Monday Message, April 11, 2022

Would You Mind If I Wash Your Feet? 


If Christ should suddenly stand before me with a towel thrown over his shoulder and a pan of water in his hands, would I have the humility to take off my shoes and really let him wash my feet? Or, like Peter, would I say: “Wash my feet, Lord? Never!”

Christ has stood in front of me on many a day. It hasn’t always been a pan of water that he’s held in front of me, for water is only one symbol of a way to be cleansed and healed… Sometimes he holds a Bible, or sends a letter, or calls me on the telephone. Sometimes she holds a loaf of bread, or a cup of tea, or gives me her shoulder to cry on. Christ comes in so many ways, in so many people, always holding out that basin of water and asking that same embarrassing question: “Would you mind if I wash your feet?”

The beautiful thing about that burning, persistent, foot- washing question is that eventually it calls forth the same question from your heart. Then you discover that your basin is full of water and your heart is full of a call: a call to wash feet.

I discover who I am
in the act of washing feet

It frightens me to be so powerful
To have so much power and so much grace hidden in the mountains

and valleys of my being is scary
I am beginning to suspect who I am It is so much to be faithful to.

Standing before me
with a cup of tea in her hands She revealed to me 
 my foot-washing potential

(Would you mind if I wash your feet?) How about tea every morning at ten? she asked.

Sure, I answered, a little embarrassed at being so touched by something that simple 
 It will make ten o’clock sacred she assured me.

I nodded in agreement . It was at the right moment she had come 
 (God always comes at the right moment.) 
 Nothing had risen in my heart that morning and I could tell from her eyes, she, too, was waiting for a rising.

It happened simply like Jesus washing Peter’s feet

We, too, had names and we lived them

A few words were exchanged over a cup of tea and, together, we were the rising 
 The action was so simple one could miss it.

It frightens me to be so powerful so very full of grace.

Would you mind if I wash your feet?

(Macrina Wiederkehr, Seasons of Your Heart)