Not my feet only but also my hands and my head

"Never, while the world lasts," said Peter, "shall you wash my feet." 

"If I do not wash you," replied Jesus, "you have no share with me."  John 13:8

Nicole has been dragging a book behind her all around the world, spending an entire year looking at life through the lens of Listening.  Now it has not always been fun to have this task ever-present haunting the to do list, although it has been a sweet gift to be able to pay for all of those foreign vistas, looking down on swirling clouds and glimmering ancient towers.  

And things are bubbling up to a crescendo.  Sifting and sorting and swelling.  And yesterday this word was spoken: 

God’s message to His people through His prophets, His priests, His kings, and finally though Jesus Christ, has been that of a lover: “Come, my beloved, and be my Bride.”  The Bible is the longest going love-story that has ever been written, and is being written today on the hearts of humanity. The groom has given everything for His love, and is on bended knee, asking, “Will you come and make one life with me?”  We don’t truly understand, or we would never see “works” as an appropriate response. Works tremble and shudder, and hoarsely whisper back, “I washed the dishes. I folded the laundry. I walked the dog. Am I good enough yet? Will you accept me if I clean up the rest of the house?”  Servile fear has never even heard the words of love that were spoken from the heart of tenderness and bloodshed. It’s a response that crushes her lover, as He longs for her to recognize the freedom and value He has crowned her with through His ardor.

Can I accept His love? Offered on bended knee?  

When someone is washing my feet, I really can’t do much.  I certainly can’t dash off here or there or interrupt and help out a bit.  I just sit there.  Withs all unmerited humility.  

Freely given with no dangling strings to bind me and trip me up.  Over and over this week that has been the message: I love you.  And that is enough.  To walk in the way of love.  

And all of that stuff and bother that Paul lists out in Ephesians is a description of oh-by-the-way-this-is-what-love-looks-like, being light in the LORD, cleansed in His love.  

And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge —that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.  Ephesians 3:17-18