"And during supper Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands, and that he had come from God and was going to God, got up from the table, took off his outer robe, and tied a towel around himself. Then he poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples' feet and to wipe them with the towel that was tied around him."
The Ancient Greek aphorism "Know thyself" was used by Plato to further Socrates' dialogic style of philosophizing. To know yourself is to know who you really are (and what you really know) rather than what you or other people think you are (or think you know). For Socrates, knowing yourself meant, first and foremost, knowledge of the fact that you don't know what you think you know. One gets to that place by constantly questioning one's assumptions; for Socrates, that happens in dialogue with another. That takes humility. Once one pares away the masks of the assumed self, then one is ready to face the Truth.
By virtue of the fact that Jesus is the fullest revelation of who God is, he needs no ego-centric facades. He recognizes who he is "knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands, and that he had come from God and was going to God." Jesus is free from the veneers and polishes that hide and diminish the precious material (consubstantial with the Father but truly human) of who he is. Stripped of the superfluous, he reacts as only God can react once the possibility of "baggage" is neutralized--he responds WITH SACRIFICIAL SERVICE, washing the feet of those who, in the economy of both the social milieu and in salvation, are his lessors.
We can learn from that. It is only when we too are stripped of ego, masks, postures, veneers and all of the things that diminish who we are in Christ and in the eyes of God, that we can be compelled to service for the other in imitation of the God who can only--by his very nature--self-give in love.
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