I have horses on a hillside here in Cool. The dirt is clay and, like anyone who lives around here knows, that stuff is red and seems to go everywhere. When I feed my horses, I traipse back and forth across our forested hillside spreading hay around so that they feed for hours, don't inhale their food, and get to be more like their wild cousins, moving to eat. I have found this makes for better health for all of us! :-)
When I come inside after doing this, I peel off my socks and there, on my ankles, are red lines rimming where all the red dirt has been plastered onto my sweaty skin along the sock line and above. It is disgusting, to say the least! I can't imagine heading for the couch and putting my foot up on Michaela's lap (she's my 15 year old daughter) and saying, "Will you give me a foot rub?" when my feet are in that condition!
When my ankles and feet look like that, I am often reminded of what it must have been like to be in sandals all the time during the days Jesus walked the earth. With dusty roads and sandaled feet, it was no small wonder that servants were assigned to wash the feet of visitors to homes...who would want that much dirt tracked in? :-) This is especially true when you consider that they often reclined and enjoyed meals together, basically on the floor...and the feet of one visitor might be in the face of another! Yikes!
I wonder what it would have been like to have the job of washing the feet of people whose feet weren't covered by shoes and socks as they meandered around on the dusty streets (mixed with "dirt" from various animals who also wandered the same streets). These feet likely had dirt in the toenail cuticles and under the toenails, embedded into any wrinkles between the toes or on the heels where "weathering" caused calluses and other fun foot "issues." And if they had been sweating, I imagine the effect was all the more...well, you get the idea, I bet! I wonder if Jewish folks during Jesus' day battled with foot fungus? :-)
When Jesus took up the towel to wash his disciples' feet just hours before he went to the cross, it was no accident. He knew precisely what he was doing.
Jesus knew that the time to go to the cross was nearing and he chose to illustrate an important principle by doing something pretty extreme.
In fact, during those last days before the crucifixion, Jesus went from a very public ministry to private meetings where he taught a smaller group of disciples the "final things" that he wanted them to know--to prepare them for life without him present with them in the way to which they had grown accustomed.
It reminds me of the way a loving mother, who knows she is dying of cancer and has little time left, might gather her children close to be sure to impart to them life lessons she wants them to understand before she is no longer with them.
The people had enjoyed Jesus in their midst for three years. Jesus was God. He knew that they might despair, be taken by surprise, so he wanted them to know Truth.
And as much as we love Pastor Mike, his departure can't possibly leave as huge a vacuum for us as Jesus' leaving did for the disciples! :-)
Nevertheless, the instructions to the disciples that Jesus gave during his last days with them about how they should live when he would no longer be with them apply to our situation now that we no longer have a lead pastor among us.
We are without our human leader as were they.
Some of us have despaired, been shocked by the events that have unfolded in recent months here in Cool, just as they may have been by what they experienced.
It is fair to say principles that applied to them, apply for us as well.
What did Jesus tell them to do, be, think, feel? We can certainly do, be, think, feel likewise during our time without a lead pastor.
After the crucifixion came the resurrection, after all! After night, there is always morning. After winter, is spring! God wants to infuse our hearts with hope! Jesus wanted to infuse hope into the lives of his followers, too.
So what *did* he share with them? I love reading John 13-16 to glean what I can from the text. John 17 is amazing, too, of course! As I read, I keep in mind that these events, teachings, words, illustrations, came from the precious Lamb of God, just hours before he died on the cross.
Jesus chose the intimacy of smaller meetings with his disciples to be sure he imparted crucial principles he wanted them to embrace once he was gone. In John 13, he did this both visually (in the washing of the disciples' feet) and in his teaching, illustrating and teaching about the importance of serving and loving one another.
Now that they would be without His presence among them, He had specific instructions that would benefit them. What are they? "Love one another." He illustrated this with an act of self-sacrifice and humility, taking on the nature of the lowliest of servants to remove the day's dirt from feet that never had seen a pedicure!
He drove his point home, challenging the disciples to wash one another's feet, as well. In what ways can we wash one another's feet?
At the heart of the visual illustration is this:
34"A new command I give you: When I come inside after doing this, I peel off my socks and there, on my ankles, are red lines rimming where all the red dirt has been plastered onto my sweaty skin along the sock line and above. It is disgusting, to say the least! I can't imagine heading for the couch and putting my foot up on Michaela's lap (she's my 15 year old daughter) and saying, "Will you give me a foot rub?" when my feet are in that condition!
When my ankles and feet look like that, I am often reminded of what it must have been like to be in sandals all the time during the days Jesus walked the earth. With dusty roads and sandaled feet, it was no small wonder that servants were assigned to wash the feet of visitors to homes...who would want that much dirt tracked in? :-) This is especially true when you consider that they often reclined and enjoyed meals together, basically on the floor...and the feet of one visitor might be in the face of another! Yikes!
I wonder what it would have been like to have the job of washing the feet of people whose feet weren't covered by shoes and socks as they meandered around on the dusty streets (mixed with "dirt" from various animals who also wandered the same streets). These feet likely had dirt in the toenail cuticles and under the toenails, embedded into any wrinkles between the toes or on the heels where "weathering" caused calluses and other fun foot "issues." And if they had been sweating, I imagine the effect was all the more...well, you get the idea, I bet! I wonder if Jewish folks during Jesus' day battled with foot fungus? :-)
When Jesus took up the towel to wash his disciples' feet just hours before he went to the cross, it was no accident. He knew precisely what he was doing.
14Now that I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet,
you also should wash one another's feet.
15I have set you an example
that you should do as I have done for you.
-John 13: 14, 15
you also should wash one another's feet.
15I have set you an example
that you should do as I have done for you.
-John 13: 14, 15
Jesus knew that the time to go to the cross was nearing and he chose to illustrate an important principle by doing something pretty extreme.
In fact, during those last days before the crucifixion, Jesus went from a very public ministry to private meetings where he taught a smaller group of disciples the "final things" that he wanted them to know--to prepare them for life without him present with them in the way to which they had grown accustomed.
It reminds me of the way a loving mother, who knows she is dying of cancer and has little time left, might gather her children close to be sure to impart to them life lessons she wants them to understand before she is no longer with them.
The people had enjoyed Jesus in their midst for three years. Jesus was God. He knew that they might despair, be taken by surprise, so he wanted them to know Truth.
And as much as we love Pastor Mike, his departure can't possibly leave as huge a vacuum for us as Jesus' leaving did for the disciples! :-)
Nevertheless, the instructions to the disciples that Jesus gave during his last days with them about how they should live when he would no longer be with them apply to our situation now that we no longer have a lead pastor among us.
We are without our human leader as were they.
Some of us have despaired, been shocked by the events that have unfolded in recent months here in Cool, just as they may have been by what they experienced.
It is fair to say principles that applied to them, apply for us as well.
What did Jesus tell them to do, be, think, feel? We can certainly do, be, think, feel likewise during our time without a lead pastor.
After the crucifixion came the resurrection, after all! After night, there is always morning. After winter, is spring! God wants to infuse our hearts with hope! Jesus wanted to infuse hope into the lives of his followers, too.
So what *did* he share with them? I love reading John 13-16 to glean what I can from the text. John 17 is amazing, too, of course! As I read, I keep in mind that these events, teachings, words, illustrations, came from the precious Lamb of God, just hours before he died on the cross.
Jesus chose the intimacy of smaller meetings with his disciples to be sure he imparted crucial principles he wanted them to embrace once he was gone. In John 13, he did this both visually (in the washing of the disciples' feet) and in his teaching, illustrating and teaching about the importance of serving and loving one another.
Now that they would be without His presence among them, He had specific instructions that would benefit them. What are they? "Love one another." He illustrated this with an act of self-sacrifice and humility, taking on the nature of the lowliest of servants to remove the day's dirt from feet that never had seen a pedicure!He drove his point home, challenging the disciples to wash one another's feet, as well. In what ways can we wash one another's feet?
At the heart of the visual illustration is this:
Love one another.
As I have loved you,
so you must love one another.
35By this all men will know
that you are my disciples,
if you love one another."
-John 13:34-35
If you and I were to focus on loving one another, on serving one another for the next year, how might it affect us? And how might it affect the Georgetown Divide? Jesus told the disciples that all men will know that they were his disciples in this way--by the way they loved one another. It is odd, really. He didn't, at this time, commission them to try harder than ever to love those outside the circle of faith--of course that is a godly principle. But at this time, the time when they were feeling most abandoned, perhaps, by their Teacher, he told them if they wanted the world to see that they had a true, abiding faith, the way to do that was by loving one another.
I think it is no accident that Jesus encouraged his disciples just before he left them to look upon one another and to act in love.
Sometimes it is even easier to love those outside our church body than it is to love others within...but we are told that when we serve one another and love one another, those who see us who don't yet know the Lord will know that we love God.
So here is the question...how can we love each other practically in the body of Christ? What are ways that I love another person who attends Cool Church? When I choose to love another believer, this is what causes those who don't yet know Christ to recognize that Jesus changes lives!
Let's allow Him to work in us a supernatural love for one another in the days ahead! As we do so, the world will take notice that we know the True, Living God!
Application question: What can I do today to demonstrate a doing love for another person who considers Cool Community Church their home church? What can I do to follow Jesus' example in washing the feet of someone who I see on Sunday mornings?
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