At His Feet!

In India, falling at some one’s feet can either mean respect or an act of desperate plea. I was amazed when I studied the life of Mary of Bethany in the gospels to find her on three occasions at the feet of Jesus, each time her actions signifying great truths.

Attitude of Learning - Sitting at His Feet (Luke 10:38-42)

In this incident, Mary sat at the Lord’s feet listening to her teachings. But Martha, sister of Mary was deeply concerned and worried to feed Jesus and his twelve disciples. She was distracted by all the preparations as she was trying to fix a big dinner for them. Martha complained. Jesus judged between the women by favoring Mary’s choice of learning at his feet than feeding him with delicacies. Jesus was a radical here because he negated the prevalent teaching of Rabbi Eliezer who said that a man who who teaches his daughter the Jewish Scriptures is teaching her obscenity.

All over the world be it professionals or home-makers, women spend more time in “kitchen”. Jesus wants men and women to understand the fact that the latter have to spend more time learning the Scriptures than getting confined to cooking. Sitting at the feet is typical of a disciple who learns under a master. Jesus wants his followers very specially women to learn “one thing” for sure, to learn things about God and his words in par with men.

Attitude of Faith – Falling at His Feet (John 11)

In this second incident, the brother of the sisters, Lazarus is dead. Martha runs to Jesus. Mary sits at home. After Martha tells about Jesus’ coming to the village, Mary quickly ran to him and fell at his feet and cried. Jesus then walks to the tomb. Martha who moments back confessed that Jesus was the Messiah, the Son of God, the one coming into the world, now stumbles in her faith by warning Jesus about the stench that would come out of the dead body of her brother (v.27). Martha confessed her faith by mouth but had trouble to put her faith in action. Mary on the other hand, true to God’s promise in Isaiah 28:16,  trusted in God and showed her faith in him by not acting in haste. Her faith came through hearing the word of God (Romans 10:17).   

Mere confession does not account to one’s faith in God. But committing us to his care is accounted as faith. Mary demonstrated this by falling at his feet and she remained confident thereafter. Hannah in the Old Testament too was confident and her face was no longer sad after pouring out her heart to God (1 Samuel 1:18).

Attitude of Love – Anointing His Feet (John 12:1-8)

The sisters who received Lazarus back from death honored Jesus by inviting him to their home again. As was usual Martha serves Jesus food. Mary sees the feet of Jesus as he was reclining. Mary who chose to learn from Jesus by sitting at his feet, knew that his life in earth is coming to a close by death on a cross. Her heart was filled with such love that she poured an expensive perfume, worth a year’s wages on the feet of Jesus. She wiped his feet with her hair. She knew that these feet would be pierced with nails few days from then. A true knowledge of God demonstrated by learning at his feet led to demonstration of her faith and love in action. We can see Jesus appreciating Mary’s love and defending her against the accusation of Judas, the betrayer.

I derive tremendous strength from the life of Mary. I am motivated to keep learning truths from the word of God all through my life.  It is the enlightenment we derive from his words that gives us faith in God to get through tough situations in life. More of learning God’s word would in turn make us fall in love for him. We would then look forward to kiss his nail-pierced feet the day when we would meet Jesus in person!