Feet in the Last Week

In the New Testament account of Jesus’s last week, there are a few stories related to feet that are perhaps symbolic.  The first is when Jesus went to Bethany and was served by Mary and Martha.  “Then took Mary a pound of ointment of spikenard, very costly, and anointed the feet of Jesus, and wiped his feet with her hair” (John 12:3).  We typically think of anointings taking place on the head, but here Mary anointed his feet instead. 

In the next chapter there is a second incident related to feet: Jesus “riseth from supper, and laid aside his garments; and took a towel, and girded himself.  After that he poureth water into a basin, and began to wash the disciples’ feet” (John 13:4-5).  In a short period of time Christ both had his feet anointed by someone and then He washed the feet of His apostles.  After His death and resurrection, the Savior then appeared to His disciples and said this: “Behold my hands and my feet, that it is I myself: handle me, and see” (John 24:39).  I think the Book of Mormon helps us understand that the reason He wanted them to touch His feet was that there were prints of the nails in them.  When He visited the Nephites He told them, “Arise and come forth unto me, that ye may thrust your hands into my side, and also that ye may feel the prints of the nails in my hands and in my feet” (3 Nephi 11:14).  So is there anything symbolic in these accounts about feet?  Feet are what take us places and move us forward; if we want to physically go somewhere, no other body part is as important in allowing us to get there as our feet.  Christ indeed had an enormous journey ahead of Him as He approached His suffering and death.  Perhaps Mary’s care for His feet was a symbolic preparation or blessing for Him to help Him for where He would spiritually be traveling.  Likewise, the apostles had a very long road ahead of them—they were to carry off the burden of the kingdom for decades to come, without Christ being around anymore.  I’d like to think that Christ was symbolically preparing them for their journey as he washed their feet and then placed their shoes back on.  Though given in our dispensation, I think these words could have been given to them at that moment as well: “Gird up thy loins for the work. Let thy feet be shod also, for thou art chosen, and thy path lieth among the mountains, and among many nations” (D&C 112:7).  The apostles would indeed go forth among the nations to preach the gospel, and they would need great strength in their feet to accomplish their mission.  And perhaps the Savior’s visit to them when He showed them His feet was a message that they could do it: His feet had indeed carried Him through the great journey of death and resurrection and theirs would carry them too.  Though His feet were scarred from the difficulty of His divine mission, they had not failed Christ.  With the Lord’s divine cleansing and blessing the feet of the apostles would not fail them either as they took the gospel to all the world.