The Amazing Feet Of Christ Your King

Did you know that you can get insurance on your legs and feet? Yeah. Lloyds of London, one of the world’s largest and oldest insurance companies, will insure your lower limbs if you want. And that is what runway models, professional dancers, and premiere soccer players want. Some models won’t stroll down a catwalk in high heels unless their feet are insured for at least a hundred thousand dollars. The dancing phenom, Fred Astaire, insured his legs for seventy-five thousand bucks apiece. But world-famous soccer player, David Beckham, takes the cake. He’s insured his athletic pegs for an astounding seventy million dollars! (get-great-legs.com)

While the health of his legs and feet are essential to David Beckham, they’re probably not important to you. I mean if Beckham shattered his ankle so that he was no longer able to play soccer, it wouldn’t change your life would it? There are, however, a pair of feet besides your own that should be of great interest to you. What happens to these feet affects us…eternally. I’m talking about the amazing feet of Christ, your king. Those feet were once pierced, are now prevailing, and will soon be parading.

I don’t suppose Jesus’ feet looked very extraordinary. Like your feet, they had once been tiny - kicking the inside of his mother’s tummy. By the time Jesus was an adult, his feet were probably like most First Century A.D. feet: calloused and dusty from wearing open-toed sandals on dirt roads. But Jesus’ feet were extraordinary. In fact the first description in the Bible we have of Jesus is not of the color of his eyes or the shape of his jaw; it’s of his feet. What makes this description especially interesting is that it was given thousands of years before his birth. In the very first book of the Bible, Genesis, we hear God promise Adam and Eve a savior from sin. This savior, God explained, would crush the head of Satan but in the process would bruise his own heel (Genesis 3:15). Now fast forward to the cross of Calvary. What did the Roman soldiers do to Jesus’ feet? They nailed them to that wooden cross. As far as they were concerned, these were feet that would no longer walk from Galilee to Judea, or mount a donkey for a procession into Jerusalem again. They were going to put a stop to this “supposed” king’s activities. That’s what Satan thought too. But in driving a spike through those feet the soldiers inadvertently fulfilled Christ the King’s mission: to pay for the world’s sin with the blood that flowed from his wounds. The Old Testament prophet Isaiah put it this way: “…he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed” (Isaiah 53:5).

Because Jesus has paid for our sins on the cross, Satan, the accuser, as his name means, can no longer insist that God punish us for our sins. Oh, he still insists it but God the Father doesn’t listen to him any more than a store manager would listen to an accusation that you have shoplifted CDs after you’ve presented him the receipt for those CDs. The pierced feet of Jesus are your receipt that the punishment for your sins have been paid so that you no longer have to fear God’s eternal judgment in hell.

It’s awesome that Jesus allowed his feet to be pierced for our sins but where are those feet now? Were they mummified when Joseph and Nicodemus took Jesus’ corpse down from the cross to care for it? If so, are they stuck in a church museum somewhere ready for viewing by the faithful? That’s kind of what some of the Corinthian Christians thought. They knew Christ had died but didn’t believe he had risen. The Apostle Paul was quick to set them straight. He wrote: “3 For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, 4 that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, 5 and that he appeared to Peter, and then to the Twelve. 6 After that, he appeared to more than five hundred of the brothers at the same time... 7 Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles, 8 and last of all he appeared to me” (1 Corinthians 15:3-6a, 7, 8a).

Even though Jesus’ disciples themselves didn’t think they’d ever see Jesus’ feet move again the way they had over water, to the bedside of the sick, or up mountains to pray, Jesus’ feet did not remain cold and lifeless. Three days after his death those feet stepped out of the dark tomb into the sunlight of Easter morning and when they did, the didn’t just step over the threshold of a tomb, they crossed the threshold of death itself. Paul explains: “20 But Christ has indeed been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep... 22 For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive” (1 Corinthians 15:20, 22).