It is Jesus who came to meet you in the street
Brought you in his home, took off his clothes
So that he could bow down and wash your feet
Jesus was naked where Adam was ashamed
Removing what of this world stuck to your feet
The grime, the sludge, the remnants of the past
All that was unwanted in the world
All that you endured and had no choice
But to sludge through
And it stuck to your feet
It would not let go.
If you could have, you’d just as soon leave it there
Thinking it was hopeless
Not Jesus.
He does not ask that we look up
When we look down and wonder how
We get to have what we have
How we got to be clean and cleaned up
How we got to live in this world
This is all down below, at our feet.
There where the filth of the world gathers
And clings and stinks
Till we don’t know if we smell ourselves
If we were made this way
If we are filthy and loathsome and if
We better pretend by not looking there
It is there that Jesus bends down to let
You know that you belong to him
It is down below, not up above
Your hard work is to receive his grace, this gift
His love and humble service
It’s down below where Jesus lives.