Jesus begins to wash the feet of the disciples, and he arrives at Peter in John 13:6. Some think that he starts with Peter, but I think he ends with Peter. This would mean that even Judas had accepted the Lord's washing of his feet - but not Peter. Peter's angst rises inside him with each passing disciple until it explodes when Jesus arrives at him. Curling his feet up under him, he says, "Lord, do you wash my feet?" The words sound bland because we do not have any facial expression or verbal intonation to tell us much about Peter's response. However, we do have some clues in the Greek text to help us. The pronouns συ (you) and μου (my) are both emphatic in the sentence. Greek uses word order to emphasize certain words, but μου (my) is particularly stressed because of it's position before the verb. It is clear that Peter's primary concern is himself here. "My feet" shows his pride. Perhaps his voice even dripped with disdain for all the other feet Jesus had washed before him. Peter thinks the other disciples have failed in accepting the foot washing by Jesus.
The verb νιπτεις (wash) is a conative present which indicates an attempted action. So the best translation would be "Lord, are you trying to wash MY feet?" (Moulton, Howard, Turner, Grammar, Vol. 3, p. 63). Peter's tone of voice would have been incredulous and offended. Peter is incredulous on two counts - that he should need his feet washed and that the Lord should be the one to do it. This is pride masquerading as humility. We, too, can sound so humble in exalting Jesus with our words when we actually are too proud to accept his washing work in our lives. A few verses later, Jesus will highlight this truth by saying, "He who has bathed needs only to wash his feet" (13:10). He uses the same Greek word for wash but in a different form (νιψασθαι). Here it is in the middle voice and indicates permission in this verse. We could translate it, "He who has bathed needs only to let (allow) his feet to be washed." We exalt Jesus the most when we allow Him to wash our dirty feet. Jesus is most exalted when we welcome His cleansing.
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