Occasional Devotional

Occasional Devotionals

By Mama Chick

John Cusack

I’ve gone through many favorite actors during my lifetime.  First, it was Cary Grant who I always thought was so smooth, so tall, dark and handsome so…dreamy.  Then later I got hooked on Pierce Brosnan, during his Remington Steele days before he was James Bond.  He was so smooth, so tall, dark handsome and so…you get what I’m saying.  Next was Harrison Ford.  He didn’t quite fit the debonair guy but what I liked was his piece of everyman, his quirky smile and his MacGyver-like qualities that helped him get out of a snake pit, become a successful fugitive and so forth.  However, now, my favorite actor now is a toss up between Will Ferrell and John Cusack.  I know some think that Ferrell is a complete numskull; like all three of the 3 Stooges rolled into one.  But in his few dramatic roles, he’s great; I even believed he really thought he was Santa’s helper in Elf.   But, today, I think my real (fake) crush is John Cusack. 

What I like about Cusack is his sly way of becoming a leading man almost by accident.  He first starts off as an “any man” character.  He could be your annoying brother, your cousin twice removed from your father’s side, the guy in your chemistry class that sniffs too much.  But usually by the end of the movie, he’s the charming, medium height, dark and quirkily handsome.  There’s just something about him, whether it’s the twinkle in his eye or his half-hazard way of communicating, or his deft humor that gets me.  He’s a good-looking nerd, and that’s my type.  (Sorry, Lance, you know you have some techno-nerd in you!)

Today, I was reading my devotional of Jesus washing the disciples feet.—John 13:1-17.  You know the whole, pedicure “washing the feet” thing really doesn’t resonate with me.  I don’t like to have my feet touched and besides I’m ticklish.  But in Jesus’ time, it was cultural for people to wash their feet.  But in today’s time… we don’t have the dusty roads and we don’t walk very many places so the whole metaphor doesn’t work that well plus if we needed out pinkies brushed and fluffed, we probably go to a salon.   So, I started thinking about how could this passage of the biblical foot soak be relevant today?

Let’s pretend that I invited my new heart-throb, John, (we’re on first name basis now) plus my 12 favorite friends to my house for dinner.  After dinner, John got up, took off his shirt and stood there in his best GAP undershirt, held up some cleanser with scrubbing bubbles and headed off to my dirty bathroom in the back of the house.  And when I protested because I hadn’t gotten around to cleaning that part of the house, he shhhhed me so as not to go on anymore. Then as we all gathered around, he began to clean the porcelain throne with his outer Old Navy, fall plaid shirt.  When I yelled for him to quit, he told me that in order being his friend, he required himself to do the lowliest of tasks for the host.  And then he asked if I’d accept his gesture.  And he added that’s not all; I’ll also go to each of your friends’ houses and clean their toilet too. 

What a quandary!  Let him clean and have an inner-circle friendship or stop him and have no relationship to dream about. 

That’s exactly what Jesus was saying to his disciples.  Jesus offered to wash their feet…a lowly task, for sure.  He was asking to be a biblical esthetician.  He said, not only will I clean the grime and dust and particles off your sweaty, dirty feet, I’ll also offer you cleanliness for hidden dirty part, your heart.

Jesus said, “Unless I wash you, you have no part with me.”  Of course this was a metaphor for him cleansing our sins within.  What he means is that he wants us to let him into our dirtiest parts of our lives; the things that no one knows about; the things that only a few people ever witness; the things that we are ashamed of; the things that only the paparazzi could find out.

We cannot be eternal friends with him unless he knows all about us.  The deal is, when we are clean, he doesn’t remember the dirt, the complete mess, the muck and mire that had been part of us before his arrival. 

He reveals a new person!  The old is out and the new, improved is in!  Let’s let him wash our feet/clean our cesspool/change our lives.