The spiritual meaning of washing is purification – cleaning the mind spiritually much as water cleans the body naturally. “Feet” represent our lives on the natural level – the day-to-day outward thoughts and actions that absorb so much of our time. Washing the feet, then, symbolizes purifying the natural level of our lives, applying what the Lord teaches us to our outward, ordinary actions.

Think of it this way: Are you nice to the cashier at the grocery store? Can you forgive someone who accidentally cuts you off in traffic? Do you hold the door for strangers? Such small things may be signs of good clean feet. It also became a ritual, however, with a host honoring his guests by washing their feet. The most famous example of this is in John 13, when Jesus washed his disciples’ feet at the Last Supper.

3148. 'And the feet of the men who were with him' means purification of all things that were His in the natural man. This is clear from the meaning of 'the feet' as the things that belong to the natural man, dealt with in 2162, and from the meaning of 'the men who were with him' as all things in the natural man. It was customary for wayfarers on entering any house to wash their feet, as when Joseph's brothers were brought into his house, Genesis 43:24; when the Levite and those accompanying him were received into the old man's house, Judges 19:21; and when Uriah after his journey was ordered by David to go down to his house and to wash his feet, 2 Samuel 11:8. The reason for this custom was that journeys and travels meant things to do with instruction, and consequently with life, see 1293, 1457, 1463, 2025, and that these had to be purified, as shown just above in 3147. And there was the added reason that the filth that is meant in the spiritual sense should not cling to and defile the house, which is the human being, as also is evident from the requirement that they were to shake off the dust on their feet if a city or house did not receive peace, Matthew 10:14.