When you get a Pedicure, they shape your toe-nails, scrub your feet and heels in an attempt to smooth out any rough spots, then they delightfully massage your Polish calves. Er, I mean they massage your calves. Not everyone has PC's. Polish Calves. Again, it's a term of endearment folks, no need to say "awe Jen don't be so hard on yourself." I'm cool with it. But I blame my mother. And my aunts. If I were a blamin' sort of gal. Ok, clearly I'm off the path here...
Whenever I get a Pedicure though, I always feel so bad for the person doing it! I think, gosh, it must be a tough job to do that all.day.long. Dealing with peoples feet all.day.long. And who can know the state of everyone's feet! Can you imagine? Feet are not the most attractive attribute of a person. Did you ever meet someone and think "my they have nice feet!" No! Wait, I think I have. Nevermind. You get the point.
So today I was reading in John about Jesus washing the disciples feet. I've read it before but today it leaped off the page right into my heart. It's a long passage but I want to share it here because it's so profound:
John 13:1-17 says, Now before the Feast of the Passover, when Jesus knew that His hour had come that He should depart from this world to the Father, having loved His own who were in the world, He loved them to the end. 2 And supper being ended,[a] the devil having already put it into the heart of Judas Iscariot, Simon’s son, to betray Him, 3 Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into His hands, and that He had come from God and was going to God, 4 rose from supper and laid aside His garments, took a towel and girded Himself. 5 After that, He poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples’ feet, and to wipe them with the towel with which He was girded. 6 Then He came to Simon Peter. And Peter said to Him, “Lord, are You washing my feet?” 7 Jesus answered and said to him, “What I am doing you do not understand now, but you will know after this.” 8 Peter said to Him, “You shall never wash my feet!” Jesus answered him, “If I do not wash you, you have no part with Me.” 9 Simon Peter said to Him, “Lord, not my feet only, but also my hands and my head!” 10 Jesus said to him, “He who is bathed needs only to wash his feet, but is completely clean; and you are clean, but not all of you.” 11 For He knew who would betray Him; therefore He said, “You are not all clean.” 12 So when He had washed their feet, taken His garments, and sat down again, He said to them, “Do you know what I have done to you? 13 You call Me Teacher and Lord, and you say well, for so I am. 14 If I then, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet. 15 For I have given you an example, that you should do as I have done to you. 16 Most assuredly, I say to you, a servant is not greater than his master; nor is he who is sent greater than he who sent him. 17 If you know these things, blessed are you if you do them.
The picture that plays in my head regarding this scene is so fascinating. Can you imagine the disciples reaction to this? And I'm sure there were servants in the room as well, what must they have been thinking? In those days, it was a servants job to wash the feet of the guests as they came in. People wore sandals and walked on dusty roads so it was not un-usual for your feet to be cleansed as you arrived into a home, however, it was very un-usual for Jesus to be doing it.
Here you have a man that has literally changed people's lives in the short time He had been ministering in full effect. People had been healed from tremendous things, raised from the dead, devils cast out, broken hearts made whole...all through this man Jesus. And now He is doing the job of a servant.
The great I AM, washing feet. The King of Kings, washing feet. The Lion of the tribe of Judah, washing feet. The Bright and morning Star, washing feet. The Creator of the universe, washing feet. The Lily of the Valley, washing feet. My redeemer, washing feet. Your redeemer, washing feet.
I would share in Peter's response of "Lord, what are you doing? You don't wash my feet! No way! I'd rush to get up, to cause Jesus to quit doing that lowly job. No way is MY Lord going to wash MY filthy fat, sausage toe havin feet! No way."
And yet Jesus says if you don't let me do this, you have no part in me. Hmmm. Wow.
Serving each other unites us on such greater a level then we can imagine. The unity felt in that room after Jesus finished that amazing act must have been something out of this world. Well, minus Judas. But still...serving unites us.
That's one thing I absolutely love about our Church, it's full of servants. People that would not bat an eye at getting down and washing someone's feet, so to speak. They are willing to rise high, to go low. Powerful people, powerful feet washing people.
Smith Wigglesworth said, "We are no good if we only have a full cup. We need to have an overflowing cup all the time. It is a tragedy not to live in the fullness of overflowing. See that you never live below the overflowing tide."
Ephesians 5:18 tells us to be "filled with the Spirit." The same book tells us in chapter 3 to be "filled to the measure with the fullness of Christ." You never know what a person can do when they are filled to the measure...when you are so full of the Spirit that you in your own self can't contain it all, so it begins to spill out on all those around you. If we stand tall all the time, steady as a rock, nothing can spill out of us right? It's only until we bend down and begin to wash the feet of another person, that stuff begins to spill. When we get down in people's lives, stuff spills. When we enthrall ourselves for the cause of another, stuff spills. When we feel the pain of another, walking through hardship with them, stuff spills. When we serve, stuff spills.
I want stuff to spill out of me today, how about you? May the Spirit of God so flow through us, that as we bend to serve, that sweet Spirit would spill. And spill. And spill.
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