The Heart and Sole of Jesus

 

How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him who brings good news, who publishes peace, who brings good news of happiness, who publishes salvation, who says to Zion, "Your God reigns." --Isaiah 52:7

Medical doctors will tell you there is a correlation between your feet and your heart.  If there is numbness and tingling in the feet, it could be a sign of heart disease.  Most people link the heart and feet less clinically and more poetically.  An Irish proverb, for example, says, "Your feet will take you where your heart wants to go."

Soccer superstar Pele once said, "The head talks to the heart, and the heart talks to the feet."  I believe he was describing the game of futbol, but I think there is a spiritual lesson there as well.  If we look at the feet of Jesus, we will see the heart of God.

Look with me in your Bible to Isaiah 52, beginning in verse 13 and continuing through the end of the chapter.  I will be reading from the Amplified BIble.

Indeed, My Servant (the Messiah) will act wisely and prosper; He will be raised and lifted up and greatly exalted.  Just as many were astonished and appalled at you, My people, So His appearance was marred more than any man and His form [marred] more than the sons of men.  So He will sprinkle many nations [with His blood, providing salvation], Kings will shut their mouths because of Him; for what they had not been told they will see, and what they had no heard they will understand.

The Humble Head

Let's revisit verse 13 again to see the position of Jesus.  "Behold, My Servant shall act wisely; He shall be high and lifted up, and shall be exalted." (Isaiah 52:13, ESV)  Before He is exalted, He would be humbled, coming in the form of a servant.

God loved His people so much that He sent His Son to take on flesh and live among us. The feet of Jesus were directed by the hand of God.  So Jesus humbled Himself and became one of us.  Near the end of His ministry, Jesus brought the disciples together for a special Passover meal.  John 13:1 shows us the heart of Jesus: "Now before the Feast of the Passover, when Jesus knew that His hour had come to depart out of this world to the Father, having loved His own who were in the world, He loved them to the end."

I want us to pay particular attention to what Jesus did next.

Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into His hands, and that He had come from God and was going back to God, rose from supper.  He laid aside His outer garments, and taking a towel, tied it around His waist.  Then He poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples' feet and to wipe them with the towel that was wrapped around Him.  --John 13:3-5

Jesus's feet took Him to where His heart was, to the men who had followed after Him for the last 3 years.  Then He did something amazing.  In washing their feet, He not only humbled Himself to the status of a servant, but He also anointed the feet of the disciples for a higher calling.  

Physically, He cleaned their feet of the dust and dung they had all walked through to get where they were at that point in time.  Spiritually, Jesus does the same thing for us.  We all have a past.  We have all walked through some pretty shady places.  There are remnants of dry dust from deserts we have crossed.  There are stains from mud and muck we have waded through.  Jesus knows this about us, but He still loves us.  He loves us so much that He is willing to lay aside His kingly garment and get down where we are, to wash our dirtiest parts, to cleans our hearts as well as our feet.

It is only after performing this lowly act of washing our feet that Jesus is exalted in our hearts and minds.  When we give our hearts to Him, He redirects our path.  We are anointed by the washing of water with the word (see Ephesians 5:26).

The Suffering Servant

Read with me the very next verse in our text.  God said His Servant, the Messiah, would be exalted high and lifted up.  In the very next verse we read this: "As many were astonished at you--His appearance was so marred, beyond human semblance, and His form beyond that of the children of mankind--" (Isaiah 52:14 ESV).

In the book of Genesis, Abraham was first called a Hebrew, a term that literally meant "one from beyond."  His descendants were always called Hebrews, or outsiders, a People not from here.  It was astonishing that these people were chosen by God, and were led to a land that had been promised to Abraham, to "dwell in houses they had not built, and to eat from vineyards they did not plant" (see Joshua 24:13-15).  

It was no less astonishing that the Son of God, the Messiah, would not only come in the flesh, but that He would be beaten so badly that He was barely recognizable.  Yet that is exactly what happened.  They beat Him severely.  They placed a crown of thorns on His head.  They nailed Him to a cross, piercing the very feet that had brought God's message of peace to them.

Isaiah 53:3 says, "He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief; and as one from whom men hid their faces He was despised, and we esteemed Him not."  We read further in the very next verse, "Surely He has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; ye we esteemed Him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted."

Lance Secretan, British-Canadian author of business books best known for leadership theory, said this: "Authenticity is the alignment of head, mouth, heart, and feet--thinking, saying, feeling and doing the same thing--consistently.  This builds trust, and followers love leaders they can trust."  There was never anyone so authentically consistent or as consistently authentic as Jesus, yet there are those who do not trust Him.  They will one day be astonished that He is sitting at the right hand of God.

The Cleansing King

Let's read the last verse in our text now.  Not only is He a servant who is exalted high and lifted up, not only is He willing to give Himself completely for you to the point of death and disfigurement, He is also willing to purify the nations.  "So shall He sprinkle many nations.  Kings shall shut their mouths because of Him, for that which has not been told them they see, and that which they have not heard they understand." (Isaiah 52:15 ESV)

In the Old Testament the people were made clean with the sprinkling of the blood of the sacrifice.  Jesus shed His blood on the cross so that we might be purified by the sprinkling of His blood on and around us. 1 John 1:7 says, "But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin."

As for His pre-eminence among all, Psalm 72:11 says, "Yes, all kings shall fall down before Him; all nations shall serve Him." (NKJV)   Micah 7:16-17 says, 

The nations shall see and be ashamed of all their might; they shall lay their hands on their mouths; their ears shall be deaf; they shall lick the dust like a serpent, like the crawling things of the earth; they shall come trembling out of their strongholds; they shall turn in dread to the Lord our God, and they shall be in fear of you.

Whether this response to God's sovereignty is in this life or the next is not clear.  Our mission, however, is clear.  We must "Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the Name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.  And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age." (Matthew 28:19-20 ESV)

Catholic bishop Fulton Sheen wrote, "Show me your hands.  Do they have scars from giving? Show me your feet.  Are they wounded in service? Show me your heart. Have you left a place for divine love?"  Jesus did.  His feet were led by His heart, and His heart was for me.  O, those beautiful feet, pierced for me.  When I get to Heaven I will lay prostrate at them.  For now, I can lay all my burdens at those beautiful feet.