Holy Week Feet

She hesitated, her foot stumbling. Her eyes furtively glanced into his, then she cast herself down, heaving with tears. The perfume bottle spilled and broke, covering the Master’s feet and the room with a heavy, sweet smell.

…………………………………………………………………………………

I’m allergic to perfume.

When I was little, there were countless times my entire family had to re-locate to a different pew or a different stadium bench in an attempt to arrest the migraine that instantly began to bloom in my little head.

Bless you, our beautiful church matrons with deadened noses. I should pray for you now, since I fear my little child-mind cursed you the many times I got sick.

But that’s besides the point.

Point is – this Holy Week story always made me cringe involuntarily. I loved it, but the associations are a bit much for me when I tried to place myself in the scene. And I don’t really like other people touching my hair or their hair touching me so…I don’t think this woman shared my love language.

But Jesus loved her and welcomed her.

I envy her that she could make an offering so sweet and pure, whole-heart-in, at that perfect moment to comfort Him.

………………………………………………………………………………….

There are a lot of contradictions present within Holy Week. Rejoicing on Sunday and denouncing on Friday. Communion with God and feeling forsaken by the Father. Expensive perfume and poor muddy feet.

Have you ever contemplated how many feet we hear about during Holy Week?

People thronged the road, stopping it up, and throwing palm branches beneath the donkey’s hoofs. (Sunday)

Mary anoints Jesus’s smelly feet at Bethany. (Monday)

We don’t hear mention of anyone’s toes or ankles on Tuesday or Wednesday but I’m sure there were stinky feet present when Judas speaks to the Pharisees and Jesus preaches in the streets.

Then, Thursday comes, and Jesus kneels to wash his apostles’ feet.

I even started a tradition a few years ago, where I would wash some of my children’s feet at our Sedar supper on Thursday. I would kneel down, trying not to spill the precariously balanced pan with half an inch of water in it, and talk about Jesus’ act of love and service while the little voices giggled. Sometimes the water spills.

Acts of giving are never clean or perfect.

In fact, this year, I can’t kneel. I somehow developed knee bursitis which my kids and I have named “bubble knee”. While it is not painful, kneeling is an impossibility. My children consider this to be unfair, as we approach the Good Friday service, probably the day where we kneel most before the altar, to the sometimes off-key chants of “Let us kneel….let us stand….” Why should they have to kneel when Mama is “off the hook”?

Which makes it all the more apparent that no matter how we intensely desire to live these holy days, to place ourselves beside Christ for his passion and nail our hearts to the cross – life sometimes intervenes.

But this life that interrupts our holy intentions is exactly like the life Jesus lived. Washing the dirty toes. Embracing the weeping child. Patiently bearing with the friends who were failing him and betraying him.

Why are feet so important to Holy Week? ‘

Because they touched the ground.

They walked the roads of this earth. They were the most ordinary part of each human person, and Jesus loved those ordinary parts too. His feet padded into his friends’ crude homes, just as they fumbled up the rocks and boulders of Calvary.

Some years, we can truly accompany him in those last steps. Some Holy Weeks will be spiritually and physically beautiful – I can remember one Holy Thursday night I literally spent in a garden in Adoration, and it was incredible. I felt I could physically console Jesus’s heart.

This year…….I’ll take care of the feet.

And thank Him for the road I have to walk.

And the world will smell sweeter Easter morning.

At least spiritually.