PETER AT THE SERVANT’S SEAT

JOHN 13:2–17

Jesus had instructed Peter and John to go and prepare the Passover meal. After everything was in order, Jesus and the disciples reclined at the table (see Matt. 26:20; Mark 14:18; Luke 22:14; John 13:23), strongly suggesting that this Passover meal was eaten around a triclinium, a kind of table customarily used for special occasions such as Passover. The placement of each guest denoted a level of hierarchy from the most important person to the least important.1

Leonardo da Vinci’s famous fifteenth-century mural known as “The Last Supper” depicts the disciples sitting at a European style table. The triclinium, however, was a low, three-sided surface at which the participants reclined on their left elbow and ate with their right hand.

Within the cultural context, Jesus was probably reclining in the host’s position with John immediately to his right with his head against Jesus’s chest (see John 13:23).2 Judas would have been reclining to Jesus’s left, facing Jesus’s back. This can be deduced because Jesus dipped a piece of bread and gave it to Judas, indicating the two of them were in very close proximity (John 13:26).

Sometimes meals in ancient Israel were eaten from a common bowl while people reclined or sat on the floor.
© Dr. James C. Martin. Eretz Israel Museum, Tel Aviv, Israel. Photographed by permission.

When Jesus announced one of those at this table would betray him, Peter motioned across the table to John to ask Jesus whom he was referring to. This exchange of gestures is easily visualized when we see Peter in the designated location for the servant, directly across from John.3 If this reconstruction is correct, then we might ask why Peter was in the servant’s position.

Certainly Peter’s close relationship with Jesus and apparent high standing among the disciples suggest there should have been a place of honor for him at the Passover table. Jesus had changed Simon’s name to Peter (i.e., the rock) and had given him “the keys of the kingdom” several months earlier at Caesarea Philippi (Matt. 16:19; see vv. 17–19). The purpose of a rabbi was to make authoritative and binding definitions of the law, so that meant Peter was being elevated to the position of rabbi and had the ability to bind and loosen those definitions.4

Scene from a first-century sarcophagus of a person reclining.
© Dr. James C. Martin. Musée du Louvre; Autorisation de photographer et de filmer—LOUVRE.

Artistic rendition of the possible seating arrangements of the Last Supper (after Edersheim).
© Dr. James C. Martin. Illustration by Timothy Ladwig.

With this in mind, we find that the most obvious indication that Peter was reclining in the servant’s place came when Jesus began to wash the disciples’ feet—an act that should have been performed by the one in the servant’s position. But that person was not doing the job, so Jesus proceeded to do it himself. No one objected until Jesus came to Peter, who protested, “Lord, are you going to wash my feet? . . . No, . . . you shall never wash my feet” (John 13:6, 8). For whatever reason, Peter, as the one sitting in the servant’s position, refused to carry out what should have been his task. Therefore, Jesus demonstrated the meaning of leadership not only to the recently appointed rabbi, Peter, but to all the disciples: “Now that I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also should wash one another’s feet. I have set you an example that you should do as I have done for you” (John 13:14–15).

Remains of a triclinium table in a Roman military camp at Masada.