Then Mary took about a pint of pure nard, an expensive perfume; she poured it on Jesus’ feet and wiped his feet with her hair. And the house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume.
John 12:3 (NIV)
Consider for a moment the precious feet of Jesus. It is at His feet that Mary sat still to receive and intimately savour what Jesus was sharing with her; it is those same feet that led Jesus to travel to take the circuitous route to Galilee through Samaria to encounter and minister to one woman shunned by her community. His feet took him at the leading of the Holy Spirit into wilderness where he overcame every temptation that was thrown against him by Satan. Wherever Jesus walked, he radiated the power of Father God; his love; his goodness and heart to those who were broken, sinful, sick, outcast, or felt unworthy. No wonder his feet were set aside for anointing and by the same Mary who had sat at those same feet and first hand seen the miraculous raising of her brother Lazarus from the dead. The feet of Jesus testify to the truth of the unrelenting love with which God pursues you and me.
Now consider for a moment not your physical feet but the “feet” of your own soul for a moment. Have you wandered away from Christ dear reader? Right now, do you feel stuck in a rut or believe your actions have drawn you far from him and think redemption and rescue is beyond His reach or desire? There is good news for you and for me. Psalm 23:6 states, “surely goodness and love will follow us all the days of our lives.” This promise is not conditional on the nature of the day we are having or the state of our own hearts. This is a beautiful picture of Jesus as our Good Shepherd, the living embodiment of perfect goodness and love who pursues our hearts with his love each day and comes after us when our own feet have wandered down paths that have led away from him. Whether that is a sinful habit; frustration or disappointment with God; an ailment or a broken relationship, we have a Good Shepherd whose feet will never fail to search for us until we are found and pulled out from the hole, untangled from the thicket, and rescued from the cliff edge on which we were stuck.
Taking a closer look again at the feet of Christ, we see scars like those on his hands where nails were driven through. Those same feet that bore our saviour to those in need bore him also to the cross and to a place associated with shame and humiliation and death so that we can be led by Jesus from those places that once bound us and caused us shame and our souls to feel dead, to unshakable ground where at our saviours behest we encounter life with Him in all its fullness stretching into eternity, a double portion of honour instead of shame and being adopted as God’s own children. His feet are a symbolic reminder offering us this secure hope: that he will never cease coming after us when we wander, and that his feet that took him to the cross has ensured that no one is beyond redemption or rescue and having their own bruised, broken or stained feet washed by the saviour and the sandals of sonship and daughterhood placed on our feet never to be taken off. Turn to him and you will see, the feet of goodness and love have come closer than you ever believed possible to reach and rescue you.
All goodness and praise to Jesus! Amen.
©2023, B. Trowbridge.
Abba's Dearly Beloved 