Friday, December 5, 2014

Mark 1:1,7

The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. …[John the Baptist] proclaimed  the one who is more powerful that I is coming after me; I am not worthy to stoop down and untie the thong of his sandals

Kissing the feet

I wonder if you are truly a human being until you have been so moved that you are eager to bend down and kiss someone’s feet.

This may seem a strange thought, hopelessly out of date. But you don’t really know what is in your heart until you love, admire and even adore someone so much that this act of humility and affection seems natural as breathing, something your heart is eager to do.

Mothers kiss their children’s feet all the time in complete affection and care, an acknowledgement that their heart totally belongs to their little one. They would do anything for them.

In ancient times, taking off someone’s sandals and washing of kissing their feet was an act of abject humility, something slaves would be ordered to do.

But for mothers and John the Baptist … and for those who have been moved to deep love … this is an act of joy. It expresses the heart’s desire to be given away in love and service to the one they kiss.

We become completely human, truly human souls, when the heart is moved to this place of giving and humility, when a slave’s act is a joyous expression of a love that cannot be denied.

Jesus comes. He appears and awakens this kind of love in the John’s heart. It is the beginning of the good news.

Jesus is the good news who moves us beyond our hang-ups and all that hems in our hearts to kiss the feet of the Love who comes to set us free.

Pr. David L. Miller