Once again this year, the pseudo-Christian “He Gets Us” campaign purchased some high-profile Super Bowl advertising. And once again this year, many Christians are questioning the message.

During Sunday’s Super Bowl, two more “He Gets Us” ads were featured. In one ad, a slowly scrolling series of what looks to be Norman Rockwell-style scenes depicts various instances of individuals washing the feet of others. Some of the scenes are rather benign, but some are more controversial — such as a woman washing the feet of a younger woman outside an abortion clinic, and another depicting a Christian priest washing the feet of a gender-bending individual at a beach.

Notably, those washing the feet of the other person are clearly intended to be of an opposite ideological or political bent than those getting their feet washed. The ad ends with the statement: “Jesus didn’t teach hate. He washed feet. He gets us. All of us. Jesus.” It then displays the group’s web address with the message, “LoveYourNeighbor.”

The second ad, which was shorter, poses the question, “Who Is My Neighbor?” It then runs through a series of pictures of people who all look pretty rough. One looks to be a drug addict, another a possible prostitute, another a gender-bending individual, and so forth. The ad then “answers” the question by stating, “The one you don’t notice, value, welcome.” It then ends with an image of an apparently drug-addled individual begging for money at someone’s car window, and then displays the group’s web address and the same “LoveYourNeighbor” message.

Upon visiting the group’s website, He Gets Us explains that the rationale for its ads this year was “one built on the premise of Love and Unity.” Tellingly, the group adds, “And with an upcoming election year that will be filled with division and derision, we decided to focus on one of the most important directives given by Jesus — Love Your Neighbor.”

There is also an explanation of the famous scene in the upper room from the Gospel of John, where Jesus washes his disciples’ feet. After quoting John 13:14, wherein Jesus says, “Now that I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you should wash one another’s feet,” there is an interpretation offered advancing the idea of “mutual admiration.” He Gets Us then posits the lesson from Christ’s act: “We began to imagine a world where ideological others were willing to set their differences aside and wash one another’s feet. How would that look? How would our contentious world change if we washed one another’s feet, not literally, but figuratively?”

In other words, the sentiment is, Wouldn’t it be nice if we all just set aside our differences and got along? Sure, that might be nice, but is that what Jesus taught? That may be a generalized moralizing message, but it is hardly the radical message that Jesus gave to his disciples that Passover night in the upper room.

As noted when we addressed this “Christian-lite” messaging last year, there is little actual Gospel in it. Instead, what is being presented is effectively a Christ-less Jesus — a Jesus that is palatable to a world steeped in sin because He doesn’t actually address the whole reason He came in the first place, which was to call sinners to repentance and save them from their sins by paying the penalty of death on the cross and then gifting all who believe in Him with His perfect righteousness.

Back to that upper-room foot-washing event: When Jesus, to the surprise of his disciples, began washing their feet, a job that would have normally been done only by a lowly servant, Peter at first objected, saying, “No, you shall never wash my feet.” Peter correctly saw Jesus as his master and saw this service as beneath him. Jesus then answered, “Unless I wash you, you have no part with me.”

This is the key point of the entire passage that He Gets Us misses. As the group’s goal states: “Our hope is that our latest commercials will stimulate both societal discussion and individual self-reflection about ‘who is my neighbor?’ and how each of us can love our neighbor even as we have differences and serve one another with more kindness and respect.”

Jesus is demonstrating that salvation from sins — what the foot washing was demonstrating — comes only through His work. Jesus was not simply communicating a broad moralizing message of being neighborly to everyone so we all can learn to set aside our differences and serve each other and get along. Rather, he was communicating the exclusive Gospel message: that salvation from our sin can come only from being washed by Jesus.

Christians who have been saved only by Christ’s work are to seek to follow Christ’s example and serve others, and in so doing point others to Jesus as the only way to salvation.

Here’s a better ad, courtesy of Pastor Jamie Bambrick, which reflects the real Gospel message of Jesus saving sinners. It’s a message that we wish had been aired during the Super Bowl: