The Importance of Feet -Small Lenten Thoughts

Beautiful .. joyous .. dancing .. steadfast .. slipping  .. lame .. tired .. road-dusty .. wounded.

These are just some of the type of feet mentioned in the Hebrew scriptures and the records left for us by the Apostles.

Feet, functioning feet are important to a full life.  Yet in our time, what encloses the foot is given all the attention.  It is documented that our society spends billions of dollars on footwear.  Footwear goes well beyond what is needful for protection and traction.  Even here, with our warped sensibilities, feet are shod to impress others, to show status, to draw attention and seldom even for comfort.  Sad but true, the foot seems all but forgotten.

The unshod foot has been the focus of my thoughts of late, the unshod foot of the Savior.  This was the foot/feet that drew the loving attention of the Marys in scripture.  One, in loving sacrifice bathed her Lord's feet and not meanly but lavishly, giving thought and expenditure to the act.  Mary of Bethany sat at His feet in quiet submission. Both these were seen by the Lord to be acts of worship which pleased Him. 

One other Mary, his own mother, knew His feet.  Had she kissed and nibbled His baby feet in the days before He took His early steps?  Did those tiny feet, as the late Calvin Miller  suggests "each wear a curious scar of some wound as yet unopened, that had been there long before His birth"?

Truly, the time came when there was indeed a visible wound from nails which violated that precious flesh and bone.  These were the wounds, the scars that Thomas saw and so believed.  These are the feet at which, in time to come, all peoples of all nations will bow.

And these feet are those at which we can now only sit in spirit.  This, like Mary of old, we must learn to do.  We need to slow the pace of our own hurried feet in order to do just that.
Our feet take us into so many byways that we often miss out on the 'better part'.

Bless me, O my Savior bless me,

As I sit low at Thy feet;

O look down in love upon me,

Let me see Thy face so sweet;

Give me Lord the mind of Jesus,

Make me holy as He is;

May I prove I've been with Jesus,

Who is all my righteousness.

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Precious photograph of baby feet by Julia Valovich

Calvin Miller quotation from The Singer

Hymn fragment anonymous