At His Feet

I sometimes get carried away when writing and then reality hits. This is what most romantic idealists encounter, I believe. It's a "wake up" moment.

Today, I want you (that would be the reader) to come with me. In my imagination. In my heart. I am inviting you. This is a journey I try to make often, but today I realized I need company. I don't actaully want company, but I need it.

We're going through some Scripture as the first leg of our travels, beginning with Luke 7:36-50:

"A Pharisee invited him to dine with him, and he entered the Pharisee's house and reclined at table.

Now there was a sinful woman in the city who learned that he was at table in the house of the Pharisee. Bringing an alabaster flask of ointment, she stood behind him at his feet weeping and began to bathe his feet with her tears. Then she wiped them with her hair, kissed them, and anointed them with the ointment.

When the Pharisee who had invited him saw this he said to himself, 'If this man were a prophet, he would know who and what sort of woman this is who is touching him, that she is a sinner.'

Jesus said to him in reply, 'Simon, I have something to say to you.' 'Tell me, teacher,' he said.
'Two people were in debt to a certain creditor; one owed five hundred days' wages 12 and the other owed fifty. Since they were unable to repay the debt, he forgave it for both. Which of them will love him more?'
Simon said in reply, 'The one, I suppose, whose larger debt was forgiven.' He said to him, 'You have judged rightly.'

Then he turned to the woman and said to Simon, 'Do you see this woman? When I entered your house, you did not give me water for my feet, but she has bathed them with her tears and wiped them with her hair. You did not give me a kiss, but she has not ceased kissing my feet since the time I entered. You did not anoint my head with oil, but she anointed my feet with ointment. So I tell you, her many sins have been forgiven; hence, she has shown great love (emphasis added). But the one to whom little is forgiven, loves little.'
He said to her, 'Your sins are forgiven.'
The others at table said to themselves, 'Who is this who even forgives sins?'
But he said to the woman, 'Your faith has saved you; go in peace.'"

The next Scripture passage I would like to offer to the reflection is John 20:1-18:

"On the first day of the week, Mary of Magdala came to the tomb early in the morning, while it was still dark, and saw the stone removed from the tomb. So she ran and went to Simon Peter and to the other disciple whom Jesus loved, and told them, 'They have taken the Lord from the tomb, and we don't know where they put him.'

So Peter and the other disciple went out and came to the tomb. They both ran, but the other disciple ran faster than Peter and arrived at the tomb first; he bent down and saw the burial cloths there, but did not go in. When Simon Peter arrived after him, he went into the tomb and saw the burial cloths there, and the cloth that had covered his head, not with the burial cloths but rolled up in a separate place. Then the other disciple also went in, the one who had arrived at the tomb first, and he saw and believed. For they did not yet understand the scripture that he had to rise from the dead. Then the disciples returned home.

But Mary stayed outside the tomb weeping. And as she wept, she bent over into the tomb
and saw two angels in white sitting there, one at the head and one at the feet where the body of Jesus had been. And they said to her, 'Woman, why are you weeping?' She said to them, 'They have taken my Lord, and I don't know where they laid him.'
When she had said this, she turned around and saw Jesus there, but did not know it was Jesus.
Jesus said to her, 'Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you looking for?' She thought it was the gardener and said to him, 'Sir, if you carried him away, tell me where you laid him, and I will take him.'
Jesus said to her, 'Mary!' She turned and said to him in Hebrew, 'Rabbouni,' which means Teacher.
Jesus said to her, 'Stop holding on to me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father. But go to my brothers and tell them, 'I am going to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.'
Mary of Magdala went and announced to the disciples, 'I have seen the Lord,' and what he told her."

The last one I want to add is Song of Songs 3:1-4:

"On my bed at night I sought him whom my heart loves- I sought him but I did not find him.
I will rise then and go about the city; in the streets and crossings I will seek
Him whom my heart loves. I sought him but I did not find him.
The watchmen came upon me as they made their rounds of the city:
Have you seen him whom my heart loves?
I had hardly left them when I found him whom my heart loves.
I took hold of him and would not let him go till I should bring him to the home of my mother, to the room of my parent."

The journey I explained is one that leads to a very special place - the feet of Christ.

It is an extremely simple message that is carried through these passages. It is what faith is. It is the hope that is inspired in any heart that is stirred in love.

Mary Magdalene, coming into the house of a Pharisee and falling at the feet of Jesus, a Rabbi, and weeping there as if the world did not exist. Transfixed perhaps? Audacious? Bold to the point of recklessness? What kind of love is this? Perhaps the question is who is this love?

What she gains is what gives her the courage to trust no matter what happens. This woman discovered that she needed to obey her heart. Her heart yearned. It ached. It was hungry and nothing would satisfy. So she went where she had not gone before, in search of what she knew she needed. I do not think she was seeking forgiveness when she wept on the Master's feet. I think she simply had all this love, real and authentic love, that had been passed around and rejected by men for years. She had not been able to give her love freely and fully because no one would allow her to, nor could anyone show her how to love in the truest sense. Yet, Christ could. He did.

He looks at her, and in the way she needs to love on him, through her tears and her hair and the ointment, he sees such beauty. He sees her, in the unique way of her heart as she pours her love out. He sees her generosity, her apology, her remorse and the visible way in which she cries out, "none of this matters at all! I have money, and I have been called beautiful, but they are empty!"

He loves her, as he loves how she loves him. Her heart, in its own special character, is giving him all it has to offer. As the Apostles walked away from steady jobs and lives they had built up on their own work to follow a man who called them by name, so she was leaving behind everything she had to show him that she was in need of only one thing - him.

So she receives forgiveness, and in her freedom we find her following the Lord who released her from so many bonds. At the tomb, the same lesson she learned at the washing of his feet is fresh in her mind and heart. She went seeking wholeness, though she knew not by what end. So she goes to the tomb, once again seeking healing from her Master, though she knows not how. As she searches, her heart is again aware of that need, the hunger that drives us towards him. When she finds him, she clings to him as she did that day in front of the many Pharisees and guests - completely unabashed and ready to do whatever he would command. Just as he told her then to go and not sin anymore, so when he tells her to go and tell her brothers that he is risen, she immediately obeys. The joy of a heart that is freely given and received! Nothing can hold it back from accomplishing the good it is set out to do.

I often feel like the women on the Song of Songs, and therefore I love Mary's journey for it is so often my own. How many times do I realize I have looked for my lover and been unable to find him? Where am I looking! And I realize I have wandered far from his safe arms, and once I find him all I can do is weep at his feet in gratitude that he is still there, and that he still wants me.

If I can find peace in anything, it is the meditation of being at the foot of the cross. To just lean there, against that wood, with his toes right near my face, bloody and gross but perfect and wonderful. To touch his feet and to know that he knows I am satisfied only with the promise of eternally doing as he asks. To know that I am letting go of so much, but gaining infinitely more in return. To know that as I have so often yearned for another to walk this road of life with me, I can be there at his side on the road of suffering for us. Surely, I change nothing of his suffering, for I am far too weak to bear much of anything. Yet, he knows, and I know, it is the courageous hope and faith that counts. If a woman begging for bread crumbs can stir his heart to miraculous love, so too can a woman determined to stand by him stir his heart to many good things.

I don't know how to end this, because there's not meant to be any end. Remain with him. Just be. Be there, and know that he is God.