....and he began to wash the disciples' feet....

When I prepare for a funeral, I sit quietly and await the Holy Spirit.  Holding what I know about the now deceased, I wait for the Holy Spirit to guide me to a scripture passage that will open the gates of heaven for those who grieve.

Once it was Genesis 1  "In the beginning when God began creating....and God said, Let there be light and there was light and God saw that it was good."

Once it was Moses arguing with God.  Once it was Mary anointing the feet of Jesus.  Today it was Jesus washing the feet of the disciples.

It came to me as I drove to the cemetery for a graveside service (sometimes the Holy Spirit waits until the last moment).  I could picture the joy and relief and comfort it would have brought this woman to have someone who loved her so deeply wash her feet and welcome her into his house. She was not always welcome; she rarely felt welcomed.  This public witness of Jesus' deep love for her; this sign of release from a challenging and difficult life and beginning of a new and glorious life; this moment of being ministered to......these were the pictures of heaven that came to mind.

I wanted to say so much more than 'she is with the Lord' (although God knows that is a powerful blessing and promise).  I wanted everyone to be able to picture her with the Lord, tickled pink that someone was fussing over her, settling in to her new life with God.  

This is how the stories of faith are used: they give us a narrative that points to God and the hope we find in the promise of Jesus. The narrative is the receiving blanket for a unique experience of hope - transcendent hope - hope that is a taste of the eternal.  The narrative holds God's promises and attempts to pass onto us the power and experience of this God.  We enter the story, identify with one of the characters, resonate with the hope found there.

God is always bigger than the story.  The parts of God which remain hidden are much greater than the parts which the stories reveal, but the glory......the life....the healing....the wholeness....the hope....of our Lord Jesus is there.  There is God's story and there is our story and then.......there is the story that will be written one day down the road.

....when Jesus began washing the disciples' feet....