As I sat there in the silence of worship, I found myself distracted by the awkwardness and discomfort of forced meditation. My thoughts rambled while I pondered the challenge thrown at us during the church service, to contemplate and focus on Jesus.
“Poor Martha,” I surmised. “This must have been how she felt with her mind constantly running, planning, and thinking about the next chore ahead.”
What about Mary? How would it feel to meet Jesus the way she had, to sit at His feet and anoint Him with perfumed oil? In an instant my mind escaped the confines of its surroundings and natural inclination toward performance driven thinking, and transported me to the feet of my Jesus.
Tenderly, I began to cleanse His feet and legs while my tears fell and flowed down upon them like tiny rivers of sediment, washing away the accumulated soil from His day’s wanderings. I rubbed His smooth tan legs, sinewy and tired, from years of travel seeking out the lost like me. Caressing His feet with my tears I looked on them and considered the blood that would stain them for my sins.
Gently I massaged His hands, realizing they were the ones which would bear the nails for me. I pressed mine up against His, and our fingers braided together. Like a dance choreographed before the beginning of time, I moved to knead the tension from His strong carpenter’s arms and understood these were the arms which would carry and be stretched out on a cross for me.
Placing His oily hands on either side of my face, He turned my head and looked straight into my eyes and said, “I love you!”
Captured in the gaze of my Savior, the words, “I love you, too,” poured from my heart and my lips. Not wanting to let Him out of my sight, I stayed close to Him, stuck to Him, in the safety of His shadow, at rest in His presence. I never wanted to be apart from Him.
Music brushed past my ears, “How deep, how wide, how great is your love for me?” I had returned to my seat in church surrounded by people, but there is no doubt in my mind – I had encountered Jesus in a whole new way.
