Love of God

Foot-Washing Love

/ pastorpete51 / 1 Comment

Over the years, I have heard many pastors elaborate on the various kinds of Greek words that can be translated as our English word, “love”, and that of all these, the love of God is “agape”, love. Agape is not a selfish human love, that loves only if it is reciprocated. Nor is it a familial exclusive love, as wonderful as that is, because Jesus tells us that God loves in a way that He sends the rain on both the good and the bad. Those who hate Him, receive the same sunshine, smell the same flowers and breath the same air. But Jesus knowing that we needed something more than just an accurate definition, showed us His love in a strange and unique way.

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 13:2-4

Perhaps what impresses me most in this story, is that Jesus washed the feet of friends who would soon run away and hide. He washed the feet of Peter, who would deny Him, and of Thomas who would doubt Him and even of Judas who was about to betray Him. And when Jesus had finished showing us His foot-washing kind of love, He gave a command.

 If I then, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet. John 13:14

So, though we should be doing this all year round, at least we could begin learning during Lent, this foot-washing kind of love. When we return from running away doubting and denying, and take towels and basins, and humbly kneel down, let’s begin washing the feet of all kinds of other people, just as Jesus has washed ours.

Thursday Sunshine – Fourth Advent Week – Love

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Worship at His Feet

And going into the house, they saw the child with Mary his mother, and they fell down and worshiped him. Then, opening their treasures, they offered him gifts, gold and frankincense and myrrh.  Matthew 2:11 ESV

At a recent meeting at our church the pastor’s wife reminded us of the wise men when she said, “The more we seek Him: the more He finds us.” We usually think of the wise men as going out on a quest to find God’s Son. But more likely they were emissaries chosen to carry gifts and give worship, to a neighboring king’s child so as to curry political favor. But the star they followed led them further than they imagined. Maybe when they left Persia, they simply planned on visiting a neighboring kingdom. But instead of a few days on the road, they discovered that the star directed them over a thousand miles across the desert to Israel. When they arrived at the capital city, Jerusalem they were invited into the king’s palace. The wise men probably unloaded the camels shouting, “Finally we’re here!” But that’s when things got strange. That evening at supper they learned that the one who they had been seeking was not the king’s son, but instead a special chosen one of God, whom the Jews called the Messiah. The next afternoon as they started towards Bethlehem, the star they had followed appeared again yet this time led them not to a palace, but to an ordinary house. There in the light of God’s star they found a child who was the true King sent from Heaven. In Him they found the one who had been seeking them and there they opened their treasures and worshiped at His feet!

“Earth’s crammed with heaven, and every common bush afire with God, but only he who sees, takes off his shoes.” – Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Love Is

Love is patient to slow its pace
And walk with us our street
Love is kind when it takes time
To wash our dirty feet

Love protects from angry waves
And trusts when we can’t see
And hopes in hours before sunrise
When shadows finally flee

After everything in us has fallen
Love still stays standing true
Believing the impossible
That we will make it through


Love Is by Peter Caligiuri copyright 2021 all rights reserved

Do not waste time bothering whether, you 'love' your neighbor; act as if you do and you will presently come to love him" C S Lewis

This is Going to Hurt!

/ pastorpete51 / 2 Comments

For the Lord disciplines the one he loves, and chastises every son whom he receives. Hebrews 12:7 ESV

Maybe the phrase, “This is going to hurt me more than it’s going to hurt you!” is imprinted indelibly in my memory, because it always preceded several well aimed smacks on my behind. It was not that I questioned the truth my step-father’s intentions, it was simply the fact that I never listened to any of the words that came after, and “This is going to hurt!” So when I first came to this passage in Hebrews my mind slipped back in time to those moments of discipline and I inwardly cringed as I waited for God’s punishment to fall.

But, as true as the fact that we need to be disciplined by our heavenly Father, is the reality that it really did hurt God far more than it hurts us. After all, God is correcting us for things we have done wrong but Jesus went as an innocent lamb to the cross to pay for our adoption into His family. Like Thomas we worry that we have been left out of blessings that we think we deserve. But the good news is that Jesus came even for a doubtful Thomas and as showed him the marks of the nails in his hands and the scar from the spear in His side. It’s as if He looked lovingly into Thomas’ fearful eyes and said, “Stop your doubting and just believe. This really did hurt me more than it hurt you, but it was worth it because I want you to be my son!”