“How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!” Beautiful feet—what an odd image St. Paul used to describe believers who would be sent to proclaim the Good News. Paul drew this image from the words of the prophet Isaiah in chapter 52: “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.” The salvation promised by Isaiah's prophecy was political freedom for God's people from the nations who have oppressed them.
The salvation Paul promises comes through faith in Jesus Christ. This salvation breaks the oppression brought about by our inability to fully trust God's promises—no matter how hard we try. We see this truth given dramatic form in Matthew's account of that Jesus walking toward the disciples in a boat. He appears to be walking on the water in the morning after a stormy night. But they are not sure who this is approaching them. Fear prevents them from believing that Jesus has come to them. The always outspoken Peter challenges Jesus: “Lord, if it is you . . .”
The good news that Jesus could not be overcome by the chaos of the storm did not register in their fearful minds. Perhaps Peter had a glimmer of what sort of faith would overcome his fear, but he could not keep focused on Jesus long enough to become steady and secure. Fear caused him to begin to sink and he screamed, “Lord, save me!
Isn't that our cry so often—O God, save me, help me—or when we are crying out for others—O God, save my friend, my child, my parent, my husband or my wife? With fear in our hearts we long for the strong hand of Jesus to reach for us, as he did for Peter that morning.
And just how can Jesus manage to do this for us today?
Susan Sparks, a Baptist minister in New York City, tells this story about how Jesus reached out a saving hand to a fearful little girl through the ministry of a clown:
"A woman . . . had been a clown for many years (her clown name was Shoolu, and they called her Shoo for short) . . .[She went to visit] a little girl named Belinda, who was in the final stages of leukemia."
"The day I met Belinda," Shoo said, "I came into her room in full clown regalia. Belinda smiled and reached out and poked at my nose and said, "Why do you wear that?"
"I can't take it off," Shoo said. "I'm a clown, it's who I am, it's how God made me."
Belinda was quiet for a moment, then looked up with a rather sad expression and said, "When I die, what happens?"
"You'll go to heaven," said Shoo.
After a moment, Belinda smiled and said, "Well, then where are you going?"
Shoo said, "I laughed and said, 'Well, clown heaven, of course!'"
Belinda just lit up at that point. "Where's that?" she said excitedly.
"Well," said Shoo, "you know when you let a balloon go and it disappears into the sky? Clown heaven is where balloons go."
"Oh, I wanna go there!" said Belinda with a huge smile. "How do I get to clown heaven?"
Shoo paused and reached in her bag and pulled out a little red nose and put it on Belinda and said, "It's pretty simple, Belinda; all you have to do is go out with your nose on.”
Several days later, the nurse called Shoo and said, "I'm so sorry, but we lost Belinda. However, Shoo, you should know...that she went out with her nose on."
Pastor Sparks offers this opinion: “Being a Christian is about deciding to go out with our nose on, to live what we believe to our very last breath.”
To live what we believe as followers of Jesus Christ means that fear cannot keep us in its grip. If we realize we have become afraid, we must call out to God to save us from our fear. We can look to see how God's care and love are reaching out to us. And we can reach back—so whomever Jesus sends will be able to pull us out of the fear that threatens to drown us. We can accept the gift Christ's saving power—as Belinda accepted the little red nose.
“How beautiful are that feet are those who bring good news,” wrote Paul. No matter what Shoolu's feet actually looked like, they were beautiful feet. Jesus' feet, as he walked toward the disciples in the boat, were beautiful feet. In your life, who have been the people with beautiful gospel feet? Let us give thanks to God for those folks who have come to us with a saving hand when we have been nearly drowning in fear. May we, in turn, reach out to others as they have need.
[The story about Shoolu and Melinda came from this site: http://day1.org/3044-so_youre_a_christian_whattaya_gonna_do_about_it]
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