Tag: hands and feet of Jesus

In Need

When Jesus had finished saying these things, he left Galilee and went into the region of Judea to the other side of the Jordan. Large crowds followed him, and he healed them there.

Matthew 19:1-2

Everywhere Jesus went He healed. The Gospel writers record this truth in nearly every chapter of their writings. Jesus had large crowds following Him, listening to Him, and wanting to be physically healed. Healing was central to His mission to inaugurate the Kingdom of God on earth. I talk more about this here.

If you haven’t seen The Chosen, you need to. It is a multi-season show about Jesus and the disciples that is done extremely well. (You can watch it for free in the app.) In a recent episode of The Chosen (Episode 3, Season 2), Jesus is depicted as spending all day healing the sick as His disciples take shifts helping Him. Jesus’s mom, Mary, stops by and talks about His birth. She talks about how Jesus was crying and cold.

Jesus needed Mary.

We like to say things like, “God doesn’t need us,” but in the life of Jesus we see multiple occasions where He put Himself in a place of need. His birth was just the first. It is true that Jesus didn’t have to do the incarnation that way. He could have chosen a way that didn’t involve putting Himself in a place of need. But He didn’t. And since Jesus is the image of the invisible God (Colossians 1:15), we get a sense that God the Father is okay with putting Himself in a position of dependence on others.

So it may be true that God doesn’t have to need us, but that must be held in tension with the reality that God wants to need us. Love chooses to be vulnerable even when it doesn’t have to be.

At the end of The Chosen episode mentioned earlier, Jesus comes into camp exhausted, sore, and dirty from a long day of healing others. He doesn’t say anything to the disciples except, “Good night.” The disciples had just been bickering and arguing and they are stunned and convicted by what they see in Jesus. Mary goes over to wash Jesus’s feet and help him get cleaned up before going to bed. Jesus gives her a kiss and says to her, “What would I do without you.”

And this is the point. Jesus would be fine without her but He chooses not to be. Jesus could have fed the 5000 by Himself but He turned to His disciples and said, “You give them something to eat” (Matthew 14:16). Jesus could have kept healing the sick and spreading the gospel on His own, but He chose to send out the 12 and give them His authority.

Jesus called his twelve disciples to him and gave them authority to drive out impure spirits and to heal every disease and sickness.

These twelve Jesus sent out with the following instructions: “… As you go, proclaim this message: ‘The kingdom of heaven has come near.’ Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse those who have leprosy, drive out demons. Freely you have received; freely give.”

Matthew 10:1, 5-8

The same is true for us. God doesn’t need us. But God chose to need us. God wants us. He chose to heal the sick, care for the poor, and spread the gospel through us. We are the now the hands and feet of Jesus in the world. It matters if we obey. It matters if we do what He did. It matters if we follow Him.

Where might God be choosing to depend on you?

Left Foot. Right Foot. Feet. Feet. Feet.

Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior…

After all, no one ever hated their own body, but they feed and care for their body, just as Christ does the church—for we are members of his body.

Ephesians 5:23, 29-30

…speaking the truth in love, we will grow to become in every respect the mature body of him who is the head, that is, Christ. 

Ephesians 4:15

…the body is not made up of one part but of many. Now if the foot should say, “Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,” it would not for that reason stop being part of the body. 

Now you are the body of Christ, and each one of you is a part of it.

1 Corinthians 12:14-15, 27

Over and over again, the apostle Paul reminds the early church that Christ is the head of the church and they are the Body of Christ. We are His body, His hands, His feet. He is the head. With that in mind, read what Paul says in this next passage:

…he raised Christ from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms, far above all rule and authority, power and dominion, and every name that is invoked, not only in the present age but also in the one to come. And God placed all things under his feet and appointed him to be head over everything for the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills everything in every way.

Ephesians 1:20-23

Jesus was crucified, buried, raised from the dead, and then ascended to the right hand of the Father. There Jesus is far above every other demonic power and political power. Again we are reminded that Jesus is the head over everything for the church and that we are His body.

We are also told that everything was placed under the feet of Jesus. But the question we must ask ourselves is, “What or who is the feet of Jesus?”

We just learned from a number of other passages that we, the Church, are the Body of Christ. We are the hands and feet of Jesus. WE ARE THE FEET OF JESUS! And that has profound implications. It means God placed everything under us, the Church. And we are under Christ, our head.

God placed all things under His feet. God placed all things under (the Church). This is what Jesus was saying to his own disciples:

He replied, “I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven. I have given you authority to trample on snakes and scorpions and to overcome all the power of the enemy…

Luke 10:18-19

To trample something means that it is under your feet. It means you have authority over it. Jesus has given us authority over the things He has authority over!

God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus…

Ephesians 2:6

When Jesus ascended to the right hand of the Father, He brought with Him everyone who would be found “in Christ.” And as His Body, His feet, everything has been placed under us. It is our job to exercise the authority we’ve been given. It’s our job to defeat the enemy with the authority Jesus has given us. In fact, Jesus is waiting on us to do just that!

But when this priest (Jesus) had offered for all time one sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God, and since that time he waits for his enemies to be made his footstool. 

Hebrews 10:12-13

Again, we see that a footstool is something that sits under feet. We are the feet of Jesus, His Body. He could make the enemy His footstool with the snap of His fingers, so what is He waiting on?

He’s waiting on us!

We’re the ones charged with the task of making the enemy a footstool for Jesus. We are His feet that have been given the authority to trample those things in the spirit realm that stand against the King of Kings and Lord of Lords.

Are we living out of this truth? Are we living like all things have been placed under us, Church? Or, are we living like we are buried under all things?

Do you know the authority you’ve been given? If so, how are you exercising that authority?