing their own feet.
Ann Voskamp says it well in these excerpts from The Broken Way.
“Anyone can have enough compassion to write a check for the needy, but who has compassion for the kid who makes life hard? Compassion can feel like the right thing when it involves a donation. But when there’s been a violation of your rights? Compassion can feel like a degradation…It’s more like Christ to go after the one than to go for the applause of the ninety-nine. There is more compassion in the giving of yourself in hidden, dying ways to the unworthy than there is in giving expensive things in noticed ways to the applauding.”
Jesus showed that to do the dirty work of ministering to others was to do the work of God Himself. All of heaven’s resources were in His hands at that moment, and rather than command their feet to be clean; He did the manual labor the way that He knew we would have to do it. On our knees with a towel.