Heaven is here and now (here’s how you get in)
Photo by Roberto Sorin on Unsplash
If you know these things, you are blessed if you do them–Jesus of Nazareth, Gospel of John 13:17
Blessedness–the happiness and favor of God–is not a reward that we get later when God counts up all of our good deeds in this life.
Here in this verse, Jesus did not say that the blessedness will come to us on “some glad morning when this life is o'er.”
No, the blessedness of which Jesus spoke is present tense: You are blessed if you do “these things.”
The happiness and favor of God–the essence of heaven–is here and now and you can be in it.
How?
If you do “these things.”
What things?
Washing feet.
After [Jesus] had washed [his disciples’] feet, had put on his robe, and had returned to the table, he said to them, “Do you know what I have done to you? You call me Teacher and Lord–and you are right, for that is what I am. So, if I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet. For I have set you an example, that you should also do as I have done for you (Gospel of John 13:12-15).
Do you want heaven here and now?
Do you want to live in blessedness–the happiness and favor of God?
Wash feet.
Do the dirty work that people need someone to do for them, but that nobody wants to stoop so low as to do.
Do it for your family and friends.
Do it for your neighbors.
But most of all, do it for your enemies, opponents, and the people you think deserve it the least. Jesus washed the feet of the man who was about to betray him to death. He washed the feet of men who were about to deny him and run away from him when he needed them most.
Jesus called all of this an "example” for us to follow.
You are blessed–you live in a state of heaven–if you do the work that is “beneath you” on behalf of those who you may think of as “beneath you.”
One more thing: Jesus did not say that the blessedness is a reward.
He did not say you will be blessed; he said you are blessed.
Washing feet is blessedness–the happiness and favor of God.
Washing feet is heaven to someone who has the Spirit of the Christ.
Do you see why it takes so much faith, hope, and love to really do this Christianity thing?
Grace and peace.