Lent: Feet

I sometimes feel that lump of nostalgia rise in my throat over the passage of time, what it has done to the fuzzy-haired, footy-pajamaed bodies that used to shuffle up for a hug first thing in the morning, their favorite blankies trailing behind.  Now I look UP even to the 11-year-old.  Just a titch.  Today, my son will come down in a shirt and tie and beeline out the door for work with a quick hi.  The girls will be checking emails and instragrams while pouring their cereal.  If there are hugs, they will be initiated by me.  

When they were little, I pulled them aside one summer day and took a picture of their feet, which I framed and hung in the bathroom.  On days when I glimpse their impossibly big feet and have to grab the doorframe of the mudroom to brace myself against the shoe odor (Toms are the worst!), I make my way to that series of pictures and smile, praying for the hard and good places those feet will take them.  

My hands-down favorite mental picture of Jesus is him bent down washing the tired feet of his dusty band of misfits, the very hour of his death.  He taught powerfully with words and parables, but nothing short of the cross could express Isaiah's haunting words, "He humbled himself," like this tender act.  

Jesus knew that the Father had put all things under his power, and that he had come from God and was returning to God; so he got up from the meal, took off his outer clothing, and wrapped a towel around his waist.  After that, he poured water into a basin and began to wash his disciples’ feet, drying them with the towel that was wrapped around him.  John 13:3-5

This was not out of character.  He got up and washed their feet because he came from God and was returning to God.  

A woman washed my feet once.  After a summer Bible study years ago, our hostess arranged a time of foot-washing.  We took turns washing and being washed.  It was awkward and lovely and memorable.  I could identify with Simon Peter, who protested, "No, this isn't right," but I could also sense the rightness of it.  The blessing.

 Now that I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also should wash one another’s feet. I have set you an example that you should do as I have done for you. Very truly I tell you, no servant is greater than his master, nor is a messenger greater than the one who sent him.  Now that you know these things, you will be blessed if you do them. John 13:14-17

Lent reminds me that time is brief and should be filled with much bending and washing of feet, even in our worst moments.