Beautiful Feet

Those of you who were a regular part of the Christmas Classics Caroling Extravaganza might enjoy reading my Christmas Day sermon (which I somehow managed to finish on December 20 -- a true Festivus Miracle!). Heck, some of the rest of you might enjoy it, too. May you have a blessed Christmas. (Also, if you haven't checked the blog in a while, read "Recycling Passion"; I'm looking for advice!)


Sermon based on Isaiah 52:7-10

May the words of my mouth and the meditations of each heart be acceptable in your sight, O Lord our God, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.

When I was in high school, my friends and I started an annual Christmas caroling party. One night in mid-December we’d walk through the neighborhood, wearing Santa hats and reindeer antlers, and go house to house, ringing doorbells and singing carols. We did this for 7 years or so and developed both a system and a repertoire. Joy to the World was our signature song -- we knew the harmony and belted it out as the finale at every house.

Most people loved having a group of carolers show up at their door. Even when we interrupted dinners or children’s bath times, people usually delighted in our amateur singing and often sang along. I remember one house where in the middle of our first song the woman who had come to the door opened it wide, took the arm of the member of our group nearest her and dragged them into the house. The rest of us followed, unsure, but still singing, as she wove us through her entryway, through the kitchen, and into the living room where about 20 people were gathered, looking bored – and now a little surprised. We stood in front of the Christmas tree and sang. As we gave this impromptu concert, I couldn’t help but notice that our boots were dripping snow onto the white carpet in her immaculate house and we had tracked slush through the kitchen; but she did not see any of this, she just smiled and smiled and looked close to bursting when the relatives that had looked so bored when we arrived joined in singing our finale, “Joy to the world, the Lord is come, Let earth receive her king, let every heart prepare him room, let heaven and nature sing.” As we wove our way back to the front door, she thanked us and thanked us and gave us cookies and cider as our sneakers and boots tracked more dirt through her house.



The prophet Isaiah writes, “How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of the messenger who announces peace, who brings good news, who announces salvation, who says to Zion , ‘Your God reigns.” “How beautiful are the feet of the messenger”, what a strange thing to say. I mean, really, beautiful feet? And, remember, this was written long before there were pumice stones and pedicures and toe nail polish. In Isaiah’s time rich people walked in sandals and everyone else went barefoot through streets full of dust and rocks and animal droppings. Without public transportation they often walked for miles and their feet were cracked, callused, and red. I don’t even want to think about the state of the average toenail in the 8th century BC. Yet, here the prophet says, how beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of the messenger who announces peace, who brings good news, who announces salvation, who says, “Your God reigns.” You know, now that I think about it, it’s not only strange that Isaiah calls the feet beautiful, but that he’s focusing on feet at all. I think it would make more sense to talk about the messenger’s beautiful words or beautiful mouth or something. But, no, the prophet says, how beautiful are the feet of the messenger who announces peace, who brings good news, who announces salvation.

I was trying to make sense of all this feet business when I remembered that Christmas caroling incident. What was beautiful about that moment was neither the quality of our singing, nor our festive hats. What was beautiful for the woman in that house was that a group of complete strangers had dared to trudge through snow and slush on a cold winter night to bring her good news. Our feet had brought us up the stairs of her house, our dirty feet had tracked through a quiet gathering in order to unexpectedly proclaim, “Joy to the World, the Lord is come!” Even apart from our song, our very feet had proclaimed the message: the good news of a God who comes to us, a God who traveled from the heavens to earth to bring the good news of God’s reign of salvation and peace, a God who walked through the depths of death to save us.

On Christmas we celebrate that God walked in this world, that God came to us in human flesh, with fingers and toes and cute little baby feet. I wonder how often Mary kissed her infant’s toes. Of course, Jesus’ feet certainly didn’t stay the clean, pudgy feet of a baby forever. Once he grew up, those feet took him all sorts of strange places. They took the God-made-flesh to enter into the world’s greatest needs. Jesus’ feet sunk into the mud of the river Jordan as he was baptized by John. Jesus’ regular, human feet carried him throughout the hills and valley of Galilee , where he healed the sick, freed those bound by demons, and cleansed lepers. His dirty feet brought him to the top of the mountain where he taught the crowd the good news of God’s coming reign, about God’s kingdom of justice and peace. Jesus’ callused feet walked through dusty streets, climbed into rickety fishing boats, and went to the caves where outcasts lived. And at the end of Jesus’ life, his sore feet took him outside of Jerusalem , where they climbed the Mount of Olives and kicked a donkey’s side as it carried him into the city. At last, his bare, bleeding feet climbed the mountain of Calvary , where they were pieced by nails. Indeed, how beautiful upon the mountain are the feet of the messenger who announces peace, who brings good news, who announces salvation, who says to us, ‘Your God reigns.”

The feet are beautiful because they are what take the messenger to those who most need the message of good news. The truth is, we did not go to God, but in Jesus, God came to us. How beautiful. When we were trapped by the powers of death and fear and sin, God came to us. How beautiful. When people were marginalized and oppressed and without hope, God went to them. How beautiful. And even today God continues to travel to all the ends of the earth to announce peace, to bring good news, to announce salvation, to say “Your God reigns.” But the thing is, now the feet that God uses most often are ours.

I’d like to share another story from our caroling party days. It was one of the very first years and we had gone about a block, fumbling through the songs we thought we knew, just discovering our skill with Joy to the World. We came to a house with no Christmas lights, no decorations, with only a small light on in the back kitchen. In time we’d learn to skip those houses, but this year we rang the bell and waited a long while. We were just about to leave when a woman in her mid-50s came to the door. She looked confused to see us and even more so as we burst into song. She quietly listened us to sing Hark, the Herald Angels Sing and Jingle Bells. We didn’t think we’d found an appreciative audience, so we cut straight to Joy to the World and as we got to the chorus, the woman began to cry. After we were done we awkwardly thanked her and began to tromp off the porch, but then she opened the door and grabbed my arm and told me that her mother and father had both died in the past year. She had no family and she was dreading being alone this Christmas. Through her tears she said how much this had meant to her, what a miracle it was that we would come to her house, that we would come through the snow and the cold to remind her of Jesus, that we would walk right up to her door and proclaim the good news -- that she is not alone; that she will never be alone.

How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of the messenger who announces peace, who brings good news, who announces salvation, who says, “Here is your God.” Amen.