Today's Devotional
She poured perfumed oil on his feet.
I wonder if she, more fully than the disciples or anyone else at this point in Luke’s Gospel, understands God’s anointing of Jesus.
She poured perfumed oil on his feet.
When Jesus declares his purpose in Luke 4, he is “sent.” And he is sent to preach good news, proclaim release, recover sight, liberate and proclaim to people who cannot come to him. Jesus must go. His feet will be vital to his purpose.
And she anointed them.
In scripture, anointing sets someone apart for service – usually kings. But Jesus, anointed by the Lord, now receives an anointing of his feet by this woman.
She got it. She understood the mission. She understood that Jesus would go, for he must seek out the ones for whom he came. There will be going and meeting and interacting.
And his feet will need to take him.
I also wonder if we sometimes miss that. We often anoint heads to set us apart, whether through ordination, sending out services for mission teams, etc., we are signifying purpose.
Perhaps, though, our heads do not need anointing. Our feet do. Jesus’ last command, after all, was “Go.” (Matthew 28:19-20).
Go implies that we, like Jesus, participate in this world in such a way that we understand ourselves as sent. Because we are.
We are to be going and meeting and interacting — building relationships. Ours is not a passive faith, but one that works itself out in our participation in the world’s hurts in ways that heal rather than cut.
And to go, we will need our feet.
Maybe in ordination, it should be a person’s feet, not their heads, that are blessed.
Now, go — because the world still needs good news, release, recovery of sight and liberation.
— Rev. Kristin Warthen, St. Andrew’s UMC (Arlington), CTC
kristin@sa-umc.org
