If you had asked me before the Race, I would’ve told you- I hate feet. I hate your feet. I hate my feet. I hate clean feet. I hate dirty feet. I just hate feet. I especially hate touching feet. I don’t want people touching mine, and I sure as heck don’t want to touch yours. Until this month, that is.
This month has been all about breaking my pride. So yeah…that sucked. And as I was shifting through my pride and all the other sin it was surfacing in me, I started to think about my gross feet. And then I started to think about Jesus’ and the Apostles’ gross feet.
Because consider this: if my feet are nasty in the 21st century, imagine what it was like in 30 AD. Jesus and the Apostles probably had some of the dirtiest feet around, too. Their job was walking hundreds of miles all over the countryside, teaching and loving. And yet…Jesus caringly washed those gross feet.
If you read the story in John 13, Jesus washes His disciples’ feet at the Last Supper. It’s a great story, you should read it, but here’s what stood out to me- Jesus washed the disciples’ feet. The disciples at the Last Supper. The disciples that included Judas Iscariot.
That means that Jesus washed the feet of the man He knew would betray Him only hours later! So the Creator of the Universe washed the dirt that He Himself had created off of the guy who He knew was going to kill Him….WHAT??? If I were Jesus, I’d be like “uh no, you there with the purse? Yeah, I’m not washing your feet. I know what you’re about to do. You don’t get my love. You don’t get my humility or service.”
Thankfully, I’m not Jesus. Duh.
But God, however, is in the business of making me more Jesus-like. Which is how I ended up kneeling over my teammates’ feet in a bucket.
I would love to tell you that as I was washing their feet, I had this huge revelation or I felt God’s presence in this new way. Or even that my first thought wasn’t “ew.” None of that would be true, though. I just felt like it was something I needed to do. I needed to do it because if God can wash the feet of the man who betrayed Him, if He can look that man in the eye and say, “This is my body which I’m breaking for you; my blood which I will spill for you; this is how much I love you and forgive you,” I can certainly wash my brothers’ and sisters’ feet. I can certainly look at my teammates and say, “I love you, and I’m gonna fight for you, and I’m gonna serve you and see you the way God sees you.” I can certainly say, “I’m sorry I’ve been so lame and prideful, as if I’m somehow better than you.” I can do that.
Because when Jesus washed His disciples’ feet, He was also washing my feet. I’m Judas, too. I betrayed Jesus, but He looked at me and said, “Not only will I wash you clean, I will take literally the lowest position I can to make you clean, and I don’t even care how dirty and nasty your feet are.”
So I guess feet aren’t all that bad. Or at least clean feet aren’t.
