KISSING HIS FEET [FRIDAY FIRE 44]
Why is it, men, that the ladies often seem to take the upward call when it comes to true humility? They take risks with the Master, and His love anoints them with gracious privilege.
I admire that, don’t you? It emboldens me like Paul’s incarceration did for the saints.
Have you ever kissed anyone’s feet? Me neither. But I have massaged the feet of my wife in love, and others for therapeutic health reasons.
But kissing feet?
Mary anointed the feet of Jesus the Christ with costly perfume and wiped them dry with what we assume was her long hair. We can see the tender eyes of our Lord looking down with approving smile at her. And she thanked Him with her eyes in return.
But we see a miracle: most likely she was a converted pagan prostitute. Was she sexually abused by her brothers, or father…or both? Did her father ignore and demean her while she grew up in those formative years? Was she just an orphan who had to make a living because she was an outcast?
But her bold loving humility overcomes all social taboos. It was sexually scandalous for a woman to have her hair uncovered in public, i.e. the head covering issue in 1 Corinthians 11. She somehow barges her way into the dinner party and endures the scorn and distain of the fleshly religious stonewallers.
Her wiping His feet would also indicate her marginal social status.
She doesn’t care. She plunges ahead. So should we.
She loves Him through her tears. Then she does the unthinkable: she ends up bending down to the floor, lower…then even lower still, and kissing His feet.
Take a moment and trade places with her.
Washing feet is one thing…kissing them is altogether different. Your lips descend to the very dirty feet of the Master. Since His host, Simon the legalist, ignored social protocol failing to offer water to wash the God of the universe’s feet.
Or even to offer Him a safe cheek-only kiss of welcome…a sign of great dishonor towards Jesus the Messiah.
But caked mud, streaks of dirt, smelly odors. Maybe she cleaned them a bit first with the perfume…but still…
Unclean feet can be exceedingly gross. Again, she doesn’t care. Her loving devotion is just too great. The biblical text declares she was kissing them…continuously…not once but over and over.
She plunges ahead. What about us?
Luke 7:37-38 And there was a woman in the city who was a sinner; and when she learned that He was reclining at the table in the Pharisee’s house, she brought an alabaster vial of perfume, and standing behind Him at His feet, weeping, she began to wet His feet with her tears, and kept wiping them with the hair of her head, and kissing His feet and anointing them with the perfume.
“Oh God, we all want to abandon any remaining pride and bend way, way low to the ground and kiss Your feet. Talk is cheap about offering our lives to You if we play it safe. A holy kiss may even be appropriate. But give us immense grace so our lives day by day so we may anoint Your feet like the blessed perfume of our sisters in the Lord.
And then we can be ready to worship Your life, Your sacrifice, Your coming for us. And worship You with being lowly by acknowledging who You really are…by also kissing Your feet. We love You beyond words, dear Friend.”
Please comment on this post right below. Feel free to write and proclaim your leadings in the Spirit in an honorable fashion.
Your friend and brother in fighting the good fight,
Marc
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Saints, we’re one day closer to Home, and Him! Love Him wholeheartedly!
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Please comment on this post right below. Feel free to write and proclaim your leadings in the Spirit in an honorable fashion.
Marc White, Director, Walk Worthy Ministries, www.WalkWorthy.org
