Gospel of John

Chapters 13-17 encompass a single narrative, the story of Jesus’s actions and words to his disciples on his last evening before his death. The Gospel of John does not relate specific information regarding the setting of these events, but they appear to correlate with the evening meeting portrayed in the other gospels, which took place in a spot called the upper room, where Jesus instituted the rite that would later be enshrined in Christian communion (also called the Eucharist or the Lord’s Supper). In John’s account, a different ritual is added to the narrative: Jesus washing the feet of his disciples, an act usually undertaken by a servant and conveying a sense of deep humility. Peter initially resists Jesus’s attempts to wash his feet, but he gives in at Jesus’s gentle encouragement. This act introduces one of the main points of Jesus’s teaching on that night—that they should love and care for one another: “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” (13:14-15).