{"id":5889,"date":"2020-02-02T17:32:21","date_gmt":"2020-02-02T07:32:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/?p=5889"},"modified":"2020-02-02T17:32:21","modified_gmt":"2020-02-02T07:32:21","slug":"love-by-the-foot","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/love-by-the-foot\/","title":{"rendered":"Love by the Foot"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>

Love by the Foot<\/strong><\/p>\n

by\u00a0Michael Tadros<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

\n

An ominous darkness is ushered in when the doctor comes back with the latest MRI\u00a0results. After weeks of testing, the results all point to cancer that will not stop spreading.\u00a0Yesterday the pancreas, today the liver, tomorrow the lungs. She gathers your mother and loved\u00a0ones around the hospital bed and informs you it is time to start contemplating your end-of-life\u00a0plans. She stumbles to say the words: \u201c\u2026a few days, maybe a week.\u201d<\/p>\n

What would that patient do in that situation? In the 1980s, psychologists at Skidmore\u00a0College sought to discover how individuals would behave when given a fictional day and time of\u00a0their death. In over 1,000 experiments, researchers found that people tended to cling harder to\u00a0their cultural beliefs by boosting their sense of self-worth. Those individuals, with a hypothetical\u00a0date and time of death in mind, tended to treat others more contemptuously and violently while\u00a0caring to fulfil their own desires through nihilistic practices. They gravitated towards drinking,\u00a0smoking, shopping, and eating in excess, while pushing other people away\u2014sometimes, even\u00a0their loved ones. The psychologists called this behaviour Terror Management Theory; death\u00a0anxiety drives people to adopt a defensive mindset and behaviour that protects their own self-esteem.<\/p>\n

Essentially most individuals, when armed with the knowledge that their time is limited,\u00a0will want to conclude their time focusing on themselves and their \u201chappiness.\u201d\u00a0What would you do after knowing your time on this earth is ending? Generally, no one\u00a0knows when their final breath will be. Sure, as intellectuals we know the moment is coming, but\u00a0not precisely when. Christ knew. He knew the exact moment He would be hanging on the Cross\u00a0and committing His Spirit into the hands of the Father.<\/p>\n

Knowing that, then, what did He do\u00a0before He \u201cbreathed His last?\u201d (Mark 15:37). Like a lamb, \u201cHe opened not His mouth” (Isaiah 53:7). In front of the\u00a0scourging and the shame of spitting, \u201cHe gave no answer\u201d (Matthew 27:12). Not only did He deny Himself, He\u00a0took it one step further\u2014the opposite of what individuals normally do in their final hours\u2014He\u00a0loved.\u00a0He forgave (Luke 23:24). He took care of His mother and His disciple (John 12:26). He comforted His children\u00a0who were in tears (Luke 23:28). He was a peacemaker between two kings previously at enmity with each\u00a0other (Luke 23:12). He healed the ear of one who came to capture Him (Luke 22:51). He even \u201cinstituted for us a great\u00a0mystery\u201d which is, \u201cthe partaking of His flesh in bread and wine\u201d (Liturgy of St. Basil the Great).<\/p>\n

But He did not stop there. With less than 24 hours remaining in the flesh, Christ washed\u00a0feet (Liturgy of St Gregory). Why would He, who has the heavens as His throne and the earth as His footstool (Isaiah 66:1), stoop\u00a0so low in His final moments? The Church teaches us that after washing and drying their feet, He\u00a0gave His disciples \u201cthe ordinance of love and humility, and the remembrance of [His] love for\u00a0mankind.\u201d (Liturgy of the Waters for Covenant Thursday)<\/p>\n

It was a lesson never witnessed before! The Master explained to them \u201cif I then,\u00a0your Lord and Teacher have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another\u2019s feet. For I\u00a0have given you an example\u201d (John 13:14-15). By becoming a servant, the Master set a standard for His servants\u00a0on how to love each other. Not a superficial love centered on the self, but a love that befits how\u00a0the Master loves us\u2014wholeheartedly, even to the point of death.<\/p>\n

Should I not be humbled in front of Him who suffered on my behalf and reciprocate that\u00a0same love towards my brothers? Rather than being grounded in egotistical practices, I ought to\u00a0love because He first loved me. Rather than boosting my own self-interest, I ought to wash my\u00a0brother\u2019s feet because He first accepted to wash mine. As Abba Shenouda the Archimandrite\u00a0teaches, \u201cWe ought to fear Him who poured the water in a bowl and washed the feet of His\u00a0disciples with His impeccable hands. Let us present Him with good deeds that deserve this great\u00a0modesty which He carried out for our sake.\u201d\u00a0(Homily by St. Shenouda the Archimandrite on Covenant Thursday)<\/p>\n

The only gesture I can present to Him that is\u00a0deserving of His great modesty is my love towards my neighbour; a true and faultless love that is\u00a0completed when I bend down and show my brother the love Christ showed me.<\/p>\n

Regardless of whether it is my last few days on earth or I have a lifetime to go, in the\u00a0realities of my day-to-day life, my Christ-washed feet must be a mirror of the love He first\u00a0showed me, as \u201cthe One who created the world never stops loving His creation, even when that\u00a0creation does not return His love\u201d\u00a0(P.\u00a0<\/span>Meyendrof, 2019).<\/p>\n

Now that I am washed by Christ, my feet are no longer\u00a0mine, but rather they are \u201cfeet that preach the gospel of peace, who bring glad tidings of good\u00a0things!\u201d (Romans 10:15).\u00a0Instead of pouring water into a bowl, I should be pouring good deeds of love towards\u00a0my neighbor, as St. John Chrysostom said, \u201cyour Master loved those who hated Him\u2026emulate\u00a0Him\u201d (St John Chrysostom). I can imitate Christ by making every encounter with my neighbour an encounter with\u00a0their Master as \u201ctheology is most convincing, palpable, and best told in the lives of those who\u00a0lived theology in the truest sense of that word, as an encounter with God\u201d (Fr Daniel Fanous, 2019) When God encountered me, He loved me by washing my feet, likewise, my encounter with you must also be\u00a0of love, one foot at a time.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Love by the Foot by\u00a0Michael Tadros An ominous darkness is ushered in when the doctor comes back with the latest MRI\u00a0results. After weeks of testing, the results all point to cancer that will not stop spreading.\u00a0Yesterday the pancreas, today the liver, tomorrow the lungs. She gathers your mother and loved\u00a0ones around the hospital bed and … Continue reading “Love by the Foot”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":5890,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[188,82,6,60],"class_list":["post-5889","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog","tag-crucifixion","tag-humility","tag-love","tag-service"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5889","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5889"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5889\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5891,"href":"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5889\/revisions\/5891"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5890"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5889"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5889"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5889"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}